Why This is Cool:

This has been a highly sought after enhancement and is driven by customer feedback.  This enhancement is in direct response to one of our top voted items from the Client Idea portal.

Overview:

This enhancement expands the options for budget types from just Life of the Matter adding Annual and Quarterly budget options as well.  Additionally we also introduced new options to allow for more flexible time periods giving customers the ability to establish budgets both by Calendar Year and Fiscal Year with different types of budgets by firm on a single matter. 

Lastly, we have added the ability to clone a budget in order to significantly speed up the process of creating similar budgets either YoY or QoQ.

User Guide: Budget Review

Overview: 

The latest update introduces the ability for users to mark individual matters as “private” within any Practice Area. This enhancement is designed to provide added flexibility and security, ensuring that sensitive information is accessible only to authorized users. 

Key Benefits: 

• Increased Confidentiality: Attorneys can now have access to a Practice Area without gaining access to sensitive matters that are not pertinent to their role, such as an employment matter involving themselves. 

• Improved Data Integrity: Eliminates the need to create new Practice Areas solely for privacy reasons, which previously could skew reporting and lead to fragmented data management. 

• Secure External Tracking: Reduces the necessity to track sensitive matters outside of the system, thereby enhancing data security and centralization. 

Usage Scenario Example: 

An attorney who has access to the Human Resources Practice Area will no longer be inadvertently exposed to their own employment-related matters, thanks to the ability to mark such matters as private. 

Implementation Details: 

To utilize this new feature, users must set up "Private Access Groups" within the system. This setup process allows for the precise designation of who can view private legal matters, further tailoring access controls to meet specific privacy needs. 

User Guide: Private Matters

New Features: 

1. Folders 

In response to feedback for more sophisticated organizational tools within our document repository, we have introduced Folder structure. Users can now organize documents into folders, mimicking a familiar desktop environment. This hierarchical structure is intended to facilitate easier navigation and retrieval of documents, thereby improving organizational efficiency. 

2. Searchable Summary Field 

Understanding the importance of quickly ascertaining the relevance and purpose of documents, the document repository now includes a searchable summary field for each document. This feature allows users to add concise summaries to their documents, which are searchable, enhancing the ability to find relevant documents fast.  This innovation helps eliminate the need to open and read through documents to determine their relevance, thus saving valuable time and effort. 

Implementation Details:

These enhancements are available immediately with the Acuity 4x update. Users are encouraged to familiarize themselves with these new features to fully leverage the benefits of enhanced document organization and management. 

User Guide: Document Repository

New benefits include:

• Time savings: Skip the manual data entry and inefficient batch process with new REST APIs. Create and update matters in real-time without waiting for batch processes to complete. 
• Enhance collaboration: Ensure seamless collaboration between claims and legal with a simple integration between your third-party systems and Acuity. Teams can collaborate with the same up-to-date information. 
• TAP integration enhancements

User Guide: Matter Rest APIs (Feature)

Take advantage of these release benefits:

• Mitigate risk with Multi-factor Authentication

• Save time by converting an email to a matter note or status update within Outlook

• Easily review and approve invoices from inbound email notifications

• Ensure accuracy by attaching a document to a matter from Outlook

We are excited to offer this release as an illustration of our commitment to continuously improve, invest and enhance our solution. 

***For more information on how to leverage these features, feel free to reach out to your Customer Success Manager***