Lexicata 3.0!

A New and Improved User Interface

Lexicata as a company has always taken pride in good design. We are true believers that the way the user interface is designed is equally important to the software’s actual functionality. After all, if you’re not able to navigate a product easily and use it to get your work done efficiently, powerful features are pretty much useless.

We’ve been listening to user feedback since we first launched Lexicata 2.0, and we incorporated as much of this feedback as possible into the new UI design. The interface is now much sleeker and more professional looking. We also significantly improved the navigation to surface more important content on the page and reduce the number of clicks needed to get around.

Here are a few of the key user interface changes you will see (there are many more):

• More prominent contact info on the matter page – the contact info of any contacts linked to a matter is now displayed on the left sidebar, rather than hiding behind a sub-navigation tab
• Notes just a single click away – the cursor will automatically focus and you can start inputting a new note for a matter or contact with just one click
• Edit contacts from the matter page – you can edit any contact linked to a matter without ever leaving the matter page
• Faster sidebar navigation – we removed the sub-pages within each sidebar category so you can get to the dashboard, matter index, contact index, etc. with a single click
• Multi-add feature – you can add multiple custom fields, addresses, emails, phone numbers, or companies to a contact at the same time, without having to re-open the modal each time
• Easier tagging – you can now add tags when creating a contact, on the Quick Intake form, or directly from the matter page
• Emails on the matter page – any emails you send related to a matter will now be displayed on the matter page, as well as on the contact page
• Major mobile improvements – the product now works much, much better on mobile devices so you can run your firm on-the-go

Fixing Bugs and Solving Scalability Challenges

Building software that is capable of withstanding thousands of users concurrently brings about inevitable scalability challenges. Sometimes these challenges are difficult or even impossible to predict beforehand, which is one reason why the update has taken longer than anticipated.

But the good news is, we’ve improved a number of the bottlenecks and other scalability issues which may have caused the previous version of Lexicata to experience slowdowns during periods of high-usage.

We have optimized the way data is loaded into the pages and improved many of the most resource-intensive features, such as the search. This will help ensure that Lexicata is fast and runs smoothly as we continue scaling up and growing our user base.

Solving these challenges and eradicating the bugs took a lot of time, but we felt it was worth the time investment now rather than having to go back and do it later. This means our code base is stronger than ever and easier to build on in the future, so we expect that our development cycles will be faster and we hope to launch many new features in 2018.

New Features

Now onto the fun stuff! We have added a number of new features to make the product more powerful and useful. Here is a list and explanation of each below:

• Quick Form – the Quick Form feature enables you to create a matter and send or fill out an intake form simultaneously. This means you don’t have to create the matter first and then send the form afterward. The entire process can be completed in a single flow to make it more efficient to intake new clients.
• Quick Appointment – very similar to Quick Form, but the difference is that you can simultaneously schedule a consultation and automatic reminder email while creating the matter. Again, the goal here is to cut down on the steps needed to do your job and make Lexicata more efficient to use.
• Filterable Agenda – we rebuilt the Agenda page from scratch and added a bunch of useful filters to help every user stay on top of their to-do list. The Agenda includes tasks, appointments, due dates for intake forms and e-signatures, and scheduled emails. It is filterable by time period (e.g. today vs. upcoming), assigned user, or item type.
• Robust Activity Timelines – the matter and contact pages now include a robust activity timeline that tracks each important event, including submissions of forms or signed documents, matter status changes, upcoming appointments, task due dates, etc. It also includes any notes and sent emails inline, meaning you can easily see what has happened, when it happened, and who did it, in order.
• User Signer Role – perhaps the most substantial new feature in Lexicata 3.0 is the addition of the user signer role. In the past, only contacts could e-sign documents which made it challenging to counter-sign after a client, or assign an e-signature task to another user at your law firm. Now, you can create “user signers” and Lexicata will automatically notify them via email when it’s their turn to sign a document. This makes it significantly easier to get important documents e-signed, and with much less wasted time along the way.