Latest product news

News on the latest Axxia intake, the support team’s new ‘remote rescue’ service and the launch of a next generation reporting solution

• As Axxia enjoys a record quarter for client upgrades, a significant dna* inspired increase in tenders and Requests for Information plus one of the busiest development periods in the company’s history, the UK’s largest legal IT supplier has announced a number of new appointments.
  
  Liz Tipper joins Andy Jones in the business development team, focusing on private practice with Andy dedicated to the public sector. The extra resource comes as enquiries, demonstrations and proposals for the dna* business management system grow month on month.
  
  The Support team has been boosted by the arrival of three new staff: Wael Karkach and George Patterson join the Applications team specialising in the Axxia Desktop products and Jacqueline Remy joins the Technical team to assist with reporting solutions.
  
  On the back of some very positive comments from the National User Group regarding Axxia’s project management offering, the team has been further strengthened by the addition of Dominic Brown. Dominic has extensive experience within the legal technology arena. He joins us from Eversheds where he was employed as a Project Manager/Analyst involved in several major project rollouts, and has a strong knowledge of Case and PMS systems.
  
  Commenting on the new arrivals, managing director Stuart Holden said, “While much of the industry has been concentrating on the recent consolidation that has been going on, we have been quietly getting on with the job in hand. Gearing up to meet the various challenges of multiple upgrade projects, buoyant sales activity and a highly productive development team has been one of our key tasks in recent months – judging from our own experiences, this is one of the most dynamic phases for the industry in recent memory and it’s likely to continue as the dna* momentum builds.”

• With over 20,000 daily users of its software, Axxia Systems has one of the largest support operations of any supplier in the UK legal technology market. It has just reported on the conclusion of a six month pilot project to test the effectiveness of a new remote PC administration tool – and the results have been impressive.
  
  LogMeinRescue allows Axxia analysts to ‘see’ and work within a user’s Desktop environment as if they were actually present - without the need for any client-end software. Access is via the Internet with entry permissions granted by the user – once the initialisation process is complete, the user is free to go off and leave the analyst to resolve the problem. It is estimated that one in four calls now use this remote diagnosis/fix facility, which is impacting positively on call durations and client uptime figures.
  
  Support director Barry Robson comments: “Being able to see the fault for oneself, rather than having to rely on a description or getting the user to replicate the problem and report back on error messages, means that we can get straight down to a fix while the client can spend his or her time far more productively. In a few serious instances, it’s even negated the need for an engineer to attend site, helping avoid lengthy disruptions to ‘normal service’.”
  
  The approach has been welcomed by users, with user group chairman Jill Wiseman keen to praise the initiative. “Analysts’ ability to come in and take control is like having your own dedicated on-site engineer. It avoids the sometimes frustrating parts of call logging for both Axxia and the client – the telephone tennis, the lengthy fault report discussions, the to and fro of suggested fixes and feedback. Instead, you get someone immediately on the case analysing the issue and remedying the problem there and then – leaving you free to get on with other things.”

• Axxia Systems has announced the launch of a new reporting application following a third party tie-up with specialist Cranes Software UK Limited. The iCapella reporting and decision support solution has been fully integrated into the existing Axxia product set, and with the additional porting over of the Axxia knowledge base, users are guaranteed a smooth transition from the current Eureka platform.
  
  iCapella was selected on the basis of its user-friendliness and rich functionality, features that Axxia believes will deliver key benefits to its clients. Tools such as personal dashboards, data filtering, multiple distribution options and multiple data sources will improve levels of flexibility and efficiency in what is a key practice discipline.
  
  Commenting on the selection of iCapella, managing director Stuart Holden said, “Here’s an intuitive application that combines breadth of data source, ease of report creation, clarity of presentation and choice of distribution method to deliver better quality information more quickly and more cost-effectively. That’s exactly what our users need and that’s why Cranes had nearly thirty expressions of interest when they exhibited at our recent AGM. This is next generation reporting and fits very well within our philosophy of providing best of breed in one unified whole.”
  
  iCapella offers a number of key features and advantages:

• Enterprise-wide data and all system access, providing clients with the facility to access firm-wide data and allowing them to bring together all system information onto one consolidated Dashboard.

• Personalized information delivery, enabling users to create one report, load it to the dashboard and schedule it once; whenever an individual user logs-in to view the report they will only see their own data, securely filtered, in the report.
  

• The ability to distribute information in any preferred format, including via Email, SMS, PDA, WAP, Desktop alerter

• Personal Dashboard, allowing users to create their own views in a little under 10 clicks. From the Dashboard one has unlimited drill down to transactional data, plus the ability to add notes, email reports and change the appearance of the dashboard
  

• The Axxia Knowledge base can be used with the report writer. Thus providing you with the ability to develop reports and queries directly form the Axxia System without any knowledge of the tables, joins or field names.
  

• Easy to use Report Writer with all the pre requisite wizards to enable users to create reports with full drill down capability
  
  iCapella’s Dave Donovan is clear about the product’s appeal. “Today’s law firm uses ever more management reporting and business intelligence to support its business going forward. They want something that can consolidate system data and personalise information delivery across their organization quickly and effortlessly – iCapella ticks all those boxes.”
  

Published on: 25-11-2006