If you are new to using lists in PracticeMaster or Tabs3 Billing, creating and using QuickViews can help save you time by filtering and sorting information just the way that you need.
QuickViews are a powerful tool that combine a Filter, Column Layout, and Sort Order. By accessing the QuickView from the Quick Clicks or from a tab at the top of the list, you can easily find the information you are looking for at the click of a button.
Watch this three-minute video here:
Training Videos can be accessed at Tabs3.com/videos. You can also access the videos while in the software by selecting Help | Training Videos.
If you need to find data in PracticeMaster based on just a word or phrase, we have you covered! There are several ways to search in PracticeMaster to find what you need.
Search Box
The search box, which is available on the List tab for all files, the Matter 
Manager, and the Graphical Calendar, can be used to quickly search for all records that contain a specific string of text in any of the fields included in the currently selected column layout. You can optionally search for different text in multiple fields at one time. You can enter text directly in the Search List field, or click the button to show a list of fields for more specific searching. If the desired field is not shown, click the Fields button for a list of all fields in the current column layout.
Conflict of Interest
PracticeMaster’s Conflict of Interest Search (Search | Conflict of Interest 
Search) provides robust searching capabilities including whole word or partial word searching and word order, phonetic searching, and record drill-down capabilities on reports.
Files searched in PracticeMaster include the Client file, Contact file, fee transactions, cost transactions, Calendar, Journal (including email records, call logs, research tasks, and phone timer records), Document Management (including linked documents), and Area of Practice files. If PracticeMaster is integrated with Tabs3, all fields in PracticeMaster that exist in both programs (such as Miscellaneous Lines in the client file), will contain information from Tabs3 in addition to existing information in PracticeMaster.
Note: A field must be marked as Include in Conflict Search in File Maintenance (Maintenance | File Maintenance) in order to be included in the Conflict of Interest Search.
Document Search
The Document Search program (Search | Document Search) is a powerful
program used to search the contents of Document Management documents, email attachments, and linked documents associated with PracticeMaster records. Although the Conflict of Interest also searches documents, the Document Search provides additional options to narrow your search to specific clients, document types, and/or users.
Searching capabilities include whole word or partial word searching; phonetic, stemming, and fuzzy searching; and record drill-down capabilities on reports.
Contact Search
The Contact Search (Search | Contact Search) helps you quickly find a 
single contact so that you can drill down to a phone number or other information for the contact. This search only looks for hits in Contact fields. Searching capabilities include partial word searching, phonetic searching, and record drill-down capabilities on reports.
Note: A field must be marked as Include in Contact Search in File Maintenance (Maintenance | File Maintenance) in order to be included in the Contact Search.
Find and Replace
On any List tab, the Find and Replace program (Edit | Find and Replace) 
can be used to find one or more records containing specific text, and optionally replace the text with a new value. You can search the current list or just highlighted records, all fields or specific fields.
Find and Replace is a quick and easy alternative to updating multiple records with the same information one by one.
Data can always be found using the various search options in PracticeMaster. Learn more about the various PracticeMaster search features in the PracticeMaster Search Guide.
We have several clients with the same client name, so searching for them brings up multiple results. Is there any way to make the search more unique?
The Name Search can be used to access client records by name. When a new matter is created, the Name Search field automatically uses the first 16 characters of the client’s name as the default value. As additional matters for the same client are created, this field will repeat the same 16 character string.
If your firm typically looks clients up by the Name Search value, you can enter a unique value into this field to make it easier to find an exact match for your search value.
To change the Name Search field
- From the File menu, point to Open and select Client.
- Select the desired Client ID.
- In the Name Search field, enter a unique name.
- Press Ctrl+S.
When using the Search box in the Client file, I click the Fields button so that I can search a specific field; however, the field I want is not listed. Why is this?
Only the fields that are included in the current column layout can be searched when using the Search box (Ctrl+E). You can add the field to your current column layout or you can switch to a column layout that does include the field such as the (default) column layout, which automatically includes all fields in the file.
To add a field to your current column layout
- From the File menu, point to Open and click Client.
- From the Column Layout group of the Quick Clicks pane, click Manage Column Layouts.
- Double-click the desired column layout.
