Case Management

My Daylite Dilemma

January 19, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

One of the mildy ironic things about blogging is that there’s so little time to blog. I want to keep the focus on the transition from Macs to Windows, but I don’t want to do it piecemeal. So when I get to this stage of the journey, where it’s time to consider the Mac alternatives to Timematters, it’s not a few paragraphs, a sip of Coke and back to the practice. It takes time to say all that needs to be said, and when the days stretch into weeks, there’s an insidious pressure that begins building to put something out there. That can steal the joy of writing. So I’ve resisted putting something up for the sake of filling space.

There’s also the reality of actually practicing law. Clients always come first, and the last few weeks have been pretty busy. So the blogging has been pretty sparse. Of course, a lot has been happening what with the keynote at Macworld Expo his week, introducing all the new gear and the upgrades to existing stuff. Lots to think about, but I’ve got to keep my focus on the task at hand.

Which brings me to Daylite. This is not a review of Daylite so much as a lament.

You’ll recall we’ve looked at the six principles of an integrated practice, compared how our current office configuration stacks up against those principles and found that in many ways, we’re doing fine. Timematters, despite its quirky interface and glacial network speed, really does work. You can do some very nice things with it, given the time and inclination. And since Timematters is the hub around which my practice revolves, I need something on the Mac side that has a comparable feature set. So I’ve been looking at Daylite 3.6 off and on for the past month.

But as I’ve demo’d Daylite, I’ve come to realize that there are big obstacles on my way to the Lonely Mountain. I guess I started out with the belief that Mac software was further along that it actually is, at least with regard to case management software. Sadly, there isn’t a practice management package for the Mac that comes close to the power of Timematters. That’s what I lament. It’s not that Daylite is so bad, it’s that there’s nothing better, nothing that really would make it easy for solos and small practice attorneys to leave the frustrations of Windows for all that Mac goodness.

Several lawyers have reviewed the basic features of Daylite (see Ben Stevens and Jeffrey Kabbe for recent examples) so I won’t plow that field again. In this post, I’ll focus on a few things that Daylite doesn’t do that it needs to do to become a serious player in the practice management arena. It feels presumptuous saying that, but integration, especially the ability to merge case data with wordprocessing documents, is such an obvious thing to make any kind of practice more efficient, I don’t know why it isn’t discussed more on the various Mac law outposts.

Daylite does many things quite well. It’s linking features, use of categories and keywords and smart lists, and it’s integrated e-mail system all seem to work as advertised (sync features excepted). It would be easy enough to modify to use in a Social Security or Worker’s Compensation practice. During my trial period, I never got to test it over a network. I wish I had had the time. Still, the basic building blocks of a solid practice management system seem to be in place. And it looks good. So what does it lack? Here’s a quick list:

1. Robust merge capability. DL does not provide a ready-for-prime-time merge capability, even with Microsoft Word. Its built-in editor, while faster, stores all its output in the database, which would probably create a big drag on the system over time, particularly over a network. it’s built-in editor doesn’t make custom form data fields available for use in a merge template, nor does it handle multi-page merges. Without a more robust merge integration capability, DL is really hurting. I’ll be very interested to learn if Word 2008 (now coded for intel macs) handles merges better

2. Single pane summary of all relevant project data. DL doesn’t provide the ability to get a single-screen overview of a case the way Timematters does. Timematters uses a thing called a Powerview to display any data in the TM database in a single HTML window. Daylite has something called a HUD (a heads-up display) which also extracts data from the DL database. The big difference is that the HUD only displays the default data from the program, and usually a subset of that data. Not TM. You can build really complex powerviews if you have a basic understanding of HTML. It’s much more difficult to create HUDs. A much greater facility with programming language is required.

With TM, I have all the information I need to answer a phone call and be up to speed on the status of the case within seconds, without hunting down a file or drilling down several menus. In DL, this same information resides in several windows, not all of which can be displayed simultaneously. And of course, the display of that information is determined by DL; there isn’t any customization. Because none of DL’s default views can be customized, the only way to get the TM overview is to create a customized HUD. I have some ideas about how to do this, but when I upgraded to Daylite 3.7 today, Daylite crashes on opening. I’ve sent in an e-mail for help but it’s Saturday afternoon, and Marketcircle’s website says they’ll try to get back to an e-mail support request within 2-4 days. Agra Sangria! Could be the middle of next week before I’ll know if I can get 3.7 to run. Hopefully, we’ll get it fixed and then I’ll be able to play around with the HUD. If it works, I’ll try to record a little demo of how it works.

3. Lack of customizable data entry forms. As mentioned above, DL lacks any way of customizing the data entry forms and some of the terminology DL uses. So, for example, a project cannot be renamed a case. But you can name a smartlist whatever you like so it’s not too big a deal. Not a deal breaker, just a disappointment. By comparison, TM has scores of customizable fields, numerous ways to customize data entry forms, and all the data is readily available for merging with Word or Wordperfect.

4. Lack of a way to customize the display of data within the program. This is a more serious issue. Daylite provides 12 extra text fields and four extra data fields per contact or project. But this information cannot be displayed in a list view. Daylite also provides a way to create custom forms with different kinds of data fields (text, date, etc.) but the data in these forms is displayed in two columns—a column of labels and a column of data. No way to customize the display. And no way to use the data in external (and perhaps internal) merge forms. So if you want to get your data out of Daylite and into a form letter, you can’t. It’s trapped in the database.

5. Lack of documentation. It’s entirely possible that the last sentence in the paragraph above is incorrect. But there’s no easy way to find out. The lack of documentation about merge matters is itself problematic. There are likely more merge keys than meet the eye. Some of the power users on the MarketCircle forums have discovered data fields that can be used in various places. Good luck finding that info yourself. MarketCircle could help themselves by doing a better job of documenting existing features.

Even if I had the time and smarts to create a HUD that duplicates TM’s powerview, I’m still left with another significant problem—merging data into Social Security forms. (Okay, this last issue is not a DL issue per se so I won’t put it on the list.) If there were a way to convert a PDF doc–SS forms are available on the ssa.gov website in PDF format–into an HTML doc that retained all the formatting, then there might be a solution to the dilemma. My current SSA forms are optimized for WordPerfect, and execute flawless merges. I’m wondering if it’s possible to save an image of the PDF and use it as a watermark in a Word 2008 template. Perhaps I could locate the merge fields over the appropriate boxes on the watermark image. I’m hoping that Word 2008 will provide something like that.

So that’s a quick rundown of my Daylite Dilemma. I can get data into the program, but I can’t get it out via merges. I can display some data in the program but not in the way I want. And I can’t display all data relevant to a single case in a single window. The biggest of these problems is the merging issue. I’m optimistic that I can figure out the HUD issue, so in a strange way, that gives me hope that I can solve the merge problems. Time will tell, but in the short term, I have no way to test my ideas because 3.7 refuses to run.

There’s much more to say, but I’ll stop for now. In my last post, I mentioned that you CAN manage your practice without practice management software. All these Daylite issues have given me some ideas about how to create better workflows with a kind of hybrid approach using practice management software and some of the functionality built into OSX. I’ll likely write more about that in the months to come.

For now, Cheers!