This release is scheduled to go live at midnight on Saturday, March 21, 2020.

If you are an administrator, notify your timekeepers of the change.  After the upgrade you may choose to enable/disable features such as Temporary Matters or TimeScore by visiting the iTimekeep Portal, Configure iTimekeep.  Also if you would like to enable features that require an updated iTimekeep Connector, contact the Aderant iTimekeep Support team.  If you are a timekeeper, enable automatic updates on your mobile device, or update your app after the release takes place. That’s it! No other action is required.

Encourage them to enable automatic updates or have them visit the App Store or Play Store from their device to download the latest version after it goes live. Desktop changes go live automatically.  For users that are already logged into iTimekeep a refresh or reload of the browser window will be required to see the latest changes.

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Updating Mobile Applications

It’s a great idea to spread the word about the great new capabilities for timekeepers to take advantage of! Everything they’ll need to know about the new features is here for you to share in this communication template.

Oftentimes a timekeeper may be ready to start working and entering time on a matter, but the intake process is not yet complete, and the final matter number is not yet available.  Instead of manually tracking this time or recording time to a non-billable matter, timekeepers now have the ability to immediately create a temporary matter at the same time a new timecard is created so this time can be accurately tracked and submitted once available.

Temporary matters can be used in any draft timecard while waiting to obtain the final matter information.  Once ready to assign all the timecards from a given temporary matter to the final matter, just convert the temporary matter to the actual one and all entries will be automatically transferred. Once all entries are transferred to the new matter, the temporary one is no longer available, avoiding unnecessary clutter.

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Working with Temporary Matters

In the portal, go to the hamburger menu and select “Configure iTimekeep.” Under the “Firm Defaults” tab, find “Temporary Matters Settings.” Simply select the box for “Allow Temporary Matter Creation.” That’s it! Now your timekeepers can take advantage of this useful new feature.

Today’s timekeepers have different ways to submit and release time into the firm’s Time & Billing system. Some timekeepers may want to release one entry at a time, others one full day or week, or simply hand pick the entries to be submitted or released.

iTimekeep makes it easier and quicker to select entries for a given time period that you want to submit or release. Multiple timecards can be selected at one time for the purposes of a mass submission or release.  Do you want to see everything that is waiting to be released? Simply apply a filter, select all entries and release. It’s that simple!

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Multiselect Timecards to Submit Time

The Submit and Release actions can be performed on one or more selected timecards.

In the My Time list of timecards the Submit and Release actions are only available once one or more timecards have been selected using the checkbox associated with the timecard.

Find the matter you need, simpler and faster.  iTimekeep is known for how quick and fast you can find a matter and start entering time right away but we continue to find ways to simplify this further so lawyers can more rapidly access their matters to streamline entry.

The intuitive and modern search experience in iTimekeep has been enhanced so that you can now type any words, in any order, that are contained in the matter or client (e.g. name, number, description) and immediately you will be presented with a list of the matters matching that criteria.

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Client Matter Enhanced Search

To utilize the new Client/Matter Enhanced Search contact Aderant Support to coordinate the search query update that is required.

As a new iTimekeep user you might wonder how to differentiate a timecard that is a draft, from one that has been just submitted, or one that was released in the Time & Billing system.  Timecards have a lifecycle that goes through several stages in both iTimekeep and the firm’s Time & Billing system from initial entry through to being billed.

iTimekeep now uses icons and tooltips so you can quickly identify the current status of a timecard throughout its lifecycle.  Draft entries have a paper and pencil icon, unreleased submitted entries show a diskette, released entries are greyed out showing a lock icon since they are un-editable and released (editable) entries display an open lock icon.

In Mobile or desktop, the user experience is consistent, showing the above-mentioned icons to easily explain the current timecard status.

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Timecard Status Indicators

Within a law firm, the billing cycle can be long, largely due to the editing that takes place on a prebill.  Providing the ability to edit Timecards up to the point that they are gathered onto a prebill promotes early editing by the timekeeper or legal assistant, helping to reduce the billing cycle and faster distribution of the final bill to the client.

This feature is only available for firms using specific Time & Billing systems.  Editing of Released Timecards is currently only available for Aderant Expert, Elite Enterprise and Elite 3E. This feature also requires an update to iTimekeep Connect (previously Bellefield Connect).  Contact your administrator or Aderant Support for this update.

With this latest release firm administrators now have additional flexibility to enable or disable the iTimekeep TimeScore feature. This will impact the display of the TimeScore throughout iTimekeep – for example, in the Dashboard view. To enable/disable the TimeScore by visiting the iTimekeep Portal, Configure iTimekeep.

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TimeScore

Find anything in OCG Live with supercharged global search.  As the complexity of OCGs and their management rapidly increases, we realize it is very important for users to quickly search and find anything across Guidelines and Rules.

The new global search of OCG Live allows the firm OCG administrators to find any guidelines, rules, actions, applies to (guideline filters), summary data or documents by just typing any search words. Search results present a list with all the appropriate matches found, grouped by category (i.e. guidelines, rules, actions, applies to, summaries or documents), with a link to quickly open the item for your review.   You may also choose to open all results within a particular category, or in general, so that these can be reviewed more closely.

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Global Search

Enhanced reporting to be in greater control of all OCG validations.  Reporting on OCG violations is key to compliance and is critical to control client rejections and reductions throughout the approval and payment cycles.

You can now report on OCG violations, for any time frame, and aggregate all results into one view comprising all violations – including by timekeeper, on any given day within the timeframe.  Additionally, users can customize and save the Violations Report “view” to display the report columns of interest to the user. Once the template is saved, it can become the user’s preferred default violations reporting view.

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OCG Violations Report

Attorneys are required to comply with client guidelines every day, but often they are in the dark about what’s expected.  Live Summaries & Acknowledgement within OCG Live brings attorneys into compliance as soon as they start working for a client.

OCG Live will engage with the attorneys and present just the information that they need to know or actions they need to take, rather than overwhelming them with the entire set of guidelines, which often contains non-attorney relevant information.

To bring compliance to the next level, the firm can request the acknowledgement receipt to confirm attorneys have read and acknowledged the summarized version of the guidelines.

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Working with Guideline Summaries