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| Still Using Amicus 5.5,
5.8 or Amicus Small Firm? |
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If you haven't
already purchased Your Step by Step Guide to
Amicus Attorney, now is the time. This
comprehensive training manual will help your users
learn more about the great features in Amicus 5.5,
5.8 or ASF.
This is also a reminder that we offer
complete Amicus training and consulting services -
we use various remote services to log into your
system and help your users become more productive
in Amicus, or help you manage or administer
Amicus for your firm.
Also, don't forget about our newest service -
a monthly or quarterly Amicus checkup. Click
on the link below to request more information
about this service.
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Dear Lori,
For those of you who have
been putting off your Amicus database cleanup, we
are offering a 'Summer special' incentive.
Until the end of August, 2007, we are offering a
20% discount on any database cleanup services, or
any other Amicus remote consulting services.
Call us with questions, or to schedule your
'Amicus cleanup'.
Read on for Palm Contact
Tips, Amicus - Palm Sync Tips, and an
Amicus 7 tip.
And don't forget about
the great prices for our Step by Step Training
Manuals for Amicus 5.X and Small Firm
users. |
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| Amicus Database Cleanup -
Summer Special |
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As we were putting together this
article, we ran through our list of clients
who have used our database cleanup services, and
we were reminded how many cleanups we have
performed. In the past 4 years, we have been
keeping track of more info (database size; number
of contacts & files), and cleanup time, so it
was pretty easy to gather information on
the clients shown below.
Database Cleanups Completed
- 16 users - reduced DB size
from 279 MB to 80 MB; reduced contacts from
3580 to 1191 (18.5 hrs)
- 19 users - 150 MB to 75
MB; contacts - 3500+ to 3206 (17.5 hrs)
- 17 users - 832 MB to 92 MB; contacts -
3902 to 3257 (23.5 hrs)
- 2 users - 5 MB - 558 contacts (6.5 hrs)
- w/QB link
- 3 users - 15 MB to 4 MB; contacts
- 458 to 441 (10 hrs) - w/QB link
- 8 users - 943 MB - 265 MB; contacts - 13,968
to 9,857
- 7 users - 90 MB to 72 MB; contacts - 5623 to
4780 (21.5 hrs) w/QB link
- 3 users - 180 MB to 43 MB;
contacts - 2032 to 1972 (18.5 hrs)
- 3 users - 41 MB (6 hrs)
- 6 users - 224 MB - 119 KB; contacts -
5796 to 4012 (8.5 hrs)
- 4 users - 125 MB to 36 MB; contacts - 3468
to 3038 (15 hrs)
We hope that this information (along with the
common database problems listed below) may help
you in determining whether or not your Amicus
database needs help. One thing that we want
to stress to you (which you probably already know)
- the longer you put it off, the worse it will
get, and the more costly the cleanup will
be.
Listed below are some of the main issues that
often lead to a database cleanup. If you see
any of these problems in your Amicus system, then
it is probably time to take advantage of our
Summer Special.
- Contact duplicates - first of all, if you
see a lot of duplicate contact names, that
definitely needs to be resolved; but also,
compare the number of contacts in each Team
Member's Amicus office - if you see a vast
difference, that also needs to be
resolved. The biggest reason for this is
that the contacts haven't been shared properly
between Team Members - to resolve this, the
contacts need to be combined in the
Administrator, and all Team Members Setup /
Preferences need to be reviewed, and possibly
modified. (Please contact a Certified Amicus
Consultant for help with this process.)
- File duplicates - duplicate files that end
in 1 usually indicate that the duplicate came
from QB or Timeslips; this needs to be resolved
by combining and/or removing the duplicate on
both sides
- Database size - There is no rule of thumb
about the appropriate size of a database,
but if your database is bloated with repetitive
and/or duplicate data, it will affect all Amicus
users. Not only will every process take
longer, but your database may be more at risk
for corruption.
- Locked records - If users encounter locked
records often, you may want to consider
unlocking records on a more proactive
basis. If an Amicus user is forced out of
Amicus without exiting properly, they will get
an error message when reopening Amicus - this is
a good time to unlock records for that
user. If your users do not notify you when
this happens, you may want to consider unlocking
all records on a weekly basis. Keep in
mind that users have to be out of Amicus to have
records unlocked. If you can schedule a
regular time to unlock all records (i.e., last
thing Friday or first thing Monday), it may keep
users from running into locked records.
Depending on the size of your database, the
unlock process could take anywhere from 5
minutes to 2 hours; so the first time you run
the Unlock All Data process, give yourself
enough time so that users are not out of Amicus
too
long.
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Palm Treo
- Contact Hints |
NOTE: The newer Palm
Treos (680, 700p and 755p) have the same buttons
as discussed below, but they may be in a different
location on the Palm keypad.
Display options - Did you
know that you can modify the display option for
your contacts to sort alphabetically by a) Last
Name, First Name or b) Company, Last Name?
If your display shows Last Name and you would like
to change it to show Company, then Last Name, go
into the Contacts module, and click on the
Menu button (above and to the
right of the 5-way navigator). Press the
right arrow to move to Options,
and select Preferences.