- In the Available Fields column, select the field you want to be added to the column layout, and then click the Add button.
- Optionally use the Up and Down buttons to position the field where you want it to display in the column layout.
- Click Save, and then close the Manage Quick Clicks window.
The field will now be available to search using the Search box
I use the Document Search function in PracticeMaster to look for desired content within our saved documents. But I don’t always find what I want, due to misspellings or words having different usages than I was expecting. Is there anything I can do to make my searches more complete?
The Document Search function has three Search Options that can help by making the search less precise. The more literal a search is, the more things like misspellings can be missed.
The three Search Options in the Document Search are as follows:
- Phonetic Search (Sounds like) – This option helps find words in your documents that don’t match your search values letter for letter. Phonetic searching essentially reduces each word to a phonetic syllable or groups of syllables in both your search values and the information in the files. This will increase the number of hits your search will find, but has the downside of likely finding hits that do not match what you’re looking for.
- Stemming (Grammatically similar phrase) – This option helps find words with similar endings. For example, the word “Supply” could also be found as “Supplied,” “Supplies,” and “Supplying”.
- Fuzzy Search (Common misspellings) – This option helps compensate for common typographical errors and misspellings (i.e., misspelled variations of the words). This option is paired with a Fuzziness Level (1-5) setting, which controls the degree to which misspelled words are included. A fuzziness level of 1 would be minor misspellings whereas 5 would be words with greater differences.
Using any of these options can help to increase your search to find words and phrases that you may have been missing!
If you need to find data in PracticeMaster based on just a word or phrase, we have you covered! There are several ways to search in PracticeMaster to find what you need.
Search Box
The search box, which is available on the List tab for 
all files, the Matter Manager, and the Graphical Calendar, can be used to quickly search for all records that contain a specific string of text in any of the fields included in the currently selected column layout. You can optionally search for different text in multiple fields at one time. You can enter text directly in the Search List field, or click the 
button to show a list of fields for more specific searching. If the desired field is not shown, click the Fields button for a list of all fields in the current column layout.
Conflict of Interest
PracticeMaster’s Conflict of Interest Search (Search | Conflict of Interest Search) provides
robust searching capabilities including whole word or partial word searching and word order, phonetic searching, and record drill-down capabilities on reports.
Files searched in PracticeMaster include the Client file, Contact file, fee transactions, cost transactions, Calendar, Journal, Document Management, and Area of Practice files, which include e-mail records, call logs, research tasks, and phone timer records. If PracticeMaster is integrated with Tabs3, all fields in PracticeMaster that exist in both programs (such as Miscellaneous Lines in the client file), will contain information from Tabs3 in addition to existing information in PracticeMaster.
Note: A field must be marked as Include in Conflict Search in File Maintenance (Maintenance | File Maintenance) in order to be included in the Conflict of Interest Search.
Document Search
The Document Search program (Search | Document Search) is a powerful program used to 
search the contents of Document Management documents, e-mail attachments, and linked documents associated with PracticeMaster records.
Searching capabilities including whole word or partial word searching; phonetic, stemming, and fuzzy searching; and record drill-down capabilities on reports. Additionally, you can narrow your search to specific dates, clients, document types, and/or users.
Contact Search
The Contact Search (Search | Contact Search) lets you quickly find a single contact so that 
you can drill down to a phone number or other information for the contact. Searching capabilities including partial word searching, phonetic searching, and record drill-down capabilities on reports.
Note: A field must be marked as Include in Contact Search in File Maintenance (Maintenance | File Maintenance) in order to be included in the Contact Search.
Find and Replace
On any List tab, the Find and Replace program (Edit | Find and Replace) can be used to 
find one or more records containing specific text, and optionally replace the text with a new value. You can search the current list or just highlighted records, all fields or specific fields.
Find and Replace is a quick and easy alternative to updating multiple records with the same information one by one.
Data can always be found using the various search options in PracticeMaster. Learn more about the various PracticeMaster search features in the PracticeMaster Search Guide.
When PracticeMaster performs a conflict of interest search, contact search, or document search, it searches the applicable index files for valid matches. Search Settings (Search | Search Settings) provide the ability to specify how and if indexes are updated, to rebuild indexes, and to specify words to be excluded from a search.
