Tag Archives: guides

General Legal IT, Legal

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – social media policies

1 Comment

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication", Leonardo Da Vinci.

Has your law firm got a social media policy or a set of social media guidelines?

If not it is surely only a matter of time before they do. The rise of the risk management function in firms (not just law firms) means that as social media takes off, guidelines and policies will be put in place (take a look at this site for a raft of policies out there for various companies!).

I’ve been blogging (on this site) for a little under a year now and have already fallen foul a number of times, I have posted something I maybe shouldn’t have or ended up agreeing that it may be best I didn’t say what I had. So I think it’s in the interest of the blogger as well as the firm to have a few guidelines in place.

I recently caught a tweet that led me to a web page that outlined the guidelines for ABC in Australia, these were the best guidelines I have yet seen! The beauty is the simplicity:

  • Do not mix the professional and the personal in ways likely to bring the ABC into disrepute.
  • Do not undermine your effectiveness at work.
  • Do not imply ABC endorsement of your personal views.
  • Do not disclose confidential information obtained through work.

That’s it! Four bullets, brilliant!

If I had abided by these guidelines I would have checked myself in all my afore mentioned cases. As well as offering a good guideline for social media use they underline a trust and belief in the professionalism of their staff.

Those that are following this blog and/or my twitter feed know that I’m working on a number of things around email management at the moment. And this set of guidelines got me thinking, maybe this is the way forward for all policies?

So I had a go at a few points for managing the electronic file:

  • File electronic documents and email in a manner:
    • that would allow you to find and display any document/email on your PC should your client call unexpectedly and refer to that document/email
    • that you’d be happy to show your clients the electronic file

I think that would be enough to ensure a full and proper well organised electronic matter file, stored with others in an easy to find structure.

“Perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away", Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

"Simplify, and add lightness", Colin Chapman.

or simply KISS! (Keep it Simple, Stupid!)

Share
WorkSite Tips & Tricks

Searching for a folder in a workspace – WorkSite help part 2

Leave a comment

WorkSite tech help part 2

How do I search for a folder in a WorkSite workspace?

I received a query recently from a colleague, wanting to know how they could find a folder within a workspace (using FileSite). The workspace in question had grown to have 100’s of sub folders.

Using a document search was not an option as a common template had been used to create the majority of documents and thus they all happened to have names that were too similar.

What was needed was a way to find the holding folder, which was specifically named and thus could be easily identified.

We were close to concluding that the only option was to create all the holding folders as workspaces, until we came up with the following:

Start by right clicking on “My Shortcuts” (just below your My Files/Matters/Workspaces) and from the menu selecting “Add Shortcuts…” (you could do this on other levels, but as you’ll see this is more logical).

You then get the enhanced search dialogue, from here you can select to Search for a folder.

foldersearch1

Selecting this brings up a dialogue where you can pick your “database” (i.e. worksite library) where your workspace is located and add some further search terms, example below:

foldersearch2

This will return you a result list of matching folders, you can then highlight the required folder and click Select. A shortcut to that folder will be placed in your My Shortcuts for you to access your documents from etc.

Once you’ve finished working with the folder you can leave the shortcut there or just delete it.

It’s not perfect I know, but it does the trick. Let me know if you know of a simpler method?

Final point: it is much easier to search for folders in WorkSite Web, but for us most fee earners and support staff work in either FileSite in Outlook or through the MS office integrations.

Share
WorkSite Tips & Tricks

Saving an email attachment as a new version – WorkSite help part 1

4 Comments

WorkSite help part 1

Saving an attachment on an email as a new version of your document in WorkSite

This is the first in what may become an occasional series. A series of tips and tricks for software found in the Legal industry. The aim is to try and explain some of the more useful features of these pieces of software using common social media sites (like YouTube).

Today’s post is to show how you can use a very well hidden feature of Interwoven’s WorkSite 8.x to save an email attachment into the DMS (Document Management System) as a new version of your original document.

For example, you send a v1 draft out to the client for comment, he/she returns a marked up Word version that you would like to store in the DMS as v2. You can then work on v3 maintaining a full history of the document in the DMS.

Saving an attachment as a new version of your document in WorkSite 8
Share