Select your preferred list option with the up or
down arrow and click on
OK.
Quick find - while you
are displaying contacts, try typing the first name
of one of your contacts (as long as it isn't a
real common name like 'Robert' or 'Debbie'), and
you should see a list of all contacts with that
first name. Same thing with last name -
begin typing the last name and see what is
displayed. If you want to edit one of the
displayed names, you can tap on the name, or click
on the name with your stylus. If you want to call
that contact, you can click directly on the phone
number, and then click on
Dial.
Searching for contacts -
if the name you are looking for is too long, or
too common, or you would like to search for text
in a contact record other than the name, you can
use the Find feature. In the Contacts
module, press the Option Lock
button followed by the up-pointing arrow to select
Find. (The Option Lock is just to the left
of the letter 'z', and the arrow is just below the
letter 'z'.) Enter any letters or numbers
(or special characters) in the 'Find' field and
click on OK. The system
will first search in the Contacts, and then search
in the other modules on the Palm. If there
are any instances of the text that was entered,
those records will be displayed below the
appropriate module. You can use the up or
down arrow to move to any of the records listed,
and press the Center button to
view the record. Keep in mind that if you
wish to go back to the list of found records, you
will have to press the Option Lock
and the up arrow, and then click
OK again (the search text will
still be
there). |
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Amicus -
Palm Sync tips |
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If you are an Amicus user
(Versions 5.5, 5.8 and Small Firm), and you are
considering synchronizing your data with your
Palm, or you are having trouble with the sync
process, please read the tips below. If you
or your users are not entering data properly, or
if your Hot Sync conduits are not set up properly,
it can be a frustrating experience, and there is a
possibility that you may 1) enter duplicate data
in Amicus or in your Palm, or 2) lose data on
either side.
Entering communication
information for contacts in Amicus - While Amicus
has more than 15 communication fields (i.e.,
2 Home Phones, 2 Bus Phones, Cell, Mobile, 3 fax
numbers, 3 email addresses, etc.), the Palm only
has 5 static communication fields, and 3 custom
fields.
Entering data into the
Palm - If you are the only Amicus user, and you
get into a pattern of running the Hot Sync on a
regular basis, you should be fine entering data
into the Palm and synchronizing it with
Amicus. However, if you have more than 1
Amicus team member, there are some issues that
all users need to be aware of - so that data
synchronizes properly, and to ensure that the
appropriate data will appear on your
Palm.
Fields that synchronize
between Amicus & Palm
- Name (First & Last)
- Address on the Primary
Card
- Company Name, Job Title
- Home Phone /
Office Phone /
Other Phone
- Email address (Home or
Business)*
- Fax phone (Home or
Business)*
- Custom 1, 2 and 3 (only
if text fields)
- Notes
*The synchronization of the
email address and fax phone depends on how the
Palm conduits are set, and has nothing to do with
the Primary Card. If the conduit is set to
synchronize Home email, then the Home email on all
contacts will sync to the Palm.
So what do you do about all
of the other information that is stored in Amicus;
i.e., Cell Phone, Home Address (if you have both
Home and Office addresses); email addresses and
fax phones.
- Be consist the way the
information is entered into Amicus - always
enter data in Amicus in the correct fields, no
matter how it syncs to Palm
- Use the Notes field -
list any extra information with labels in the
'Notes' field in Amicus (in addition to the
appropriate Amicus field) for any field that
isn't fixed (or doesn't exist) in the Palm
- Address - if you have 2
addresses that you want to see in the Palm,
enter them both in the appropriate Amicus 'Home'
or 'Office' card, and enter the one that is not
on the primary card in the Notes field. Be
sure to label everything in the Notes field;
e.g., Home - 455 Main Street, Cleveland, OH
44121.
- Cell phone - enter it in
the Cell Phone field in Amicus, and then copy it
into the Notes field - 'Cell -
555-555-5555'.
- Email addresses / Fax
phones - if you want to see any of them in the
Palm, it is best to enter them in the
appropriate fields in Amicus, and also in the
Notes.
Click on the link below
to download the complete article that explains
much more about what needs to be done to
have a successful
synchronization. And if you are using
Amicus 7, we will be posting a new document with
tips about the Amicus 7 - Palm sync on our website
shortly.
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Amicus 7 - Displaying Client ID / Matter
ID in Files Index |
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The default columns in
the Amicus 7 Files Index are File Name and
Type. If you wish to also view the Client ID
and/or Matter ID in the index, you will need to do
the following:
- Point to the File Name
heading, click the right mouse button and select
Show Fields.
- Double-click on
Client ID in the list of
Available Fields (or click on Client
ID and click on the
Add button between the two
columns); do the same if you wish to see the
Matter ID.
- If you want to change
the display order of the fields, click on any
field name and click on the Move
Up or Move Down button
as needed to move the fields to the desired
order.
- Click
OK after making the
necessary changes.
- You can then modify any
column width by positioning the cursor on the
line at the end of the field name, and dragging
to the left or right (as shown
below).
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Sincerely,
Lori
Berenson
Productivity Consulting
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