Lexis Visualfiles Outlook Plus Guide

Lexis® Visualfiles™ Outlook Plus Guide

Contents

Introduction

Overview

Applicable Software Versions

Introduction

Overview

This document provides comprehensive information about the Lexis®Visualfiles™ Outlook Plusmodule. Thisfunctionality wasinitially included in Visualfiles 2.5.0 as an Early Adopter Modulenamed the ‘Advanced Outlook Add-In’.It has since been enhanced and renamed, and is now released for general availability with Visualfiles 2014 3.0.0 and 2.6.7or later.

Outlook Plusenables you to view and manage Visualfiles content from within Microsoft Outlook. It provides a robust and reliable interface that alleviates the need to launch multiple systems to review and manage data.Using Outlook Plus, legal files can be opened or filed away, and emails can be associated with, or dragged into files. In addition, party records such as people or companies can be openedgiving you easy access to Visualfiles functionality.

Note:Outlook Plus is a licenced Visualfiles system module and needs a new Licence Key.

Applicable Software Versions

Originally in Visualfiles 2.5.0 as an Early Adopter Release.

General availability in Visualfiles 2014 (3.0.0) or laterand Visualfiles 2.6.7 or later.

User Information

Navigation

Positioning and Sizing

You can reposition theOutlook PlusPane within Outlook by dragging the toolbar to a position that suits you best by clickingand dragging the Visualfiles grey title bar to one of the five position points that appear around the edge of the screen(see Figure 1).

Figure 1 - Repositioning the Outlook Plus Pane

Figure 2 - An alternative view with the Outlook Plus Pane positioned at the bottom of Outlook

Figure 3 - An alternative view with the Outlook Plus Pane positioned at the bottom left hand side of Outlook

The Outlook PlusPane

The Outlook Plus Pane incorporates two tabs Home and Search, which provide content imported from Visualfiles:

The HomeTab is the default view when Outlook is opened. It displays your regularly accessed files equivalent to theMy Filesview in Visualfiles.
The Search Tab enables you to search for files and other items within Visualfiles.

Home Tab

The contents of the Home Tab can be displayed in two different ways, in a Carouselview or a Grid view. The display optioncan be changed using the drop down list in the top right hand cornerof the pane. This gives you greater flexibility to view the content in a style that suits you best.

When you select a different display option the current view instantly switches, and displays the same data in a different style.

The Carousel view provides a rich user experience and a visually appealing view of files which may be suitable for users dealing with a small number of files.
The Grid view is essentially a list of files and is more practical for users who are dealing with a large number of files at any one time.

Carousel View

The Carousel view displays files on a path that can be quickly advanced left or right, providing a useful view of the your current files.Use the Navigation panel buttons to move the files along the Carousel, or alternatively hold the SHIFT key and use a mouse wheel.

Figure 4 - The Carousel view

Grid View

The Grid view displays a standard listof files that enables more files and content to be displayed. The Grid view provides traditional grid-style features such as column reorder/resizing and Excel-style column data filtering.

Figure 5 - The Grid View

Filtering Data

To activate the data filter, click theFilterbutton, a new row then appears. It is possible to click into a column in this new row and type characters which will then automatically narrow down the results displayed in the grid based on the filter terms you are entering.

The filter uses a ‘Begins’ mechanism, so for example if you type the term ‘and’ then anything in that column that starts with that term, i.e. ‘Andrew’ or ‘Andover’ will be displayed in the grid view below. You can combine filters by applying them to more than one column to filter the grid further i.e. you could type in the start of a description in the description column and the start of a code in the code column and the results returned would take both into account.

Grouping Data

It is also possible to group data together in the Outlook Plus Pane, which is useful when you are in the history screen. Grouping data allows you to drag a column header onto the Group Bar and all the items in the list below are then grouped by that field data. To expand the Group Bar simply click on the thin grey bar above the column headings and click it again to collapse it. Alternatively drag a column heading on to the grey bar and drop it into the group bar to group the items together and drag the column heading off again into the list of items below and drop it to revert the grouping.

