Office Handy Hints - Outlook, Distribution lists

Distribution lists in Outlook will allow you to send the same email to multiple people at the same time.

In Outlook 2010 and 2013 a distribution list is referred to as a Contact group.

Click the Contact link (or People link in Outlook 2013) and click New Contact Group at the top of the screen.

 

 

Click into the name field and type a name for the group and then click the Add Members button and choose where you want to add the names from e.g. Outlook address book.

 

Select the names that you want to add by double clicking on each of them, when all names have been selected click OK.

 

To send an email to all members in the group, click the To, Cc or Bcc field and choose the name of the group – you should be able to find the group in the Contacts list in Outlook.

 

 

Office Handy Hints - Outlook, Create a new email from the clipboard

If you want to create a quick email from existing text in a document, copy the text to the clipboard as normal.

Open Outlook and press CTRL+V on your keyboard. A new email will be created with the text pasted into it.

This method saves you having to create an email and then copy and paste text separately.

Office Handy Hints - Outlook, Create email templates

If you regularly type the same text into an email, why not create an email template and save yourself some time.

Create the email as normal, enter all the text that you want to appear each time you create an email – you can even add the subject line if this is going to be the same on every email but don’t enter any individual information such as email addresses.

Click File, Save As and select Outlook Template from the Save As Type drop down menu.

To create an email based on the template, click New Items on the Home ribbon. Click Choose Form (this may be under More Items depending on the version of Outlook you’re using).

 

 

 

 

From the Look In drop down select ‘User Templates in File System’.

 

**If you have an email signature set up for new emails remember to delete this from the template before you save it otherwise the signature will be displayed twice when you create a new email from the template**

 

 

MatterSphere - Time Recording

Time recording ensures that Clients are billed correctly for any work that has been done.
 
When creating new documents or emails or adding received documents and emails to MatterSphere the Time Entry dialog box will be displayed.

Enter a meaningful description in the Time Desc field. The Fee Earner field should be populated with either your name or the name of the Fee Earner that you work for but if the details are incorrect you can click the drop down and select the correct name.

The Time Activity field will also usually be populated based on the type of document (or email) that you’re creating but is this is incorrect, select the correct value from the drop down list. The Time Units field should be populated based on the type of document you’re creating but if this wrong enter the correct number of units.

The Charge field will be populated with the amount relating to the Fee Earner selected in the Fee Earner field and cannot be changed. If this amount is incorrect you will need to ask for this to be changed in the Admin kit.

If you want to record time but don’t need to charge for it, select the Non Chargeable option from the Time Activity drop down.

 

A warning message will be displayed advising that the Charge is set to zero as a prompt, if you don’t want to charge for this time you can ignore this message.

If you don’t want time to appear on the Time Recording tab at all, tick the Skip Time box at the bottom right of the page.

When the Time Recording screen has been completed, click Next or if you want to record additional time click Create & New at the top of the dialog box.

If you’re attaching an email to a Matter that has been received and replied to a number of times you can total the number of Email Out activities (the number of times the email was replied to) and the number of Email In activities (the number of times an email was received) and add the Time Units in a group e.g. 3 units for Email In and 2 units for Email Out.

The Time Recording tab will list all Activities where time has been recorded and the Value column will show the Charge details.
 

 
 

The Balance area on the left hand side of the screen will also show the current Work in Progress amount and the available account balance.

There may also be occasions when you need to record manual time e.g. when doing Research that is not related to any documents or emails.

Click the New Time Entry icon on the Matter Centre toolbar or if you’re already looking at a Matter, click Create Time on the Time Recording tab.

The Select a Client and Matter screen will be displayed, where you can select the correct Client. After choosing the Client, click Proceed and complete the fields with the relevant details.

The Manual Time entry screen does not contain the Skip Time option.

MatterSphere - Document versioning

If you 've made changes to a document in MatterSphere you can save the amended copy as a version of the original when you save it back to MatterSphere. This will enable you to revert back to an earlier version of the document if you need to.

Open an existing document from MatterSphere and make the required changes. When you're ready to add the document back into MatterSphere, click the Save icon to launch the Document Save wizard.

When you see the following screen, you can choose whether you want to overwrite the existing document, create a revised version of the existing document or create a new major version (Overwrite will be selected by default - remember to change this if you need to save a version of this document).

If you've only made minor changes to the document, save it as a Revision of the original document and if you've made major changes, save it as a New Major version. The optional version related comment section is useful for adding any comments about the changes that you've made.

