TurboLaw 3 Sneak Peek – New Case Wizards

One of the biggest changes in TurboLaw Version 3 (due out this winter) is the total overhaul of the way you enter and edit cases – what we call the Case Interview Wizards. We’ve totally redesigned these wizards, simplifying and streamlining the entire process, as well as adding some new capabilities that you’re sure to love.

Watch the video below to learn more and see some of the new capabilities in action!

p.s. Those of you that follow us on Twitter might realize that the redesign of the “wizards” is the end result of our super-secret project, code-named “Project Merlin.” (It’s OK – we won’t feel bad if you don’t laugh at our little pun/joke.)

TurboLaw 3 Sneak Peek – New Navigation

One of the more noticeable changes in TurboLaw Version 3 (due out this winter) is the change from the old “TurboLaw Navigator” and the floating windows-in-windows to the new “tabs on top” layout. Now, moving around in TurboLaw is as easy as clicking a tab at the top of the window (much like how the web browser you’re reading this article in probably has tabs for each new page you open).

Watch the video below to see more about how “tabs on top” make it even easier to move around in TurboLaw!

Coming Soon: TurboLaw Version 3

That’s right – TurboLaw Document Software is finally making the leap to Version 3!

There are a ton of new, exciting, and amazing features in this version of TurboLaw, due out this winter. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into making this the absolute best version of TurboLaw you’ve ever seen, and we hope you’re as excited as we are to see this new version.

We’ll be posting more about TurboLaw Version 3 – including some “sneak peek” videos – in the upcoming days and weeks here on our blog, so be sure to check back frequently to learn more!

TurboLaw Time and Billing 1.23 Released

It’s been a busy summer here at TurboLaw Software, and we’re very pleased to announce the results of all that work: TurboLaw Time and Billing version 1.23! This new version is going to be a big deal for a lot of people, as we’ve incorporated many new features and enhancements that have been directly requested by our users and which really do make everyday tasks faster and easier to perform.

Click on any of the headings below to read more about that particular feature.

Custom Billing Rates

One new feature that’s going to have a lot of people very excited is Custom Billing Rates. Starting with this version of Time and Billing, you can now set a different billing rate for a client or matter.

Custom billing rates will allow you to handle many different situations, such as old clients who still get your older, lower rate, clients who get a discounted rate, or matters that you bill for at a different rate than usual. Whatever the situation, you can now handle it by setting a custom billing rate.

Windows 7 Jump Lists

Another handy new feature that will help you save time is the addition of support for Windows 7 “jump list” commands. Jump lists are new to Windows 7, and they allow you to quickly perform certain actions by right-clicking a program’s icon in the Windows Task Bar (they also give you additional shortcuts if the program’s icon is on your start menu).

With the jump list commands in TurboLaw Time and Billing, you can open the stopwatch, create a new client, enter time and expenses, or perform a search – even if Time and Billing isn’t open on your screen! We love shortcuts here at TurboLaw, and we hope you will too.

Additional Reports

In this version of Time and Billing, we’ve added some new reports to the reporting section of the program. These two new reports are “All Time (billed and unbilled)” and “All Expenses (billed and unbilled).” These two new reports, along with the report filtering options, allow you to create many more types of reports to suit your needs. For example, you can use the new “All Time” report, combine it with filtering by a specific staff member and a specific day, and you now have a report of all the time that has been entered by that person on that day.

New Way To Enter Time

While we’re sure most people are comfortable entering time as hours (e.g., 1.5 hours), sometimes it is handy to be able to enter time more “naturally” (e.g., 00:14:00 for entering 14 minutes). This is especially important when you’re trying to capture more of the smaller tasks you do each day. To help with this, we’ve added the ability to enter time as hours, minutes, and seconds directly from the “Enter Time” window. Now you can type in exactly how much time you spent, without having to convert it to hours in your head.

Separate User Templates

In this version, we’ve revised the way the bill and statement window works – now, templates are separated into “built-in” templates and “user” templates. This way, if you customize a template, it is considered one of the “user” templates instead of potentially overwriting one of the built-in templates. This way, you can customize templates to your heart’s content without ever worrying about accidentally deleting or messing up one of the built-in templates.

There are also a number of other, smaller improvements in this version:

  • When adding existing items to an existing bill, you can now add more than one item at a time
  • Improved the sorting of items on a bill when they all occur on the exact same date
  • Fixed a problem where the “bill total” would not appear on the screen if your computer screen’s DPI setting was set higher than 100%
  • Added some self-repair capability for the rare cases when the user’s settings file becomes corrupted

As you can tell, we’re pretty excited about all the new features in this new version – and we hope you will be, too. This new version is available immediately – as long as you haven’t turned off automatic updates, you should receive a notification shortly after you open the program (it may take a little while, depending on your Internet connection speed).