When accessing Search Settings, there are three tabs: Index Properties, Rebuild Index, and Exclude List.
Note: Search Settings are an Exclusive Function, which means that all active tasks by any user must be closed before Search Settings can be accessed.
Index Properties
To be included in a search, a field/file must be “indexed.” On the Index Properties tab, you have the option of selecting how to handle updating the Conflict/Contact Index, E-mail Attachments Index, and the Linked Documents Index.
- Selecting Automatic will update the index whenever records are added or changed.
- Selecting Manual will only update the index when the Rebuild Index program is run.
- Selecting Disable will disable search capabilities for that index.
The accuracy of PracticeMaster’s search programs is dependent on the accuracy of the index files. We recommend using the Automatic setting to help ensure you have the most accurate index files, and therefore the most accurate search results.
Note: Changes made to a linked document are not automatically incorporated into the Linked Documents Index, even if it is set to Automatic. To incorporate changes to linked documents, you can update the index by manually rebuilding the Linked Documents Index, or by using a special startup option to manually rebuild the linked documents index file after hours (recommended). Alternatively, any changes made to the document management record itself, such as a change to a field, will automatically update the index.
When selecting Manual, it is recommended that you schedule times to rebuild the indexes.
Rebuild Index
Rebuilding an index updates Manual indexes, optimizes Automatic indexes, and optionally removes deleted records from the indexes. If you want to rebuild indexes, select the desired indexes and click the Rebuild Now button.
Although rebuilding the Conflict/Contact Index requires Exclusive access to the software in order to run, the E-mail Attachments and Linked Documents indexes can be rebuilt while users are working via a startup option. For more information on rebuilding indexes via a startup option, see Knowledge Base Article R11659, “Rebuilding the PracticeMaster Search Index Files.”
Exclude List
The Exclude List tab provides a list of words that are excluded from all searches. For example, if the words a, of, and the are in the Exclude List, running a search with those words in it will display a message that the words will be excluded from the search. This list can be edited via the Add Word and Delete Word buttons.
Make sure to take a moment and review your Search Settings to ensure your conflict of interest, contact, and document searches are optimized for your firm.
As you know, one of the greatest features of our online newsletter format is that you can search our entire newsletter archive for quick tips, Q&As, and other helpful articles.
If your results are not what you expected, then try our top five tips for getting the most out of your search:
- Use quotation marks for exact phrases
- If you want more specific results for a certain phrase, then enter that phrase in quotes so the results will only include articles with the same words in the same order. For example, searching for practice management could return 19 results, while searching for “practice management” could return 2 results.
- Do not use common words and punctuation
- Try not to use common words (e.g., a, and) and contractions (e.g., do not instead of don’t, cannot instead of can’t) as they can limit your search results.
- Do not worry about capitalization
- Search engines disregard capitalization, so whether you search for print, Print, or PRINT, they will all return the same results.
- Drop the suffixes
- It’s best to enter the base word so that you don’t exclude relative pages. For example, client and not clients, vendor and not vendors.
- Use keywords strategically
- Search engines do not read sentences the way people do. Asking questions in the search, such as “How do I print statements,” will not receive great results, whereas searching for “print statements” will provide better and more relevant hits.
If you can’t find what you’re searching for, send us an e-mail at newsletter@tabs3.com to submit your idea for a future article!
As a company, we take great pride in the documentation we provide for our software. There are multiple resources for finding information about how the software works. The following provides information on the various documentation resources, including how to access them and the primary uses for each resource.
Help Files
While in the software, Help can be accessed via 
, F1, or Help | Help Topics. Help files provide topics on the following:
- Field by field information on the program, including any potential limitations
- General procedures
- Quick links to Knowledge Base Articles, Guides, Report Packs, and Training Videos
There are multiple ways to find information in the Help:
- Opening the help will open a Help topic for the specific window that is currently open. For example, let’s say you are on the Setup tab of the Client file, and you want to find out more information about how to set up Fee Compensation Rules. Pressing F1 will open the Help topic specifically for the Setup tab of the Client file. From here, click the Fee Compensation Rules link to start reading about how this option is set up.