Figure 6 - An Example of a History View Grouped by Activity Code

History View

The History view provides a simplified view of the Visualfiles History screen and presents information about the actions that have been carried out on a file.

If you right-click on a file and select Show History, you are presented with the history view from the selected file in a new File History Tab (See Figure 11). The history tab is labelled with the code of the File that has been selected.

Note: If the file is password protected you are prompted to enter your credentials.

Figure 7 - The History view

In this view you can:

Drag documents directly from your Outlook Inbox into the file history.
Drag documents from the Windows desktop directly into the file history.
Right-click in the categories section and create a new category, which is reflected in Visualfiles.
Right-click and create a New Email which is then automatically associated with the selected file.
Have more than one history tab open at the same time.

It is possible to reduce the number of history items displayed by selecting any of the icons on the left hand side of the screen.For example if you click on the Important icon, the History Items with Important notes flagged are displayed on the right hand side of the screen. To show all of the history items again simply click on the All icon on the left hand side.

Note: If you cannot find the history item that you are looking for, it may be that you have a filter or search applied to the history view. In this instance ensure that the filter on the L/H side of the view is set to All and the search box to the top R/H side of the Outlook Plus Pane is empty.

Additional filtering options are also available on this View and work in the same way as discussed above.

You can search for items in the file history by entering your criteria in the Search field and running the search.

History Plus Module - Content Search

Note: History Plus integration is only available with Visualfiles 2014 3.0.0 or later.

When the History Plus module(formerly called Document Repository) is enabled it is possible to search History Plus content within Outlook Plus; select the Content option using the drop down then enter the search term.

Figure 8 - Content Search Option

Search Tab

The Search Tab enables you to searchthe Visualfiles system for files,entities and documents (if History Plus is implemented).

Click the Search Tab in the Outlook Plus Pane.

Figure 9 - Search Tab

You can change the filter to search specifically for files,entities, documentsor a custom defined item.

Note: When you performa search, a ‘Begins’ mechanism is used on the File or Entity that you are searching.However if you add custom searches in the VFOutlookParams.XML file then you can change the mechanism to ‘HasWord’.

When searching Visualfiles, existing results are cleared from the list as each search is run. At any time you can stop the search before it completes by clicking in the search pane.When a search is stopped or completes, the results grid is updated.

Fields displayed in the results window are:

An Associated Icon
History Description
Document Type
File Code
Date Created

Document Search Option

Note: History Plus integration is only available with Visualfiles 2014 3.0.0 or later.

If the History Plus module is installed then a ‘Documents’ search option is available in Outlook Plus. See below.

Figure 10 - Document Search Option

The options available on the Context Menu on a selected Document Item are as below:

Figure 11 - Context Menu Options on a Document Result

By default this is a CONTAINS search but you can also add custom searches to carry out other types of search. To do this then you need to amend your VFOUTLOOKPARAMS FILE settings. (See Configuring the VFOutlookParams.xml File)

Context Menus

Wherever possible right-click context menus are provided that enable quick access to functional options. By right-clicking an item in either the carousel or the grid view, a drop down menu relevant to the item selected is displayed for the user to select an action. For example the right-click menu options displayed in Figure 12 are relevant to a Visualfiles file as provided in the native software.

Figure 12 - Context Menus

The menu options available on a Visualfiles item are dependent upon the ‘type’ of item selected. The menu options common to all types and those specific to types are shown below.

Common Context Menu Items

Open ‘File’ in Visualfiles

Launches the item from within Visualfiles.

‘File’ Away

Removes the item from the Visualfiles Desktop and ‘Home’ Tab view and saves this view.

Note: It is not removed from the system, just from your own view.

Refresh

Refreshes the HomeTab.