Many of the features we added in this new version were directly inspired by feedback we received from people like you – we really do listen! If you have any thoughts, feedback, comments or suggestions, please let us know – we’d love to hear from you.

 

Coming Soon: Windows 7 Jump Lists

If you’re using Windows 7, you may have heard of or seen a feature which is new to Windows 7, called “jump lists.” These handy little shortcuts allow you to right-click on any program’s icon in the task bar and perform certain functions. (They also give you similar shortcuts if the icon is on your start menu.)

Here at TurboLaw, we like shortcuts – anything to save time and require fewer clicks to get things done – so for the next version of TurboLaw Time and Billing (due out this month), we’ve added support for Windows 7 jump lists!

With this new version, if you are using TurboLaw Time and Billing and Windows 7, you will be able to access these handy shortcuts for showing the stopwatch, entering a new client, entering time, entering expenses, or performing a search – even if you don’t have the program open!

Our (anecdotal and totally unscientific) research suggests that many of you are using Windows 7 – either because you’ve upgraded, or because you got a new computer that came with it. If you are, then you’ll be able to use these handy new shortcuts.

Not using Windows 7? Don’t worry – we haven’t forgotten about you. You can still access the same shortcuts by right-clicking the TurboLaw Time and Billing icon which appears in the notification area, next to the clock in the bottom-right of your task bar.

We hope you find these new features and shortcuts helpful, and as always, we welcome your feedback!

Coming Soon: Custom Billing Rates per Client

You asked for it, and we listened – in the next version of TurboLaw Time and Billing you’ll have the ability to set custom billing rates on a per-client or per-matter basis.

We’ve worked very hard to make sure that this new feature does not ruin the simplicity and ease-of-use that TurboLaw Time and Billing is famous for.

Custom billing rates can be set to apply to just a particular client or to a particular matter. Once set, the custom billing rate will be used whenever you bill for time for that client (or matter) using that particular staff member. This allows you to  have a “default” billing rate that will be used normally, unless you override it for a particular client (or matter).

This is an exciting new feature and we’re very happy to be able to bring it to you.

We listen to the feedback we receive from all of our users – so don’t hesitate to let us know what you think of TurboLaw Time and Billing or what features you’d like to see in future versions.

How Error Reporting Works in TurboLaw

All TurboLaw products have a built-in anonymous error reporting system, similar to the “Tell Microsoft about this problem” messages you may have seen in Windows whenever a program crashes.

Error Reporting in Windows XP

Error Reporting in Windows 7

In TurboLaw products, our message is a little bit different, but they operate on essentially the same principle.

Error Reporting in TurboLaw Products

When you click to let us know about the problem, TurboLaw sends an “error report” directly to our development team. The report tell us:

  • What version of Windows you have
  • What version of TurboLaw you have
  • What the error was and the exact place where it came from in the program

Our development team takes error reports very seriously – every single report that comes in gets analyzed and categorized, and if it is a new problem that we’ve never seen before, it gets immediate priority.

Since these types of errors are, by definition, “unexpected,” they are often the result of very unusual circumstances – for example, a computer being disconnected from the network while TurboLaw is in the middle of saving something. In cases like this, there is little we can do, since the problem is outside of our control.

Other times, the error is due to an unusual circumstance that we can do something about – and in these cases, we always do. Whenever a new version of any TurboLaw product is released, we always fix any problems we know about, including problems we learned about via error reports.

However, sometimes the error report simply doesn’t contain enough information for us to diagnose the problem. Sometimes these problems are caused by other computer problems (e.g., a hard drive that is about to die), and other times they are caused by something else – maybe a setting somewhere was set wrong, or maybe the program was installed incorrectly, or maybe something that was clicked previously is interfering with the program in some unusual way.

These types of problems are the most difficult for us to diagnose without additional information. However, since the error reports are totally anonymous, we have no idea who is having the problem. So if you are getting a particular error frequently (more than twice), please let us know! Only you can give us that little bit of extra information so that we can fix the problem.

You can report problems to us by emailing support@turbolaw.com, visiting our Help Center and opening a ticket, or just by calling us at (800) 518-8726 x3.

