New VPN

Over the past new months we have deployed new firewalls in the firm's seven largest offices offices.  Just to reiterate, we are now tracking everyone's internet usage and preparing a report for Mr. McKenna.  If you have not been following the firm's Internet Use Policy, now would be a good time to start.

Another important feature of the new system is that it offers a new method to connect to the network via VPN.  This new method will eventually replace our existing VPN Concentrator, which has outlived its useful life.  For now, both will work. There will come a time when the old one will be retired, so you may want to familiarize yourself with the new VPN before the old one goes away. 

The new VPN will also work with Windows 10, Macs, Android, and IOS.  Keep in mind though that even if you can access our network, your device still needs to be able to read the files you wish to access.  In other words, you can access the MDIR from your iPad, but if you do not have a WordPerfect Reader app on that device, you won't be reading WordPerfect documents.

You can access and download the new VPN client directly through any web browser and install it on your computer.  All you will need is a login.  Your login name and password is the same as you use to connect to your computer in the office.  It is NOT necessarily the same as the old VPN name and password that you used with the old system.

There is a separate VPN connection for each office.  This should help to improve performance for VPN users in the satellite offices.  While connecting to any of the VPNs should work, connecting to the one in your office should give you the best performance.

Because this is a public blog, and I don't want to provide instructions to hackers on how to access our network, I have created a Google Drive Document that provides the details you need to connect.  This document is only accessible to Firm employees using your Gmail name and password.

For now, both the old and new VPN connections will continue to work.  At some point down the road, we will retire the old VPN server.  However, we have not set any retirement date yet.

Leaving WordPerfect

WordPerfect has been the firm's primary word processor since before most folks even had computers. Over the years, WordPerfect's market share has dwindled to the point where it is almost an afterthought in the current market.  Even in the legal field, where WordPerfect dominated for longer than most others, it has become a small minority.

One reason the firm has remained with WordPerfect for so long is that as a word processor, it still beats the industry leader, MS Word by virtually any measure.  I still consider WordPerfect superior to Word as a stand alone product.

The problem is we don't live in a world of stand alone products anymore.  People expect their software to integrate better with other things, including online services, document management systems, and other programs.  Further, people want seamless compatibility with other companies, such as other firms or clients, almost all of whom now use MS Word.

As a result, the firm is planning to make the move from WordPerfect to MS Word.  There will be no immediate conversion, however.  For the last couple of years, we have been making MS Word available on request while installing WordPerfect for all by default.

Rather, the firm soon will install MS Word by default and make WordPerfect available on request.  By "MS Word" I actually mean the full standard version of MS Office, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. We will be using Office 365, which not only provides the Office software, but also provides a range of online services as well.

For now, if you still wish to use WordPerfect, we will continue to install it, if requested.  However, over the next few years, the firm may be moving to other systems that will make WordPerfect more difficult to use and more cumbersome for saving and retrieving documents.

I appreciate the fact that MS Word can be complicated, does not have all the features of WordPerfect.  We will transition to Word over a long time, giving everyone plenty of time to get up to speed with MS Office.  Bode has held several classes on basic MS Office use, and will continue to hold more in the future.  If you need the help, I strongly recommend you participate.

MS Word is capable of opening WordPerfect files, just as WordPerfect can open MS Word files.  However, going back and forth can cause formatting problems, and often leads to document corruption.  If you are working with a group that shares the same documents, or an attorney and secretary both work on the same documents, I strongly recommend that you decide among yourselves whether to use Word or WordPerfect. Going back and forth between both will cause problems.

We are just beginning to embark on this significant change.  We have only recently completed a test group using Office 365.  So far the feedback is that is has been a great change.  I am, of course, always open to constructive feedback about any change or policies as my goal is to have the technology available to make your jobs easier.

Thanks.