‘File Only’ Context Menu Items

New Email

Launches a new email and associates it with the selected Visualfiles file.

Show History

Opens a new tab showing the history view for the selected file.

‘History Item Only’ Context Menu Items

Figure 13- History Item Context Menu items

Open Item: Opens the history document.
Delete Item: Removes the item completely from the Visualfiles History for all users (providing the user has access to do so).
Preview Item: Opens a Quick View Plus Window to preview the document (providing Quick View Plus is installed and the Visualfiles Document Preview module is enabled).
View Item: Opens the related Visualfiles History Item.
Email Item:Creates an Email with the selected history item attached, associates the email with the file and stores in history as a new history item.

The ‘Visualfiles’Ribbon

Outlook Plus provides a new VisualfilesRibbon alongside the existing Outlook ribbons. Itincludesseveral buttons that provide functionality which is directly related to Visualfiles. The Visualfiles Ribbonenables you to carry out a number of actions such as:

Refresh the Outlook Plus View
Show/Hide the Outlook Plus Pane
Show/Hide the Visualfiles Desktop i.e. Launch or Hide the Full Visualfiles Desktop
Save emails to a file
Save attachments to the file history
Open the Visualfiles Finder (*)
Open the Visualfiles To-Do List (*)
Open the Visualfiles Time Items (*)
Open the Visualfiles Document Review (*)

(*) These items can be hidden from the users by configuring the VFOutlookParams.xml file see Optional Parameters.

The options on this ribbon are context sensitive, so only the options that are relevant for the selected itemare active.

Figure 14 - The Visualfiles Ribbon

In addition to the items described above, the VisualfilesRibboncan be extended to provide additional functionality.This works in the same wayas the previous Outlook Integration and is controlled through the VFOutlookParams.xml configuration (see Configuring the VFOutlookParams.xml File). All of the additional options will be displayed in the Custom section of the Visualfiles Ribbon. For further information on the VFOutlookParams.xml file go to the Visualfiles Help file.

Note:If you are setup as an M2 User in the User Properties screen,the ToDo List and DocumentReview are disabled.

Show/Hide Pane Button

This button allows you to show or hide theOutlook PlusPane if currently hidden or vice versa.

Save Email Button

This button allows you to save the currently highlighted emails in Outlook to aVisualfiles file and store them in the file history.

SaveAttachments Button

This button allows you to save the attachments on the currently highlighted emails in Outlook to a Visualfiles file as separate history items.

Creating New Emails

When creating new emails from Outlook, additional Visualfiles functionality is provided:

Specify which Visualfiles file the email is to be associated with;a drop down list is displayed at the top of the email (seeFigure 15).This provides a list of all of the files that are on the Home Tab or on your My Files. If the email is relating to another file you can select the Other… option, this enables you to search Visualfiles for an alternative file.There is a Close ‘X’ button which allows you to remove the file association.
An email selection button is displayed that provides a list of all email addresses stored within Visualfiles on the file selected in the File Selection List. If any email addresses are found associated with the selected file or related entities then they are displayed in a screen with the ability to saywhether that email should be used in the To,Cc or Bcc field within the Outlook Email (seeFigure 16).

Note: Emails on a file are made available to Outlook Plus by making a developer change to the underlying screens within Visualfiles. This is described in the Developer Information section of this document.

Lexis Visualfiles Outlook Plus Guide

Introduction

Overview

Applicable Software Versions

Related Documentation

User Information

Navigation

Positioning and Sizing

The Outlook PlusPane

Home Tab

Carousel View

Grid View

Filtering Data

Grouping Data

History View

History Plus Module - Content Search

Search Tab

Document Search Option

Context Menus

Common Context Menu Items

‘File Only’ Context Menu Items

‘History Item Only’ Context Menu Items

The ‘Visualfiles’Ribbon

Show/Hide Pane Button

Save Email Button

SaveAttachments Button

Creating New Emails