You can't buy time
Post by Karl Southern |
For those of us of the baby boom generation, few will forget the tunes of Aztec Camera. Buried in the lyrics of “Somewhere in My Heart” is a universal truth:
From Westwood to Hollywood
The one thing that's understood
Is that you can't buy time
Time is a commodity that you can never have enough of. The lack of it plagues most industries, but particularly those in IT and legal where everything is measured by the unit.
The ability to get more time is one of the reasons that we are particularly excited about the release of version 3.3 of Lexis® Visualfiles™. It is here we are introducing our real time reporting database creation/update tool called Visualfiles Pro2SQL.
Many have implemented the creation of a full reporting database of Visualfiles data as part of an overnight task using the Visualfiles Reporting Toolkit. Pro2SQL offers a new mechanism where the data is trickle fed to the reporting database in near real time. It means that the data changes are in the reporting database within a few seconds. Of course, this isn’t only the data. It is also the changes you make to the Visualfiles system structure. Add a new field to a user-defined screen... there in a few seconds and all normalised for easy access.
This "near real time" opens up the possibility of producing auto refreshing dashboards that can show you the current position of your aggregated data. For those who want to see the Friday completion carnage as it happens, you can. For those who wish to watch the Monday mania of new case additions, you can. The list goes on.
My excitement about this new mechanism of providing data for the SQL repository extends way beyond reporting and business intelligence. This repository has a multitude of uses and can offer value and savings across a legal practice. Part of a company-wide conflict search? Check. Providing data for your provider updates? Check. You get the idea.
For those who remember the Aztec Camera song well, you will realise that the continuation of the verse is:
"But you can sell your soul
And the closest thing to heaven is to rock and roll"
The good news is that no soul selling is necessary. I’m not sure that I can make the leap that Visualfiles Pro2SQL is "rock and roll" per se but it is as close as I get. Of course, the universal truth of not being able to buy time still applies, but Visualfiles Pro2SQL does offer you the opportunity to "re-purpose" some of that time for other things. And that has to be a good thing.
About the Author: Karl Southern
In an IT career that has spanned well over twenty-five years, Karl has spent time in consultancy, operations, product management and solutions design. Particular areas of his expertise include integration, mobility, and exploiting information. Our clients do amazing things with our technology, and what Karl enjoys most about his role, is helping clients to unlock the potential of our software, so that they can achieve amazing things too.
Some of his colleagues have pointed out that he is a geek by nature due to his keen interest in all things technical. He takes this as a huge compliment. Outside of work, Karl likes to walk, albeit slowly; a pace he blames on frequent pauses to take photographs.
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