Advanced Search

Whether you’re managing millions or “only” thousands of documents one thing is for certain: It’s all about the search. Nextpoint continues to invest in that belief with the introduction of “Advanced Search” (to be released in the next week).

Our new Advanced Search tool will guide you through the process of building more powerful queries while simultaneously providing you with the know-how to build the queries in the “standard” search box.

We’ve further enhanced search capabilities inside specific sections (Documents, Depositions, Transcripts). Section-specific Advanced Search will be available as well as the ability to transfer results between ‘Search’ and the specific sections.

Of course, as with any enhancements to your Nextpoint software there’s no waiting for your IT department to install patches and upgrade components. Just check back early next week and the functionality will be there waiting for you to try it out!

Why price in pages?

Ben and I have been working through pricing both for our trial and discovery products. We price by the page. Some people are asking us why we don’t price by the GB or file size.

The simple answer is we do more than just host. Once we get an image, there are multiple pre-processing steps that happen that in essence, expand the file size. For each tif or pdf, we generate additional files.

Why? Better performance. Pricing models that work by file size for storage incentivize the wrong thing, which is cutting the amount of storage used. At this point, storage is the least expensive input. Double your file size to double your performance? Great dea Clients don’t want to “pay” for more storage, and vendors don’t want to “eat” storage costs.

We look at pages. It’s granular and it makes sense. We will prices processing by the GB, and we’re figuring out a smarter way to do it than just by the filesize. There are significant problems with using file size as a cost basis. Here’s an interesting article by Craig Ball “exploding” the file size myth.

It’s another instance of where hype and confusion reign over common sense and open communication.

What’s New in Nextpoint

We’ll be releasing some significant improvements and additions to Nextpoint this upcoming weekend. As always, no upgrades or changes are required for our users. Just login anytime after the release and you’ll be greeted by a great new interface and numerous enhancements.

Here are some of the highlighted changes:

• We’ve updated the look and feel of the application. In addition to improving the overall design, we wanted to create as much room as possible for displaying the guts of the product. The result is sharp and efficient.
• Navigation has been restructured a bit to make it as easy as possible to get to high traffic portions of Nextpoint. Other valued, but less frequented items are under the more tab.
• We’ve added a persistent search box to the header so that searching your evidence, calendar, blog, and files is always readily available.
• There is a new streamlined mobile interface for Nextpoint that makes it unbelievably simple to search all evidence from any internet capable mobile device and get docs and transcripts sent directly to your mobile inbox.
• We’ve enhanced search to include statistics of matched pages and total page counts. We’ve also added related results from the case calendar, files, and blog.
• You can now import and export events from the calendar using the standardized iCal format. If you use Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple iCal or just about any other calendaring software you’ll be able to import/export between Nextpoint and your local calendar.
• We’ve changed the name of our Messages functionality to Blogs. And in doing so included a secure RSS feed for posts. Due to the highly sensitive nature of all communication and data in Nextpoint, you’ll need to use an RSS client that supports secured feeds such as Outlook.

We hope you like all the changes in Nextpoint. Get in touch if you have any questions or would like more details at support@nextpoint.com.

Update: This is live functionality in the Nextpoint application as of May 17th.

Customer Service

A couple of months back, I needed to send in my monitor to have it’s DVI fixed. Analog worked fine… just not the digital. 3-4 days to get there + 1-2 to get processed + 10-15 days “in repair” + 3-4 days back. Suddenly you’ve added up to almost a month

When the monitor got home (via Chicago) I was excited to be back up and running. Got everything unpacked… ready to rock… and… nothing. They hadn’t fixed anything. Turned out they’d accidentally written down that my problem was the monitor wasn’t able to power on. So, when it finally did get “in repair” they plugged it in, concluded I was an idiot, and shipped it back.

That stinks. A month without it and all I can do is wait on the phone (again) to figure out what needs to happen (again). Ship it back (again). Wait (again). Finally, two months later, they shipped a brand new monitor that couldn’t possibly have trouble. Oops, they shipped me a different (and inferior) model. This one doesn’t even have a DVI hookup…

And… repeat.

This is exactly why Nextpoint believes in making highly knowledgeable support 100% accessible. Not only is every single person in the company completely capable of answering support questions… every single person in the company is available to answer your questions. Have a highly technical question that would best be asked of one of Nextpoint’s engineers - not a problem, we’ll put you in direct contact.

How would my monitor situation have been handled by Nextpoint? Most likely we wouldn’t have written down the wrong issue in the first place. Worst case though, we would have unpacked the monitor and noticed that we could power it on - you would then have been contacted to get to the bottom of things and we’d have it taken care of - end of story

A Guide to User Permissions

Not surprisingly, a primary advantage of Nextpoint as a web-based application is its ability to allow multiple users access to case materials from any location with an internet connection. This fosters collaboration between users and allows everyone access to the latest version of documents. Oftentimes, our customers set up cases with a number of users who all have different roles in the litigation- paralegals, lead attorneys, IT team, and even their own clients- but don’t necessarily want to allow all users access to the high level functionality. To resolve this, Nextpoint offers customers the opportunity to set permissions levels for case users.

