At the request of a few of my clients, I have decided to offer a new service for Amicus users - a monthly or quarterly Amicus checkup. Here is how this will work:

1. I will contact your office and set up a regular checkup schedule - together we can decide whether you need a monthly or quarterly checkup. I will provide you with a list of the items that I will be reviewing, and after our discussion, I will send you a small agreement that will be signed by both parties that explain what will be done, how often, and the associated costs.
2. I will contact your office a day or two prior to our scheduled checkup date, and make sure that GoToMyPC is set up on your server, and at least one workstation with an Amicus office. (If you do not have GoToMyPC, I will use my licenses.)
3. On the scheduled date, someone from your office will notify me at the end of your workday when everyone is out of Amicus.
4. I will log in to one of your Amicus offices, and review the issues that commonly arise in Amicus, and either clean up any obvious problems, or notify your Amicus Administrator the following day of any issues.
5. If problems are due to users not understanding certain features, we will work toward a way to see that these issues do not continue to happen. Depending on the issue and your location, we may set up onsite training, remote training, or I may help you create a memo that you can then circulate to your users.

If you are a current client, you will receive an e-mail from me within the next month or two. We will discuss the frequency of the Amicus checkup for your office, and how much work you would like me to do during this checkup. If you would rather than I always notify you of the issues and allow your users to do the cleanup work, that will be noted in our agreement.

If you are a potential client and are interested in setting up a first checkup, or if you haven't had a checkup and/or cleanup in a while, please contact me so that we can discuss your firm's needs.

My hope is that performing these periodic checkups will keep firms from running into major problems in the future, and make all of your Amicus users more productive on a day-to-day basis. (You can think of this as your annual physical - only more often - rather than waiting for a year to find out that your new user doesn't have access to most of the contacts, and is entering duplicate contacts, we'll catch that early on and remedy the situation.)

Here's to your firm being more productive, and having happy Amicus users!

Whether you have already upgraded, or if you are considering upgrading to Amicus Attorney 7, please read this article, and then click on the link to download the free Amicus Attorney 7 At A Glance Guide.

So you have purchased Amicus Attorney 7 - and don't have a Certified Consultant nearby to train your firm. Here's your opportunity to learn more about the program - in an easy to use Reference Guide.

This guide is available for download - FREE - and can be printed in full color for your users. The guide contains over 50 pages of information about the features of Amicus Attorney 7, along with color screen shots, and lots of helpful tips for your users.

Click on the picture of the guide, or on the link below to download a zipped file which contains the complete guide.

I was working with a client a while back - doing a large database cleanup. They had a lot of duplicate contacts, and as part of my normal cleanup, I go through and combine duplicate contacts into one. Of course, I often come across 2 contacts with the same name, but with a different company name. I make a list of the contacts that I am unsure about, and after I finish with the majority of the cleanup, I give the list to the client for their input.

As they were looking at the list, they mentioned that there were quite a few contacts with more than one company - that needed to be left as separate contacts. Then they asked if there was any way to link these contacts.

I knew that 'Same Person' was not one of the default relationships, but I told them that they could create a custom relationship. So that's what they did. It seems to be a good way to keep track of the few similar names that need to remain in the database.

To create the relationship in Version 5.5, go to the Amicus Administrator, and select Configure - Contacts. Click on the Contact Relationships tab. To create the relationship in Version 7, you must be an Administrator. From the Office module, select Firm Settings from the Navigation Pane. In the People section, click on Relationships.

Click the mouse in the list of relationships right where you want the new relationship to be listed. Then click New, type Same Person, and click Apply. Click on OK (Save in Version 7) when you are finished making changes to the Contact Relationships.

NOTE: If you click on New without first clicking in the list, then the new relationship will be added at the end of the list. This process also works with other lists in Version 5.X. In AA7, the new relationship is always added at the bottom of the list.

Now that the relationship is created, you can assign the new 'Same Person' relationship to both contacts.