You can use the Status drop down to indicate that this is a Draft or Final version of the document. Always leave the Flag as Latest Version ticked - this means that the latest version of the document will be the one that's displayed on the Documents tab in MatterSphere (all earlier versions can be seen when you choose to open or email the document). The version column (on the Documents tab) will show the latest version number of the document.

MatterSphere handy hints - Checking Documents In and Out

On the Documents tab there is an option to Check Out a document. The means that the document is locked for editing, other users will be able to open the document as normal but will not be able to make any changes to it.

Check out a document

Select the document that you want to check out and click the Check Out icon.

 

The person who checked the document out will see a red tick on the document icon on the Documents tab. When other users look at the documents tab, they will see an icon with a person on it which indicates that another user has checked a document out.

 

If you try and open a document that has already been checked out by another user a message will be displayed informing you that the document is already checked out.

 

If you try and check out a document that has already been checked out a message will be displayed informing you that another user has already checked the document out.

 

Undo a Check Out

If you have checked out a document by mistake, click the Undo Checkout icon, the following message will be displayed.

 

Click Yes to undo the check out (you will lose any changes that you made) or No to carry on editing the document.

Check In a document
When you have finished making changes to a document you will need to check the document back in by clicking the Check In icon. The Document Save wizard will be displayed - after completing all steps in the document save wizard a message will be displayed advising that the document has been checked in successfully.

NB: If you have checked out a document instead of clicking the Check In icon it will be checked in automatically.

Handy hints - a really quick way to lock your PC

Most of us use the standard CTRL+ALT+DELETE to lock our PC when we leave our desk but did you know there's an even quicker method - press the Window button on your keyboard + l (lowercase L).

Legal handy hints - AutoText

If you regularly type the same text into documents you could set this up as an AutoText entry, this means that you can enter the text really quickly by type a single word (or even letter) and pressing Enter.

The easiest way to enter AutoText is to type the text into a document and select it and then save the entry to a shortcut key for later use.

After typing the text, select it, click the arrow beneath Quick Parts on the Insert tab and click AutoText.

Click the option 'Save Selection to AutoText Gallery'.

Enter a name for the entry (something that isn't too long and can be remembered easily), you can also enter some information about the entry in the Description field if needed and click OK.

To enter the text into any Word document, type the name of the entry (you should see a tooltip that displays the first part of the text after you start typing) and press Enter.

Legal handy hints - how to sort data in a Word table

Excel has always coped really well with sorting data and has been the preferred choice for a number of people but sometimes you may need to present the data differently and Word might be the best option. Data in Word can still be sorted, especially if it's been entered in a table.

To sort the data in a table you will need to select the entire table by clicking the four-headed that appears in the top left corner of the table when you hover over it.

Click the Home tab and click the Sort icon in the Paragraph section.

The Sort dialog box will be displayed. If your table contains headings, ensure that 'Header row' is selected in the My list has section - this will then populate each of the Sort by fields with the column headings.

Choose how you want each of the columns to be sorted e.g. Ascending or Descending and click OK.

MatterSphere handy hints - Fuzzy searches

Any screen in MatterSphere that contains a Client search option now contains a Fuzzy search tick box.

A fuzzy search carries out a search for similar sounding names using the letters in the name you entered, a useful feature when you don’t know how to spell a name. For example, if you don’t know whether a Client’s name is Smyth or Smith – enter Smith into the Client name field and tick Fuzzy search and it will find all.

MatterSphere handy hints - Enhanced searches

An enhanced search does not use the Client Search Keys to find a match but instead performs a wildcard search. By entering only a small portion of the client’s name into the Client name field the system will search for any client names that contain those characters. For example, if you enter ‘yth’ in the Client name field and tick Enhanced Search the system will find all client names where those characters exist anywhere in the client name e.g. Smyth, Lythgo, Blythe

MatterSphere handy hints - Client Search Keys

A standard MatterSphere search is performed using Client Search Keys, these fields are automatically generated by the system when a new Client is created and will usually contain the Client’s forename and surname but can also contain additional ‘known as’ names e.g. if a Client is called Elizabeth but uses Lizzy – this name could also be added to the Search fields and can be used when searching for a Client. The Client Search keys will be used when searching for a Client in all cases unless the ‘Enhanced’ or ‘Fuzzy’ tick boxes are ticked.