The three user levels on Nextpoint are Basic, Standard, and Advanced. Generally speaking, a Basic user may view and search documents, but does not have the ability to make edits; a Standard user possesses the ability to edit, but cannot delete documents; and an Advanced user has access to the full capabilities of Nextpoint, including “trashing” and deleting documents. A full outline of user permissions can be found in the Nextpoint User Permissions Guide on Nextpoint Support.

User can select permissions levels upon the creation of a Nextpoint case, and they can be altered at any time by emailing account@nextpoint.com.

Nextpoint Mobile Preview

We’re gearing up to release a simplified and fast mobile interface for Nextpoint. Users will be able to search all of their evidence and send selected documents and/or transcripts directly to their mobile inbox. Once it’s released just point your mobile browser at Nextpoint and you’ll be ready to go… no installations or configurations necessary. Our primary focus was on the Blackberry and iPhone devices, but you’ll be in great shape on Windows Mobile or any device with the Opera Mobile browser. Keep your eye out for the official release of the Nextpoint mobile interface and in the mean time checkout this iPhone demo.

from vimeo.com posted with vodpod

Web-Powered Litigation…from 30,000 feet

We knew it was only a matter of time- but it looks like that time is now. Last week, a company called Aircell announced the completion of a nationwide wireless network that would give broadband access to commercial airline passengers. Using the internet service Gogo, passengers will receive full internet capability, including VPN access, corporate email, and, of course, web-browsing. Aircell has secured agreements with American Airlines and Virgin America, with selected flights receiving service as early as June, and others following suit by the end of the year.

For Nextpoint users, the advantages are obvious. But this breakthrough has further-reaching implications than the mere convenience factor. In-flight internet is only a foreshadowing of things yet to come. The world is going web. And Nextpoint will be right alongside cheering it on.

The Low-down on Exporting

Every once in a while during a demo, I’ll hear from an attorney that he or she wants the ability to export documents, either to work on locally or to use with another application. While we here at Nextpoint enjoy touting the benefits of keeping things on the web, we realize that this desire exists and have structured Nextpoint with this idea in mind.

Currently, Nextpoint features two options for exporting. Most obviously, users may export a single document as a PDF by simply clicking the icon to the right of any document in a search population. This makes it nice if you have a few documents you’d like to print or access on your local drive.

Taking it a step further, users can also bulk export documents for use with other applications. This is done by selecting the documents and exporting either a load list, which will give you only the load file, or zip file, which includes both the load file and the corresponding single page TIF images. Users can select from exporting as OLL, DAT, or XML files, recognized industry formats that can be easily uploaded into other applications such as TrialDirector or Concordance. This capability in Nextpoint allows users to work seamlessly across multiple trial preparation programs.

But wait, there’s more. Coming soon, Nextpoint will offer users the ability to bulk export PDF files. In the next release, users will find a “Files” option under the Export menu in the top of the Documents section. Here, users may opt to export the documents with cover pages detailing each document’s coding that print before each. Users can even choose to export the documents separately by exhibit or as a continuous PDF, which makes large printing jobs easy.

Whether you’re exporting for purposes of printing, local save, or use with another program, Nextpoint has the bases covered.

On Tap: More of a Great Thing

Lately we’ve taken a bit of a step back to look at how we can streamline Nextpoint to make sure you’re getting exactly what you want: A tool that is incredibly good at helping you organize and prepare your evidence.

The most important step in your preparation is gathering up all the pertinent data in one place. It’s Search. Find what I want. A simple idea with a very tough implementation, but it just so happens to be our specialty. Nextpoint has always had search at it’s core: The tool was built from our belief that your evidence should never be more than a couple keywords away.

Look for our ever-present behind-the-scenes focus on search to be brought forward and granted some key real estate in the coming months. We will make searches easier to conduct while also improving the way that you work with results.

Nextpoint Support Up and Running

We here at Nextpoint have been working on beefing up our customer support features and have rolled out our brand new Nextpoint Support site. The site features user forums, online support request submission, and information to contact customer support via email and our 24-hour service line. A link to customer support can be found on the Nextpoint site, and all new Nextpoint users are automatically registered for access.

Besides using Nextpoint Support for end-users, we’re looking to migrate our internal support process over to this system as well. Our goal is to run all internal requests for support through the site so that they might be easily tracked and efficiently handled. In turn, we’ll use this information, as well as the answered requests from end-users, to populate the user forums, so that common questions can be answered at a glance.

We look forward to maintaining a more efficient internal support system, as well as providing first-class support to our customers.