Version 5.5 - Open the first Contact. Select Related Contacts from the Brad, and click on the New button. Click on the Contact icon, and select the second Contact from the list. Select Same Person as the relationship. Then select Same Person as the Reciprocal Relationship. Click on OK to complete the process.

Version 7 - Open the first Contact. Select Related People from the Navigation Pane. Click on the Add button. Click on the People icon, and select the second Contact from the list. Select Same Person as the relationship. Then select Same Person as the Reciprocal Relationship. Click on Save to complete the process.

Here are a few things that I ran across while helping a client install a replacement Treo 650 that I wanted to share with all Treo users. Many of these hints will also work with other Treo models - but you may want to check the user guide to be sure.

Selecting English in Palm Setup

1. When you start up your new Palm, you will be asked to select English as the language. Clicking on OK with the stylus or with your finger doesn't work, but pressing the Center button does. (It doesn't tell you anywhere on the screen - most users figure it out eventually.)

Deleting an application - Have you ever downloaded a Palm app, only to discover that you really don't need it, or that it really doesn't do what you want? Then what? Just leave it there to take up memory - or can you delete it? As long as you are careful, there is a pretty easy way to delete an app - you just need to know how.

1. Click on the Home button (usually above the green Phone button).
2. Click on the time and select Delete. You will see how much free space you have at the top.
3. Scroll down to the application you wish to delete, and press the Delete button.
4. You will be asked to confirm whether you really want to delete the application and all data - if you are sure, then press Yes. If you are not sure, press No.

Dial Pad Preferences - my client had lost his Dial Pad in the Phone module. All he saw was a cute picture of a dog, a 1-line calendar event - but he did not see the Dial Pad or the Favorite buttons at the bottom. It took me a while to locate it, but once I found it, I thought it would be a good tip for other Treo users.

1. Press the green Phone button
2. Press the Menu button (usually to the left of the red Hangup button)
3. Press the right button to move to Options, and select General Preferences
4. Select Show Dial Pad - the other option is 'Show Wallpaper'
5. Another option in the Gen Pref is 'Typing dials phone number' or 'Typing starts Contacts search' - I use the first option, but feel free to try both and see which one you like.
6. The 3rd option is whether to 'Show Calendar event' - if you select this, you will see the 1st calendar event for the day, or if you do not have any events, 'No upcoming events' will be displayed
7. The last option is 'Show Favorite buttons' and an option to select '1' or '2'. Keep in mind that if you select 'Show Calendar event', you may only be able to see 1 row of 'Favorite buttons'.

Next month, I'll give you some great tips about the Favorite buttons for more Palm productivity.

In order to view the Amicus Toolbar in Microsoft Word, you will need to copy the 'aatasks.dot' file from the 'c:\program files\amicus50\extras\macros' folder to the Word startup folder.

To determine the Startup folder location, open MS Word and select Tools - Options from the main menu. Click on the File Locations tab, click on Startup and click on Modify. Make a note of the full path, and then click on Cancel and close the Options window. Then exit MS Word.

Open My Computer or Windows Explorer and first locate the 'c:\program files\amicus50\extras\macros' folder. Then in another My Computer window, or in Explorer, locate the startup folder (which is usually 'C:\Documents and Settings\Lori Berenson\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup' (use your login name instead of my name). But what if you don't even see the 'Application Data' folder under your login name. Well, you probably have your folder view set to 'Hide system files and folders'.

In either My Computer or Windows Explorer, click on Tools - Folder Options, and select the View tab. Under Advanced Settings - Hidden files and folders, select 'Show hidden files and folders'. While you are there, it is recommended that you also deselect 'Hide extensions for known file types'. Click on OK and you should now be able to locate the startup folder.

Then the last step is to copy 'aatasks.dot' to the startup folder. When you open Word, right click on any toolbar, and select 'Amicus Attorney Tasks'.