To check (or amend) what has been entered in the Client Search fields, search for the Client and on the Search

Office handy hints - Selecting cells in Excel

There are a number of ways to select cells, rows and columns in Excel – these are explained in more detail in the following table:

To Select	Use
A single cell	Click the cell or use the arrow keys to move to the cell
A range of cells	Click the first cell in the range and then drag to the last cell or click the first cell, hold down the SHIFT key and use the arrow keys to extend the selection or press F8 and extend the selection by using the arrow keys (press F8 again to stop extending the selection)
A large range of cells	Click the first cell in the range, hold down the SHIFT key and click the last cell in the range
All cells on a worksheet	Click the Select All button (positioned above row 1 and to the left of column A or press CTRL+A (if the worksheet contains data, CTRL+A will only select the current data, press CTRL+A a second time to select all the data)
Non- adjacent cells or cell ranges	Select the first cell, hold down the CTRL key and click all other cells that you want to select.
An entire row or column	Click the column heading or the row number
Adjacent rows or columns	Click the first column or row heading and drag to select all adjacent rows or columns
Non-adjacent rows or columns	Click the first column or row heading, hold down the CTRL key and click all other columns or rows
The first or last cell in a row or column	Select a cell in the column or row, hold down the CTRL key and use the left or right arrow keys for rows or up or down arrow keys for columns
The first or last cell on a worksheet or an Excel table	Press CTRL+Home to select the first cell in a worksheet or list. Press CTRL+End to select the last cell in a worksheet or list
Cells to the last used on the worksheet	Select the first cell and then press CTRL+SHIFT+End to extend the selection to the last used cell
Cells to the beginning of the worksheet	Select the last cell and then press CTRL+SHIFT+Home to extend the selection of cells to the first used cell on the worksheet
More or fewer cells than the active selection	Whilst a range of cells is selected, hold down the SHIFT key and click the last cell that you want to select. The range will be extended to include (or exclude) cells
Cancel a selection of cell	Click any other cell on the worksheet

MatterSphere handy hints - Editing a document

Editing letters
Most MatterSphere templates have merge fields built into them that are used to display data recorded in the system. If you create a letter and notice that the address needs changing you should not change this information in the letter, although you can successfully make the changes when you print the letter the details will revert back to what they previously were. If any details are incorrect they will need to be corrected in MatterSphere and then the new details need to be re-linked to the letter.

With the document open in Word, click the Current Document ribbon and select the relevant icon for the details that you need to change.

 

 

If you need to amend Client details, click Current Client Info. If you need to amend Matter details, click Current Matter Info and if you need to make changes to any of the Associate information, click the Current Associate Info.

After making changes to the relevant information, click the Re-Link Fields icon.

 

 

NB: Some of the data that you make changes to will prompt you to relink the fields in the document when you close the MatterSphere window. If this doesn’t happen you should manually relink the data by clicking the Re-Link fields icon.

MatterSphere handy hints - Viewing only received or sent documents

On the Documents tab at Matter level you can filter the document list to show only those documents that have been received (or sent).

The Inward icon will filter the Document list to show only those documents that have been received.


The Outward icon will filter the Document list to show only those documents that have been sent.


The In/Out icon is the default view and will show all documents.

MatterSphere - Alerts

Alerts are a useful way of notifying colleagues about important information relating to Clients or Matters.

Client Alerts
Alerts at Client level are added on the Search/ Marketing tab.

Click the Client Information icon on the Matter Centre toolbar and search for the Client.

Click the Search/ Marketing tab.

To create an Alert at Client level, tick the 'Alert on Client' box.

Enter the text that you want to appear into the Alert Message Text field and click Save at the top of the screen. The Alert will be displayed at the top of the Client screen and will be visible each time the record is opened.

Matter Alerts
Matter Alerts use the traffic light colours of Green, Amber and Red.

To add an Alert, click the Matter Information icon and search for the Client. Matter Alerts are added on the Matter Notes screen.

Enter the text that you want to appear in the Alert Message text field, select the Alert level and click Save.

If both a Client and Matter Alert are added to the same Client, the Matter Alert will appear above the Client Alert when the Matter is opened.