- The Contents tab on the Help window can be used to find information grouped by subject. For example, in the PracticeMaster Help, the Contents tab provides expandable sections on Data Entry, Calendar, Journal, Reports, Documents, File Maintenance, and more.
- The Index tab on the Help window can be used to jump to topic keywords. For example, let’s say you are in General Ledger Software and want more information on reconciling your bank statement. On the Index tab, enter “reconciliation” and multiple topics will be listed to choose from.
- The Search tab on the Help window can be used for more finite searches, such as words or phrases that do not have a keyword. Optionally use quotes to search for an exact phrase and/or select the check boxes at the bottom of the pane to Search previous results, Match similar words, or Search titles only.
- Use the Favorites tab on the Help window to bookmark Help topics you may visit frequently.
Knowledge Base
The Knowledge Base can be accessed from within the software via Help | Internet Resources | Knowledge Base or at support.Tabs3.com. The Knowledge Base provides articles on the following:
- Overviews
- Best Practices
- “How to” articles
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Troubleshooting specific scenarios
- Troubleshooting errors
- More in-depth information on various features
Like the Help, the Knowledge Base contains Contents, Index, and Search tabs to help you find exactly what you need. However, the Search tab in the Knowledge Base can be used to Search by Article ID or Search all Text. Use a Search Type of exact phrase, all of the words, or any of the words. There are close to 800 Knowledge Base Articles.
Quick Guides
Guides can be accessed via Help | Documentation, or at Tabs3.com/docs. Quick Guides spotlight basic information on specific features and range from 3 to 9 pages.
Guides
Guides can be accessed via Help | Documentation, or at Tabs3.com/docs. Guides provide the following:
- Detailed information on various features
- Basic software setup
- Various procedures
Guides range from 11 to 103 pages. There are more than 25 Guides, including Quick Guides.
Report Packs
Report packs can be accessed via the 
icon in the Help topic, via Help | Documentation, or at Tabs3.com/docs. Report packs provide the following:
- Purpose of each report
- How fields on reports are calculated
- Examples of reports
Report packs range from 39 to 164 pages.
Tip: You can use KB Article R11697, “Report Finder: Info in Tabs3 Reports,” to help determine which report will suit your needs.
Training Videos
Training Videos can be accessed via the 
icon in the Help topic, via Help | Training Videos, or at Tabs3.com/videos. Training Videos provide audiovisual tutorials of specific software features. There are more than 110 training videos. Videos are available for Tabs3 Billing and PracticeMaster and range from 1 to 20 minutes.
Over the next few months, we will go through some of the best features of our new online newsletter format. This month, we’re going to walk you through how to search for topics.
To search for articles
- On the rightmost side of any page on the Newsletter site, enter your search term in the “Search the site” box.
- Click
, or press Enter.
The results of your search will be shown with an indicator of how many articles include that word or phrase.
If you want more specific results for a certain phrase, then enter that phrase in quotes so the results will only include articles with the same words in the same order. For example, searching for practice management could return 19 results, while searching for “practice management” could return 1 result.
If you can’t find what you’re searching for, send us an e-mail at newsletter@tabs3.com to submit your idea for a future article!
You already know how important it is to check for conflicts of interest in your practice. You are probably already using PracticeMaster’s Conflict of Interest Search, but are you taking full advantage of all of the features?
Conflicts of interest can greatly impact how a firm can operate; therefore, it is important that firms implement specific guidelines regarding when conflict checking must be performed. At the minimum, a conflict search is typically run before taking on a new client or matter, and when a new attorney, paralegal, or other employee joins the firm.
Take the time to review Knowledge Base Article R11445, “Using the PracticeMaster Conflict of Interest Search.” This article provides information on what conflicts and conflict searches are, how to run a conflict search, what the different fields on the Conflict of Interest Search window are, how to customize what shows on the Conflict Report, how to create and search a database of prior conflicts, tips and examples, frequently asked questions, and troubleshooting.
Make sure you don’t miss a conflict. Having firm members review conflict of interest guidelines on a regular basis, including how to use PracticeMaster’s Conflict of Interest Search, helps maintain your firm’s impartiality on every matter.
Our Knowledge Base can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at support.Tabs3.com. You can also access our Knowledge Base while in the software by selecting Help | Internet Resources | Knowledge Base.