Cleaning Up Time Matters

Date: Oct. 7, 2010    Categories: administration , organizing

You may use these techniques to clean up your Time Matters records. They were presented during our free monthly Webinar on 10-08-2010. To attend future Webinars, please register. Click here to register...

Follow-Up Notes - Webinar and Q & A Session

• To submit an feature suggestion or idea to LexisNexis: Click here...
• Using the Archive Wizard - Tag one or more Matters or Contacts. If any of them have Related Records (Documents, E-mails, Events, Notes, etc.), the Wizard will appear. You are given the option to archive all records or uncheck any Related Record types you do not want to archive.
• Archiving a Matter does not archive any Contacts related to that Matter.
• Normally you do not want to archive Contacts. But you can if you need to.
• This post has been extensively updated since the Webinar on 10-08-2010.

To archive Contacts related to a Matter:

1. Open the Matter, either on the Matter List or the Archived Matter List.
2. Click on the Related tab.
3. Click on the first Contact you want to archive.
4. Press Shift-T to tag the Contact.
5. Press Shift-T on any other Contacts you need to archive.
6. Click on the right edge of the Process icon (green check mark) that is just above the Related Records area.
7. Choose: Archive Records.

Tackle your bloated E-mail

Link e-mails to Matters/Contacts

• Open the Personal Inbox
• Tag e-mails for the same Matter
• Select: Set Regarding from Process drop-down

Save e-mails to a PDF file and delete them from Time Matters.

For E-mails in TM Personal Inbox:

• Tag e-mails
• Press the Printer icon just above the e-mails
• Press Preview
• In the Menu bar, click File | Save to PDF

For E-mails saved from MS Outlook to Time Matters:

• Go to Main Menu | Mail | E-mail List | All E-mail
• Tag the e-mails you want to save to PDF.
• Press the Printer icon just above the list.
• Choose the Standard E-mail report.
• Press the Preview button.
• In the Menu bar, click File | Save to PDF.

Run reports to check for missing and incorrect entries

• Use Search | Advanced Search to look for [field] Is Blank
• Update the blank fields one at a time
• Or Tag records and use Process | Change Records

Archive closed Matters

• Open the Matter List
• Tag one or more Matters
• In the Main Menu, select: Process | Archive
• If there are Related Records, the Wizard appears. You may proceed to archive records such as Documents, E-mails, Events, etc. or press Cancel.
• See the Note, above, for more information.

Manage your Time Matters database backups

• Run backups daily and keep 7 days of backups.
• For manual backups, check the boxes to skip Documents and Attachments.
• Use backup software and an online backup service, or:
• Copy backups to: 1) Another disk, AND 2) Offsite

Clean Up Document records

Add Classification Codes to Document records without them - helpful especially when using Subtabs by Code.

Move out-of-place documents to correct folders.

Drag-and-Drop Method

If you are comfortable dragging and dropping documents from one folder to another or cutting and pasting between folders, you will probably prefer that approach to moving documents. After moving a document file to the correct folder, you can find the corresponding Document record in Time Matters and use the Lookup button after the File Name field to link the Document record to the file.

"Save As" Method

Here is another approach. It is similar to using "Save As" to put a new copy of a document in the right folder and then deleting the old one. A drawback is that the new file gets today's date as its file date. But you enter the correct date of the document in its Document record, so that may not be a problem.

This method insures that the document will go into the correct folder without requiring that you find it. It assumes that you have the AutoName options set up in Time Matters. AutoName is used to implement the Time Matters Document Management System.

To copy a document to the correct folder and link it to its Matter and Contact with a Document record:

1. Open the existing Document record, usually from the Documents tab on its Matter.
2. Copy the Description to the Windows Clipboard (Ctrl-C)
3. Press the GoTo button (lower left) to open the document
4. Press TM Save button (in Word 2007 or 2010, press Add-Ins first)
5. Choose: Create New Record
6. Complete the new record, pasting in the Description and changing the Date.
7. Press Save & Close
8. Delete old record Document record, choosing the option to Delete Actual File

Modify fields to make Time Matters more useful

As you work on cleaning up Time Matters, take notes on ideas you have for tracking important information not included in your records. You may then customize fields to capture this new information.