Microsoft's next surprise is free Office for iPad, iPhone, and Android

 

Microsoft's Office suite for iPad, iPhone, and Android is now free. In a surprise move, the software giant is shaking up its mobile Office strategy to keep consumers hooked to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. Starting today, you'll no longer need an Office 365 subscription to edit documents or store them in the cloud. The move comes just days after Microsoft announced a strategic partnership with Dropbox to integrate the cloud storage service into Office across desktop, mobile, and the web. You can now download Office for iPad and store all your documents on Dropbox without paying Microsoft anything at all. Microsoft is also releasing a brand new iPhone app today, alongside a preview of Office for Android tablets, all with Dropbox integration.

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Free mobile Office sounds crazy, but is it really?

Microsoft's plans might sound crazy to most, and at first glance it's easy to come to that conclusion, but the company argues it's a matter of moving its free web apps to mobile. "It’s an extension of the strategy that we’ve got," explains Microsoft's head of Office marketing Michael Atalla. "It’s not a total strategic shift, as much of an extension of the existing strategy." Microsoft offers free Office apps online, and Atalla argues that recent development model changes inside Microsoft have allowed the company to open up editing functionality to mobile clients. "We’re taking that same user experience we provide online to the native apps of iOS and Android. We want to make sure that our customers can be productive across all the devices they have."

While consumers using Office mobile will be able to access the apps for free, Microsoft isn't extending this free functionality to businesses. An Office 365 subscription will be required to edit documents that are stored on OneDrive for Business or Dropbox for business, a clear sign of how Microsoft will continue to generate money from the thousands of businesses that rely on its productivity suite and cloud platform. "There’s still premium value that we’ll add on top of that," says Atalla. "There will still be subscription value, most clearly and easily identifiable in the commercial space, but also in the consumer space around advanced authoring, analysis, presentation, and unlimited storage with OneDrive." Microsoft is also restricting some chart element customization and track changes to paid customers, making them premium features.

 

The key here appears to be a strategic move by Microsoft to keep Office competition out of the mobile space. It's all too easy for competitors to build rival products and ship them for free on iPad, iPhone, and Android, offering premium features on top. Microsoft's Office suite is dominant, which also means it's ripe for disruption. If there's a rival Office iPad app that's free and easy to use, that could tempt consumers away from their preconceived reliance on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. CloudOn, a gesture-based app for editing Office documents, has seen some early success here. Apple also offers its own iWork apps on iPad at no extra cost, and several rivals, including the maker of the popular Paper iPad app, are emerging to threaten Office on mobile. The nightmare situation for Microsoft is that consumers realize soon that they don't need Office to create their resume or personal documents, so why should they pay for it on a smartphone or tablet where they're used to getting free apps.

While Microsoft will never admit it, it's that threat more than anything that has forced the company's mobile shift here. "By in large we want that core authoring experience in front of all the users that love Office on any device they choose," explains Atalla. That core authoring experience can help keep Office users hooked, and Microsoft doesn't want to face a future where consumers, and eventually businesses, are no longer obsessing over Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There's also a play here to get consumers using OneDrive cloud storage and a Microsoft Account. Both of these can help Microsoft tempt consumers over to Office 365 for additional storage and the added benefit of Office for PC and Mac as part of a subscription. It's a bold move from Microsoft, but also a defensive one. Microsoft's competition will now have to look elsewhere to plot their Office attack.

Office handy hints - Drawing a perfectly straight line

If you use drawing objects in Word or PowerPoint and draw lines it may look like the line is straight on screen but when you print the document you'll realise that it isn't straight at all. Try holding the SHIFT key down whilst dragging to draw the line and it will be perfectly straight.

Office handy hints - Changing the case in Word really quickly

Have you ever typed something in Word and realised it's all in CAPITALS. If you've done this you'll be relieved to know that you can undo it without having to type all your text in again. Select the text that's in the wrong case and press SHIFT+F3 on your keyboard. Each time you press SHIFT+F3 it will cycle through UPPERCASE, lowercase and Sentence case - just stop when you get to the format you want.

MatterSphere handy hints - Attaching documents to emails

When sending attachments in emails the method you pick will depend on whether the document is already stored in MatterSphere.

If you want to attach a MatterSphere document, click the Create option and select To Associate. After selecting the Associate and clicking Proceed, click the Current Document ribbon. Click the Insert icon and then select Attach Document.

 

The MatterSphere Documents area will be displayed – click the document you want to attach and click Select.

 

If the document you want to attach is not already saved in MatterSphere click the Attach File icon on the Message ribbon.

 

Browse to the location that the document is saved in and click Insert.

When you send the email you will be asked if you want to save the attachment to MatterSphere.