Introduction - Moving Cases

Moving Cases between Machines and Sites

One of the benefits of Openlaw is that the entire Case is free-standing and can be copied between machines (eg a server and a laptop) and between sites (eg solicitors, clients, counsel and experts).

The Setup routine must be run on each machine to be used and appropriate licences must be in place. Thereafter it is necessary only to move the data which has changed.

The data is held in three files with the extension .MDB. The picture shows Hello.MDB, one with the same name plus Site and one plus Text. There is an additional file called Site Reports which is usually identical for all Cases. Your Openlaw Case name will be whatever you chose to call it on creation. All machines and sites would usually start with a matching set of MDBs and with an image population which generally remains static.

One location or machine - usually the solicitors' server - will be the de facto Master because that is where the main adding and editing is done. The others - fee earners' laptops and external team members - are Satellites. The Master MDB (the one without Site or Text in the name) can simply be e-mailed to the satellites, or copied to a laptop, and replaces the file with the same name on the satellite location. On startup, the system will know that one file is a newcomer and will tell the user to Verify the Case. "Reconciles" here simply means that blank records are added where necessary to match new Items in the incoming database. There is no replication between the old and the new databases.

The following points arise:

	the incoming file will replace the existing one completely and any work done on it will be lost.
	the exceptions are the Site Comments field, the Bundles and the image paths (which are in the Site database). Site Comments can be exported and imported between sites separately.
	changes to the image population or the OCR text are usually both large and infrequent and are best delivered by CD rather than by e-mail.
	The Verify component of Openlaw Case Setup may need to be run after files are brought in from another site or directory. Openlaw will detect the need for this.
	it may be expedient to nominate another site as Master from time to time - eg if the client wants to add their own entries or counsel's live coding must be captured. Most users prefer to handle this by paper forms.