Imagine having everything you need to carry out your legal responsibilities within one platform and just a few clicks away—access to emails, contacts, appointments, documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Sounds too good to be true? With a matter management software system that integrates directly with Microsoft Office, you can achieve all this and more. It’s a legal professional’s dream come true.
Advances in technology have enabled legal professionals to accomplish much more with less time and resources through seamless integrations between two of the industry’s most widely used technology systems—legal matter management software, corporate legal software and Microsoft Office. This powerful duo means that legal professionals no longer have to scramble to find the last email associated with the case they are working on. Instead, it’s all right there within the legal matter management’s interface for easy access and retrieval. Want to create a new case or matter? No problem. You can do it directly from within your Outlook inbox.
Six Benefits to Integrating Matter Management with Microsoft Office
It’s no surprise that the duties of legal professionals have not eased up in the last year. In fact, many legal professionals are busier now than they ever were despite working remotely. This has many people searching for how to accomplish more with the same or even fewer resources. The matter management and Microsoft Office integration enables just that through a quick and efficient way to handle all your legal duties from one platform instead of two. Here are some of the key highlights of the matter management + Microsoft office integration:
- Quickly and easily save an email from any Outlook folder to a matter/case.
It’s almost a full-time job to sort and read through the many emails that come in on a daily basis. What if you could cut out a few extra steps by integrating two systems that are integral to your business needs? This is how the matter management and Microsoft Outlook integration works.
- When an email comes in, you have the option to simply click a button that saves the email to the case or matter of your choosing.
- The matter management system automatically copies the message (with attachments) to the case you selected.
Gone are the days of managing two separate systems. Everything you need to be organized and efficient with two of your most important legal activities is taken care of in a single step. Now that email is stored with all other matter related information and, what’s more, is easily searchable and quickly retrievable.
- Keep track of important dates and tasks within one simple interface.
As a legal professional, your day is filled with appointments, calendar events, tasks and to-dos. Keeping it all organized can be a daily challenge. With in-house matter management and Microsoft Outlook integration, data can be bi-directionally synced so your calendar is never out of date. From within the matter’s calendar, you can automatically create an Outlook appointment or task on the spot. By saving the item, the system automatically creates an event in Outlook. All of this occurs seamlessly without ever having to open the matter management system.
- Manage all your contacts with ease through Microsoft Outlook.
Many legal professionals already store their contacts within Outlook. But what if you could have a seamless integration between your matter management system and your Outlook contacts, eliminating the need to have them stored in two spots? This is possible through a matter management integration with Microsoft Outlook which allows for the manual creation of a contact record (or Name Card) from a corresponding Outlook contact. By saving a contact in your matter management system, it automatically creates and links to the corresponding contact in Outlook. And when something is updated within Outlook, the matter management system is updated as well. It’s just one more way you can better serve your clients rather than focusing on tedious, repetitive tasks.
- Ensure Outlook data is always up-to-date with automatic synchronization.
Outdated information can make or break cases and matters. Integrating your matter management and Outlook software ensures data is always accurate and reliable. With this feature, each user’s personal Outlook calendar and tasks are constantly in sync with the matter management system. Calendar items and tasks added in Outlook will automatically be created and displayed in your matter management system—without user intervention. Changes made to calendars and tasks in either system are automatically updated in the corresponding system, independent of where the information was originally created.
- Utilize Microsoft Word templates from directly within the matter management system.
Legal professionals can take advantage of the broad features of Microsoft Word for formatting document templates without ever having to leave their matter management system. With a Microsoft Office integration, combined with powerful document assembly functionality within the matter management system, legal professionals can create a single template for any type of document. Then, automatically create new documents based on that template using data already within the matter/case.
Additionally, by integrating with Microsoft Office, legal professionals have access to the popular Office and Acrobat integrations, which allows users to quickly and conveniently store any document that is opened in these applications to your matter management system. The integrations allows users, from within Office or Acrobat, to store documents to the appropriate case or matter in the management system without leaving the interface. When fully integrated with Microsoft Office and Acrobat, the matter management system enables users to create or edit documents in these formats without ever having to leave the matter management system.
- Simplify email organization with Drop Zone functionality.
To simplify the transfer of files and documents from a legal professional’s Microsoft Outlook inbox to the matter management system, a popular feature called a Drop Zone can be used. The Drop Zone resides within the Outlook interface and can be used for quickly dropping emails, files and documents by simply dragging them into the zone, the integration selects the matter automatically and categorizes it appropriately within the matter management system. This takes place within seconds and keeps professionals organized and on task so they can have more time for their case-related work.
Make Your Matter Management System Work for You
We know that much of your day is spent managing your email inbox. Many times, this can become tedious and repetitive. Legal Files is proud to provide you with a seamless integration to manage not only your Outlook inbox, but all your cases and matters with ease and speed. With 30+ years of experience supporting organizations across a number of industries, Legal Files gives legal professionals the automation and organization capabilities needed to focus on the bigger picture. We care about the issues you face and are here to help you uncover the advantages of integrating with Microsoft Office to be more efficient and effective through superior technology.
“The seamless integration between Legal Files and Outlook is crucial. Emails and documents can be saved to the appropriate matter within Legal Files directly from the Outlook and Office interface. Emails and documents can then be quickly and easily retrieved at any time. The Outlook and Office integration is huge.”
Paul Reed
Request a demo to learn more about how we help organizations like yours manage what matters to you most.