Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers cloud project management software designed for law firms (see article below), a document management tool for Office 365 users, a document management tool for Google Apps for Work users, and an ad blocker for iOS. Don't miss the next issue.
Every law firm has mission-critical processes but most law firms don't document them let alone manage them through software. This dramatically increases training costs for new employees, and inhibits the productivity of your most seasoned veterans. Even in a small firm, it's impossible to personally supervise every employee every minute of the day. The answer to this problem lies in project management software but most products on the market don't cater to the unique needs of law firms.
Exterro Project Management for Law Firms … in One Sentence
Launched recently, Exterro Project Management for Law Firms is project management software designed specifically for managing law firm projects and their corresponding workflows.
The Killer Feature
The folks at Exterro like to talk about "user defined process orchestration." Translation — Exterro Project Management for Law Firms centralizes your firm's processes and accompanying documentation. Here's how it works. You begin by creating a Workflow or tweaking one of the many templates that Exterro includes. A Workflow consists of connected "Activities." Each activity can contain checklists, tasks, and/or instructions. A Project such as matter intake, appellate brief, litigation hold, document production, estate planning package, real estate closing, etc. can consist of one or more workflows.
You begin a new project from within the software or by sending an email message. This initiates the corresponding workflows. Activities are automatically assigned to the appropriate person based on the workflow, but you can modify them as needed. Completing an activity triggers the next activity in the workflow. In addition to assigning activities to employees, you can also assign them to clients or third party service providers.
You can adjust projects and their workflows on the fly. This can entail removing activities you don't need, adding one-off activities, changing the order of activities, reconfiguring dependencies, and noting an Issue (a problem blocking an activity). Most importantly, you can "Push" an activity to accelerate a project (e.g., review a custodian's documents for an upcoming deposition).
"Exterro has a long history of enabling legal teams to apply the discipline of process optimization and project management to work smarter," Exterro Chief Marketing Officer Bill Piwonk told me. "Exterro Project Management for Law Firms continues this legacy, as we've architected it specifically to enable law firms of any size to easily tailor tasks, activities, and workflows to match their unique ways of managing projects across their firm."
Other Notable Features
The main dashboard lists all existing projects to which you have access and their status. You can toggle between a card view and list view. The card view lists the status in percentage terms with a visual progress bar. Projects tagged as a "Favorite" appear above all the other projects for fast access.
Another dashboard exists for viewing all tasks assigned to you across multiple projects and activities. You can add your own ad hoc tasks here and thus use Exterro Project Management for Law Firms to manage all your tasks in one place.
Three key reports — Project Tracker, Resource Utilization, and Project Analytics — keep your projects on track. Project Tracker displays the progress of each project by client or across all clients. Resource Utilization offers charts to assess how your team is being deployed across all projects and how well each person is performing. Project Analytics enables you to zero in on overdue and blocked projects.
What Else Should You Know?
Exterro Project Management for Law Firms is priced on a per subscriber basis. It runs in all web browsers. Learn more about Exterro Project Management for Law Firms.
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