Case Management

The biggest difference you'll notice between Personal Assistant and the better-known competition is the inclusion of a time & billing module. Personal Assistant also offers its own word processor. Other modules include contacts, a planner, list of matters, accounting, custom lists, reports, document generator, a timer, intra-office e-mail, autodialer (with a speed dialer) and calculator. Personal Assistant is network-ready out of the box.

After logging on, the first screen you'll open is the contact module. To find a contact, you can search by last name, full name, matter, company or one of several other options.

Once the proper contact is located, you can view the details of the contact record by hitting the enter key or double clicking with the mouse.

I liked the contacts module best of all. It has nice options, including spaces for three addresses, six telephone numbers and two e-mail addresses for every contact. Next to phone numbers is a telephone icon that will dial the telephone number indicated. Drafting a letter to a contact is as easy as clicking an icon on the contacts window toolbar and selecting a letter form. If you set Microsoft Word 97 as your default word processor, Personal Assistant will inset a menu item on Word's main menu bar; making creating forms extremely simple.

The events module opens to a daily calendar with the current month and a list of tasks. A day view is also present. Tasks are displayed until the user indicates the task is completed. Past due tasks are highlighted in red. The events module also has tabs for showing just tasks or a monthly schedule. There are ample predefined alarms but only one at a time can be set. You can view tasks due on the day being viewed, past due items or items that are due as far as a year into the future.

The unique accounting module has three tabs. The first shows balances by client and the unbilled amount charged to the client since the last invoice. The second shows deductible expenses and the third shows a mileage log. The latter two would have been more useful if there had been a way of billing these to a client from the respective screens. To create an invoice, you go to the billing page of the contact module. This screen shows all unbilled time and the current balance. Creating an invoice is as simple as clicking the "new Bill" button. Bills are prepared one client at a time. The invoice is printed using Personal Assistant's own word processor, called Documents Assistant.

Technical support is available by telephone or e-mail. I called technical support (a toll call) after hours and received a reply the next morning from one of the product's developers.

Despite some great features, Personal Assistant still needs work.

There are some navigability issues that I won't go into detail here except to say that this program is very mouse-intensive.

More significantly, the program needs a data import utility. To convert data from another source, you need to send the data to Hammond-Rust and they will convert it. However, since Personal Assistant is based on the Microsoft Access database engine, Access users could use that program's import utility.

Also, you are limited to Document Assistant or Word 97 as word processors. None of the modules have user-defined fields. The events module does not have a date calculator nor an ability to create date rules or a way to link dates. Although they can be reset, event alarms are limited to one.

The billing and accounting modules need reworking. For example, you can only bill by client, not by matter. Also, there was no way to link data from the accounting module to a third-party accounting package.

Personal Assistant could also use links to 3Com's PalmPilot, Palm III and HotDocs. I would also have liked to see a connection to a fax program such as WinFax Pro, similar to the e-mail link.

I really wanted to like Personal Assistant, and there is a lot about the program to like. I found it less intimidating than Time Matters and easier to use than Amicus Pro. And although it needs work, the integrated time & billing module is a nice feature. Still, there is not enough in this version to entice users of Time Matters, Amicus or Abacus away.

This does have the makings of a good product. With a little work and input from an advisory board, I predict Personal Assistant will, in the future, provide the better known products with some serious competition.

Windows 95, 98, NT

$400

Reviewed by Charles E. Whisonant, attorney, Newport Beach, Calif.

Jun/Jul '99 Issue

PROS
Less intimidating than Time Matters and easier to use than Amicus. Has a good foundation for an excellent product.

CONS
Hammond-Rust must convert data for you. Document Assistant and Word 97 are the only word processors compatible with this program. Billing and accounting modules need to be reworked. Many minor problems.

VERDICT
Still needs some work. Wait for improvements in later versions.

  | Home  | 

|  Issue Archive  |  Resources  |  About Us  |  Contact Us  |  Subscribe  |

|  Subscribers  |  Advertisers  |

Updated 09/19/01
© Law Office Computing Magazine
www.lawofficecomputing.com
(800) 394-2626