When you create a new contact, or edit an existing contact record, it is simple to select one or more categories (groups) for the contact. On the Personal tab, click on Add/Remove - click on a group to select; deselect a group by clicking on the selected group.

So why should you bother selecting groups for your contacts? The main reason is to narrow down your list of contacts. For example, you want to send a letter to all prospects - you can select the category 'Prospects', and then generate a letter to all contacts with that category. Then while the same list is displayed, you can create either envelopes or labels to the same list of contacts. Another example - you want to send an important announcement to all clients - select the category 'Clients', and then generate labels for envelopes to do your mass mailing.

So once you have selected groups for all (or most) of your contacts, how do you select contacts in order to narrow down your list?

When you are viewing the complete contact list, select CONTACTS - Show... - click on one or more groups that you wish to select. If you are selecting more than one group, then you have the option of viewing contacts in ANY of the selected groups, or ALL of the selected groups. For example, if you select the two groups 'Clients' and 'Attorney', and select ANY, you will find any contacts that have EITHER of those assigned groups; if you select the same two groups and select ALL, you will find any contacts that have BOTH of those assigned groups.

At the top of the contact list, you will see the number of contacts and the group names, e.g., 'Showing Clients, Attorney - 238 Contacts'. When you are viewing a smaller list, you can press CTRL-A to display the entire list of contacts again (or you can select CONTACTS - Show All).

Have you been consistent with default settings in every user's Amicus office? If you have not, you may see some problems arise in the future, or you may have already seen some problems that can be attributed to these default settings.

Before I install Amicus for my clients, I ask a lot of questions in order to determine the default settings for each user. I have a 3-page template that lists the important default settings, which I modify for each client based on their settings. I use this document when I install each office, and then leave the document with the client for future use.

I will list a few of the very important default settings below that need to be reviewed to avoid potential problems, and make all Team Member's daily use of Amicus easier.

• Setup - My Profile - Workgroup - this dictates the default list of Team Members that appear any time the user assigns Team Members to an event, a contact, a file, etc.
• Setup - Document - Shared Documents - this setting controls the path that is used when generating a document or when creating a template through Amicus.
• Preferences - Contacts - Display - Always show the Search Team Contacts dialog - it is very important to keep this box checked so that users check for duplicates every time they attempt to create a new contact.
• Preferences - Contacts - New Entries - Primary Card - this sets the default primary card for new contacts.
• Preferences - Contacts - New Entries - Team Members on New Contacts - this sets the default Team Members assigned to new contacts.
• Preferences - Files - New Entries - Team Members on New Files - this sets the default Team Members assigned to new files.
• Preferences - Time Sheets - Time Entries Formatting - this sets the default formatting of time entries (Tenths of an Hour or Minutes, Minimum Time and Rounding)
• Dailies - Today's Practice Reminders - 'Remove a file from the Active list...' - it is very important NOT to check this box. If ANY Team Member checks this box, files will lose the 'Active' Status, and therefore will not appear when 'Active' files are viewed - only when 'All Files' are viewed.

There are other settings as well that are important to consider - if you do not have a list of these defaults for your office, you should consider creating such a list. If you do not want to reinvent the wheel, or suspect that your office is having problems due to improper settings, feel free to give me a call. I can work with your firm remotely, and give you suggestions on appropriate settings, as well as provide you with a document (customized for your firm) that contains these default settings. This can help you avoid many future headaches.

Many law firms have already purchased my Step by Step Guide to Amicus Attorney for their office. But you may have discovered that some of the firm's users would like something smaller that they can keep in their office - to quickly refer to when they need to remember how to accomplish a specific task in Amicus.

I have created a Lawyer's Handbook, which is a smaller version of the complete manual. For Version 5.5., the handbook contains 43 pages of the most common features used by attorneys. I provide this handbook to my clients to accompany training sessions.

If you think the users in your office may be interested in using this handbook, contact me for more information.