We take the quality of our products very seriously – and although we test our products thoroughly before releasing them, there is no way for us to test every single possible combination of servers, networks, computer models, Windows versions and other software (to say nothing of testing every possible way you could use the program!).

TurboLaw Time and Billing 1.22 Released

TurboLaw Time and Billing version 1.22 has just been released with some great new features based on feedback from our customers.

The new features in this version are:

  • Automatic updates: when an update is available, TurboLaw Time and Billing will download it for you, and if you don’t click to install it yourself, the next time you open Time and Billing, the update will be installed automatically, so you always have the latest version.
  • New Templates: we’ve updated some of the default bill templates as well as added a totally new one, called “Acme.” This is a very simple, plain template that works well if you just need something straightforward for your bills – but it’s also a great starting point for creating your own custom template.
  • Sample data: speaking of templates, when you are customizing a bill or statement template, when you click on the “Preview” tab you will now see your template with some sample data so you can get a better idea of how it will look.
  • No more pop-up balloon tips: when you start TurboLaw Time and Billing, you will no longer see a pop-up balloon asking if you’ve noticed the icon which appears in your notification area (a.k.a. the system tray).
  • No more minimizing when clicking the “close” button: now, when you click the red “X” close button, TurboLaw Time and Billing will close, instead of minimizing itself as it previously did.
  • User-selectable spell-check language: instead of trying to guess which dialect of English you are using, TurboLaw Time and Billing now defaults to US English and you can select from several other variations (e.g., UK English) from the Options & Settings window.

As always, we hope that you enjoy this latest release of TurboLaw Time and Billing and all the new features and improvements we’ve made.

We listen to the feedback we receive from all of our users – so don’t hesitate to let us know what you think of TurboLaw Time and Billing or what features you’d like to see in future versions.

p.s. If you don’t already have TurboLaw Time and Billing, be sure to check out our free trial!

TurboLaw 2.81 Released

Following close on the heels of the last TurboLaw update, we’ve now released TurboLaw version 2.81 with a number of additional improvements which couldn’t make it into 2.80 due to time constraints. This new version continues the trend started in 2.80 of vastly improving the way TurboLaw works as well as refining the overall function of the program based on user feedback – including actual data received through our Customer Experience Improvement Program.

Some of the highlights of this version include:

  • TurboLaw Update has now been integrated directly into TurboLaw itself, so it is no longer a separate program
  • TurboLaw can now install updates automatically, instead of only just downloading them, so you don’t have to worry about watching for the update notification and remembering to click to install
  • TurboLaw now has a more granular program update capability, meaning updates can be delivered to you quicker
  • Based on actual user data received (anonymously) through our Customer Experience Improvement Program, we have removed the “Tip of the Day” from TurboLaw
  • You can now double-click to edit an attorney in the My Firm tab (or you can click the new Edit Attorney button)
  • The “Please wait while TurboLaw creates your document” window now shows more descriptive text describing what it is actually doing as it creates your document

We’ve also improved the wording on a number of windows and messages, as well as fixed a few minor sorting and window-size glitches that appear only under certain circumstances.

As always, we continue to work tirelessly to improve TurboLaw, and we hope you enjoy this latest version. If you have any comments or feedback, we’d love to hear from you!

TurboLaw 2.80 Released

That’s right, it’s finally here! We are very happy to announce that TurboLaw version 2.80 has now been released! This is probably the biggest update to TurboLaw since it was originally introduced 9 years ago, and we are understandably very excited about it – and we think you will be too!

Throughout the month of April we’ve been giving you sneak peeks of some of the things that have changed and been improved in TurboLaw 2.80. We’ve also posted a list of most of the changes in one place, so you can read about them all in one place.

Although we’ve tweaked and improved almost everything in TurboLaw 2.80, you still use the software in the same way as before, so there’s no need to re-learn how to do things. Although the program looks a little bit different, many of the visual tweaks are just that – tweaks, not radical changes.

Here’s the list of what’s new or changed in this version of TurboLaw. (We’ve linked to some of the articles that were posted previously for more details if you are interested.)

TurboLaw users should receive a notification of this new update from your TurboLaw program shortly after you open it (if you have Automatic Updates turned on). If you don’t have Automatic Updates turned on, you can click the Update menu in TurboLaw and choose Check for Updates instead.

As you know, we always listen to feedback and suggestions from our customers – in fact, many of the changes in TurboLaw 2.80 are a direct result of suggestions from users! So if you have an idea or suggestion for TurboLaw, we’d love to hear from you.

We hope you enjoy TurboLaw 2.80!

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