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IICLE Review of File Notes Organizer
By Trish Uhl
See this independent review on the IICLE website.
http://www.iicle.com/flashpoints/flashpoints_content.asp?ID=10
I’ve been in IT consulting for more than a decade and it never ceases to amaze me (although it shouldn’t) that the most flexible tools with the most practical applications tend to be the simplest ones.
| "the most flexible tools with the most practical applications tend to be the simplest ones" |
Hence, I was very pleasantly surprised when I inadvertently stumbled across Atlast Solutions’ File Notes Organizer v3.2 (FNO3). FNO3 is a file annotation tool, which provides a means for you to organize, catalog, tag, and manage files and documents on your computer system. I say "system" because FNO3 lets you work with files stored on your hard drive, shared network drives, and even files stored on a collection of CDs.
The application is very easy to use. If you can use Windows Explorer to navigate volumes, folders, and files, then you’ve already conquered about 85% of the learning curve involved in using FNO3.
FNO3, used in conjunction with software and hardware you already have, could very well help solo practitioners (as well as small to mid-sized firms) solve some very common law office problems:
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How best to setup a "paperless" office.
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How best to organize and manage electronic files, whether they’re digitally produced or scanned documents.
Picture this: File Notes Organizer Pro v3.2 gives you the ability to associate custom fields of information to your folders and files, making them easy to later search and filter by keyword(s) or file type.
Let’s use an example of a standard folder structure — organizing files by client and matter. Many small offices have top level folders bearing the client’s name, followed by subfolders named for individual matters. These folders are then often further divided into document types, with folder names such as "correspondence."
Files are then retrieved by drilling down or up in this file system, depending on what type of document it is you’re after, for whom, and involving which matter. In order to add more flexibility to the file system, you would have to create further subfolders – i.e., all letters could be stored in a "letter" subfolder of the correspondence folder.
Problems ensue when you find yourself having to dig down multiple folder levels to find what you’re looking for, or when you have a file that could fit into more than one "category" – which folder do you file it under then?
FNO3 instead allows you to annotate files on a file level. You decide how to classify them. For example, you may decide to track the author, document origin, bates number, comments, client, matter, document type, version, etc. of each file. Which fields you use, and when (the custom fields can be different on a folder-by-folder basis) is up to you.
| "it’s often easy to get information into a system, but difficult to retrieve that information in a useful manner later on. Not so with FNO3" |
As many of us have experienced , it’s often easy to get information into a system, but difficult to retrieve that information in a useful manner later on. Not so with FNO3 . Once you have your system defined, and your files annotated with the appropriate information, you can use FNO3's search and filter utilities to easily find what you need when you need it.
Not only can you search by any of your pre-defined fields (i.e., by author), you can also save the search to run over and over again with a single mouse click.
An optional background service can be set to prompt you for annotations as you work in another application on a file (i.e., as you’re working in Word). You can set it to monitor only specific folders and prompt you with a "profile" to complete when you open and/or save a file.
You can also use the system to add an additional dimension to your files through the use of virtual folders called "collections." Collections allow you to organize your files in multiple ways. For example, let’s say you have your files physically organized on your hard drive in the manner I mentioned before – by client and matter. If you wanted to take those same documents and organize them also by topic, common logic dictates that would require copying the documents into new folders on your hard drive – thereby creating unrelated duplicates that take up premium space. FNO3 offers a better solution – it lets you create "shortcuts" to those very same documents and organize them by topic – or author, or matter, or what have you.
These shortcuts can be further classified by creating custom annotations – different from the original files – for them.
Did I mention you can also use FNO3 to organize files on a CD? There are two appealing uses to mention here:
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You can burn your files (with their annotations) to CD, then search an index resident on your hard drive (or network drive) to later retrieve the files from the appropriate CD. In other words, you don’t have to remember which files you burned to which CD – FNO3 will "remember" for you.
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You can burn your files (with their annotations) to CD, along with a copy of the free FNO3 Lite version, for distribution to others who do not have the FNO3 program. The recipient can then use your custom filing system to search and filter the contents on the CD, just as you would.
FNO3 comes with a few tutorials – referred to as "walkthroughs" – which are worth mentioning here. One such walkthrough involves outlining best practices for how to use FNO3 to annotate and organize your daily load of scanned documents. The program is designed to specifically work with PaperPort’s (and others’) proprietary file format. As an added bonus, the FNO3 Rename Wizard makes it fantastically easy to rename and distribute files to their appropriate folders after scanning to one centralized location.
| "Use it to view and/or print the contents of files whose programs you don’t have installed!" |
An included viewer allows you to not only view the contents of some of the most common file types (i.e. DOC, XLS, WPD, JPG, TIFF, etc.), it also lets you view the contents of some of the uncommon ones (i.e. MAX, PSD, MPP, WB3, MIF, etc.). This is because the viewer technology is a Stellent product called the Outside-In Viewer. It is exactly the same viewer as found in more robust products – such as Hummingbird DM. Use it to view and/or print the contents of files whose programs you don’t have installed!
As an added goodie, FNO3 can also be used to manage ZIP files whether you want to create them, open them, or view the contents of them.
FNO3 also includes a Slide Show utility that lets you display – full screen – the contents of designated files in their native state. This can be particularly useful if you often need to display various file types (in court or a client meeting), and find yourself either stuffing them into PDFs or PowerPoint presentations in order to get the job done. With FNO3 you simply select the files you want to include (or set it loose on a folder full of files), and it automatically displays their individual contents in a manual or automated slide show presentation.
The FNO3 bookmark feature lets you reference a file, a page in a file, or a frame in a video – making it easy to jump to later. Bookmarks can also contain their own annotations separate from the file’s annotations giving you added flexibility in how you organize your documents.
Okay, Trish – so it’s easy to use, quick to install and setup, very customizable, and offers a series of goodies – but as Gallagher with his Sledge-O-Matic would say, "How much does it cost?"
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$79 for a single user license for File Notes Organizer Pro v3.2
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$259 for five (5) user licenses
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Volume discounts applied to volume licenses
A fully functional 30-day evaluation copy can be downloaded directly from the http://www.filenotes.com site. After 30 days, the evaluation copy reverts to the Lite version, which means you’ll lose some functionality, but not your ability to search on and filter your annotations.
Version 3.3 is in its final round of testing as of this writing. (JA - now on public release) My understanding is full text searching will be introduced in this next release, meaning you’ll be able to filter and search on specific words or phrases found in the contents of any textual document. Select a document from the search results and its contents, marking the first occurrence of the search term in the document, will display in the viewer.
Features already in development for version 3.4 include a scanning toolbar offering features for working with scanning tasks – such as straightening scanned documents – and more functionality for working with PDFs. One feature being worked on is the ability to use FNO3’s bookmark feature to create bookmarks within PDF files.
As a wrap-up, I’d like to send a very special thank you out to Jonathan Earle for all of his kind assistance, and to Tom Yuhas for his review, which set me down this path in the first place.
Now it’s time for me to put my iPod on and focus my attention on organizing my own files!
For more information about File Notes Organizer Pro v3.2, please visit the Atlast! Solutions
Web site at: http://www.filenotes.com
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