New Web Product Teaches A Good DMS New Tricks

By Rob Lloyd

Rob Lloyd is the Information Systems Team Coordinator for the general practice firm, Carmody & Torrance, based in Waterbury, Connecticut. Mr. Lloyd's e-mail address is rlloyd@carmodylaw.com.

Carmody & Torrance, our Connecticut-based, three office firm, converted to WORLDOX®
from PC Docs in early June of 1999. The biggest reason for the change was support. WORLDOX had the support we needed, and at a much lower cost. Our entire firm now uses WORLDOX Software, from secretaries to administrative personnel to attorneys.

Because we have 65 attorneys firmwide, and nearly all of them at some point needed to have remote access to their documents, we decided to be one of the early adopters of the new WORLDOX/WEB®. There weren't any other options in our minds. We installed WORLDOX/WEB early last fall.

Our firm uses MS Office 97. To Install WORLDOX/WEB, you must have a Microsoft Internet Information Server, which was not a problem for us. WORLDOX/WEB integrates with Netscape and Internet Explorer 4.0 and 5.0. We have found the product works better with Internet Explorer 5.0. WORLDOX/WEB also works with AOL.

WORLDOX/WEB has given our firm safe access to our documents, no matter where we are. It is very basic, simple to use, and inexpensive. It is exactly what we wanted. Every client document we have, from corporate to real estate to litigation, is accessible through the web. All of our attorneys are able to retrieve their clients' documents from anywhere, including home.

Installation was very simple. All it took was running a short program. Because the software was so new when we got it, it did not yet have training documentation. But the program was so simple to learn, we were able to create our own documentation relatively easily. We then held classes to demonstrate and train on the product. Our attorneys all agree it is very simple to learn, and they now use it often from home or while they are on the road. Our entire firm has access to WORLDOX/WEB, but so far only the attorneys have used it.

At the beginning, there were security concerns that WORLDOX covered. Our users have a server login with a password, and then a WORLDOX user name and password. The user name and password can be the same as or different from the regular network login. This has been fine for the time being, because I wanted to keep things simple so people would use it, and not feel they had to jump through too many hoops. We are now working on putting a few other security measures in place. IIS security can be tightened by using NT authentification and server certificates. I will be doing this shortly.

One of the nice surprises about WORLDOX/WEB was that when it downloads documents, it first compresses them, then decompresses them at the client, which saves a great deal of time from straight downloading documents off the web. All the user can tell is that when he "checks out" a document from WORLDOX/WEB, it is put quickly and easily onto his PC. Also, when viewing documents, it performs an on-the-fly conversion of the documents from their native format, such as Word or WordPerfect, to HTML.

Once a document has been checked out to a user, he then can use his word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation program or whatever is appropriate to open it, edit it, and do whatever he wants to it. When he's done, he checks it with WORLDOX/WEB, and all his changes then show up next time anyone looks at the document, either through WORLDOX while in the office or via WORLDOX/WEB when accessing remotely. While the user has the document checked out - in other words, while he has editing access to the document - nobody else in the firm can do anything to that document, but anyone who has security clearance to it can still access it on a read-only basis. Once the document has been checked in, it is again available to security-cleared users to check out and edit.

But WORLDOX/WEB does a lot more than just give access to existing documents from remote locations. Our attorneys can also create and profile new documents offsite that they then upload into the system, giving other firm staff the ability to retrieve the new documents. For example, anything one of our lawyers would need to create, such as a brief, a memo, research, or pleadings can be created and profiled from their home or from the road. These newly created documents can be retrieved back at the office by anyone - a secretary or another lawyer. They can then be edited or filed. This also ensures the backup of a document. For instance, if the attorney's laptop is stolen, the document would have been lost forever before WORLDOX/WEB. But now, the document is retrievable from the home office.

We asked World Software to add navigational features to the product for our remote offices in New Haven and Southbury, Connecticut. We found this a necessity because of the importance we place on creating default search profiles. Our web server defaults to profiles from our home office in Waterbury for searching and saving. Without this feature, our New Haven users were having to go to a full search screen to find a file. Now, with this added feature, they create a default profile once, and plug in the document number. This saves them a great deal of time and typing frustrations, especially if they are on a slow dial-up. World Software responded quickly and efficiently in meeting our needs.

Currently, Carmody & Torrance is using the WORLDOX/WEB solely for the purpose of working from home during off-hours and weekends, and from the road. We would, however, eventually like to see our clients have access to their documents over the web. The reason our clients are not yet using this is mostly for security reasons on our end. WORLDOX/WEB is designed to be secure, and I have no doubt that it is. It is just that at this time, we have not yet developed a plan for client access. Secondly, we really wanted to finish beta testing the product before we moved on to this. Now that WORLDOX/WEB has proven itself reliable, I believe this will be addressed soon. There have not yet been any requests for this by our clients, but I'm sure that will change. It would save a great deal of time and provide immediate results.

Overall, we have been extremely happy with WORLDOX/WEB. It's taken our document management to a whole new level, and has given us one more opportunity to free our attorneys to work the way they need to - wherever they are and whenever they want.