What to do During an Outage

From time to time, we experience Internet or phone outages that can affect one or more offices.  Most of the firm's offices have dual connections, one for Internet and a private circuit for phones.  If the Internet connection fails our router is supposed to automatically reroute traffic over the voice circuit.  This will be much slower than normal, but better than nothing.  Similarly, if the private circuit fails, voice traffic should be rerouted over the Internet.  This can lead to call quality issues, but better than no phones at all.

Yesterday, Philadelphia experienced a serious outage that took out both our Internet connection and the private circuit controlling our voice connections.  We are still trying to get to the bottom of exactly what happened to take out both connections.  This incident, however, prompted me to discuss what you can do to keep working in the event of an outage.

Phones

If the phones go down in your office, we have the ability to forward calls to your cell phone or any other working phone.  We have a setting for each phone called "call forwarding, not reachable."  This setting will only forward calls when your phone is not working.  It will not forward when your phone is busy or because you did not pick up.  If you have an alternate number you would like configured for this option, please contact the help desk.

Another option is iCore Communicator.  I discussed this feature in an earlier blog post.  Essentially, this is an app that can run on your laptop, tablet, or cell phone that allows you to make and receive calls as if you were using your office phone.  You can have this turned on even while your phone is working and have calls ring in both places.  Or, you can install it, and only turn it on when needed.

If an office's phones go down, we can also forward calls to another office.  For example, when Philadelphia went down yesterday, we forwarded calls for the main number to the receptionist in Mt. Laurel.  If there is ever an occasion due to outage or any other reason you think we need to forward a number, just contact the help desk.  We can make whatever forwarding changes are needed.

Email

Because our email system has been cloud based for several years now, you do not need to use VPN or connect to any particular office to access your email.  You can connect from anywhere, on virtually any device, as long as you have Internet access.

If you are going to be without Internet, there may be some options to consider ahead of time.  There is a Chrome App called Gmail Offline, which will store all of your emails on your local hard drive.  I also discussed this feature in an earlier blog post.  In the event of an Internet outage, you will have access to all of your mail. You can also draft new messages, though they cannot be sent until Internet access is restored. The offline feature can be used both in an emergency, or if you are simply taking your device somewhere without Internet, e.g an airplane.

If you use MS Outlook or another mail program, you can also store your Gmail messages locally on those programs for offline use.  I discussed use of Outlook with Gmail in another earlier blog post.

Matter Directory and Other Files

All matter directories are local to each office.  So an internet outage should not impact local access to files. Of course, if you are accessing from outside the office via VPN, or trying to connect to another office's MDIR, you may have problems in the event of an outage.  Again, the only option there would be to save copies of your most important files to your local hard drive ahead of time.

At present, most users are using the old Cisco VPN which requires a connection to Philadelphia.  We are beginning to use the new Fortinet VPN which, for most offices, allows a direct connection, meaning you can still connect to your local MDIR in a satellite office even if Philadelphia goes down.  More about that in a future blog post.

Time Entry

We have two options for time entry.  Unfortunately, both require active internet connections.  Webview requires a direct connection to the Webview server in Philadelphia.  If access to that server is cut off, such as yesterday when Philadelphia Internet was down, only people locally in Philadelphia would be able to access the server.

Using the other option, iTimekeep also requires an Internet connection, both between the user and iTimekeep, as well as between iTimekeep and Webview.  If either of these connections are broken, iTimekeep will not work. There is no offline options for time entry.  The older iTimekeep version 1 used to allow you to enter time but not finalize it when Webview was down.  However, version 2 is much more closely connected to Webview in order to provide real time feedback.  As a result, you cannot enter time when that connection is severed.

Research Home Page

Many people in satellite offices had problems accessing the Research Home Page yesterday when Philadelphia was down.  We have created a new page, which I discussed in an earlier blog post, that is available on the Internet, independent of Philadelphia.  Regardless of outages, I recommend using this new hope page at http://research.margolisedelstein.com anyway as the old page will be retired at some point in the near future.

Conclusion

We do our best to keep everything up and a running at all times.  But there will be occasions when services fail.  Preparing for them ahead of time can make you life much easier on such occasions.