ActiveDocs - Dec/Jan '04

ActiveDocs

I always have (up until now) practiced in large firms. I am used to having minions in the Information Technology department handle document automation, with a committee of lawyers looking over their shoulders to make certain the content is right.

Now that I am in a two-lawyer firm, I am the IT department. While I appreciate the benefits of document automation, suddenly I am faced with having to create my own system. While I have a background in programming (I was a computer engineer before the fog rolled in and I became a lawyer), I don’t have the free time to learn a new and complex program to automate my forms.

I have used other automation programs, most notably LexisNexis’ HotDocs in earlier incarnations, but never warmed to them. The feature I most want in a document automation program is to be able to get it up and running in less than an hour, without having to crack open the manual. I want to be able to learn as I go — to create useful documents now and amend them later as I learn extra features of the application.

With ActiveDocs, I got a one-hour training session on the phone, but had already figured out most of what was covered in basic training. I had my teacher, a very patient woman working late in New Zealand, show off some of the more advanced features so I could get a good taste for what was available.

I read enough online documentation (a downloadable user’s manual is available on Keylogix’s Web site) to understand that ActiveDocs comes with two parts: a fully automated document template creation tool and an end-user document creation tool that uses a template created with template creation tool. So, I started a new document, then used the drop-down menu that appeared in Microsoft Word after I installed ActiveDocs and chose “Insert.” Up popped a window asking for all kinds of information and I zoned out. Time for my martini.

After a break, I actually read what information ActiveDocs was looking for — the name of the field, how the user would be prompted, data validation rules and even choices to create drop-down lists from which to choose the desired text to be inserted. Wow. All of this functionality packed into something Keylogix calls “Active Field.”

Without further ado, I created a form letter to report an action by the Patent Office to a client. I saved it as a template, then created a new letter from the template. The Document Wizard automatically popped up and proceeded to ask me for the information to enter into the form: name, address, patent number and so forth.

I suspected ActiveDocs might be able to do more than simple text substitution. I saw something on the drop-down menu mentioning “Clippings” and quickly found I could create and edit text items (text, paragraph, tables and graphics) and save them for use in document templates. I can propagate necessary language changes throughout all my forms.

So I poked around a bit more and saw something called “Convert Text to Repeating Item” on the drop-down menu. I was stumped. I looked at the Help file and found that with repeating items, I could create multiple instances of blocks of similar information in a document, so as to collect the same details about different people, places, things and so on. That was nice.

I really wanted ActiveDocs to insert a name and address directly from another file. I use Microsoft Outlook for my primary contact manager. Could I get ActiveDocs to retrieve a name? I tried going through “Insert,” “Linked Data” and up came a list of a dozen or so applications to which I could link, plus a couple of others. Linked Data is used within an ActiveDocs template to allow dynamic real-time access to information from a data source at the time the document is created.

For my document, I chose Outlook and quickly was able to construct a Data View to select names and addresses from my Outlook data. All my Outlook information is available in ActiveDocs. For users of Word 2002, Data Views can be used with Data View Smart Tags to simplify access and insertion of data from a data source. And nicer still, the choice of selections narrowed as I typed in a name — I didn’t have to scroll through the entire database.

I later learned ActiveDocs also can run Visual Basic scripts and Structured Query Language searches to access other data sources. I also could create sets of documents and create them all with a single run of the document wizard — talk about useful.

While ActiveDocs might not be the most sophisticated document assembly program on the market, it was easy to use and quickly enabled me to become productive.

Keylogix
(866) 501-4016

www.activedocs.com

Price: ActiveDocs Lite - free; $300 to $599 per user for Authoring Tools; $65 to $129 per user for Creation Tools.

Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Reviewed by Daniel S. Coolidge, a patent and intellectual property attorney and frequent lecturer and writer on legal technology issues.

Dec/Jan '04 Issue

PROS
Easy learning curve, easy database interface and powerful for most needs.

CONS
It’s pricey and must have a “Document Creation” module for each user.

VERDICT
On a scale of one to five (five being the best), I would give it a 3.7. I will use it.