Actionstep Erfahrungen

Our firm uses Actionstep's workflows to increase efficiency & deliver better value to our clients

Kommentare: We are able to increase efficiency & deliver better value to our clients because we have built automated tasks, checklists, templates, data collection, and deadlines at every step of the process. We know in advance which team member will complete the tasks, and we have peace of mind that nobody will miss anything. We can gather data about our files and make decisions based on real insight into our firm, rather than gut-based guesswork.

Vorteile:

Actionstep allows you to build custom workflows that you can use to manage any aspect of your practice. We believe in workflows so much that we dedicated an entire podcast episode discussing our experience with another lawyer obsessed with workflows too. We have over 50 workflows that help us to structure processes within our tax-litigation files, as well as for administrative matters, such as asking for client testimonials. We give our team peace of mind that nobody will miss anything as we have built in automated tasks, templates, checklists, and deadlines at every step of the process. We can make sure that the most appropriate team member performs each task. The workflows are also a great resource to help train new team members because we created detailed descriptions of how to complete each task with links to our internal knowledge base to give team members additional support where needed. In addition to custom workflows, Actionstep also allows you to gather custom data so that we can make more informed decisions.

Nachteile:

Actionstep is unique and sophisticated. However, Actionstep falls behind its competitors and is underdeveloped in some key areas, such as budgeting capabilities, template user experience, graphical displays, mobile applications, and reports. Prospective users should not underestimate the commitment and resources required to build workflows and implement Actionstep. Building workflows requires time, money and, most importantly, grit. Not everyone is ready to make this investment in the future of their firm. Although you can outsource the technology aspect of inputting the workflows to the system, you need people within your firm identifying the steps and tasks that you want to build into the system. We are a very process-driven law firm with a lean focus, so Actionstep is perfect for us, but if you aren't familiar with process mapping it can be a daunting task. When you get over the initial investment of mapping your processes, you will see first-hand how quickly Actionstep improves your firm's ability to grow and deliver better value to your clients. We hope that Actionstep will continue to develop its product to address its limitations and bugs. Actionstep has promised that it is working to address the concerns that our firm and other users raise in the LinkedIn user forum and UserVoice feedback. We hope that Actionstep continues to improve the product, and we look forward to more progress. If so, we expect to continue to use Actionstep for a very long time.

Small NY Metro Area Law Firm, T&E

Kommentare: We find it perfectly fits our needs.

Vorteile:

Comprehensive features, simple interface

Nachteile:

Like all similar programs out there, use of templates and other excellent advanced features requires regular use, or expense of consultants.

A Great Case Management Concent but Lots of Bugs and Poor Customer Service

Kommentare: It has helped to automate case management and save time but the system is very glitchy and constantly "breaks". They offer little support and constantly direct customer to hire expensive "consultants" to address issues that their support should provide.

Vorteile:

Workflow automation, task creation and automated emails

Nachteile:

Setting up the system to integrate with office procedures is difficult and very expensive. Setting up is not user-friendly and will cost over $20,000 for even the smallest of offices. They are constantly making changes to the system which always breaks something else. Their support is poor to none. Had we not invested so much already into this system, we would look for something else. Lots of "promises" with no delivery. This product could be the best there is if they would just make what they have actually "WORK".

Actionstep Workflows

Kommentare: We were using a very archaic system with Time Matters. Since Actionstep is completely cloud base and accessed via a browser we were able to deploy it to all our remote locations without the need of installing and maintaining software. It was the best move we ever made.

Vorteile:

Actionstep automates task and reporting. Having the ability to customize it via workflows is a huge advantage for us. We also use the document merge features very heavily.

Nachteile:

The home screen dashboard can use some design updates with relevant information.

Powerful and flexible practice management

Kommentare: I have used the product extensively over the last 5 years and would happily recommend it as a platform for legal practice management

Vorteile:

I have used the product in a number of different law firms and have been involved in the setup for those firms. It is easy to use and easy to adapt to your own requirements

Nachteile:

I have no adverse comments as I have not found any aspect of the software to fall short of what is needed

Great Productivity Tool but Additional/Improved Integrations Needed

Vorteile:

The timekeeping functions, file notes, and overall organization into workflows are tremendous features. Once customized and part of daily practice, Actionstep makes task management much more efficient.

Nachteile:

Gmail/G-Suite integrations are lacking. We are unable to automatically log emails that originate in Gmail. Emailing directly from Actionstep takes care of the record keeping, but we often lose the formatting of our email signatures despite best attempts to keep it true-to-form.

Great if you have time to customize

Kommentare: The ease of keeping track of the lifecycle of our matters makes this well worth it. I spent hours following the tutorials on how to customize it to tailor it to my specific practice. But I think they purposely make them a little vague so you'll have to resort to hiring a consultant to tailor the program. Overall it's totally worth it, but I wish it was more user friendly to customize myself.

Vorteile:

This software is an elegant solution for volume practices that categorizes matters in useful and dynamic ways, and is interactive so you can keep track of the progress of each individual matter.

Nachteile:

It's expensive to customize because you have to pay for a consultant to work with you on it.

You receive what you give

Vorteile:

Almost all of our working processes have moved into Actionstep, with some changes and pruning along the way. Setting up the system takes a lot of thought and input, but you are rewarded for your efforts, as once your data is in place, it's very easy to manage and use. I particularly like the amount of customization that is possible - as well as the regular product updates, which add interesting features.

Nachteile:

It can be difficult to use data for reports, where some data does not interact usually within the system. It's necessary on our end to use other software to review statistics and to report. Exporting the data in order to facilitate this is very easy, however.

Great product . . . gets better all the time.

Kommentare: We have been able to get our bills out more quickly. Information is so much easier to find in Action Step than in the program we used before. The search function is powerful.

Vorteile:

The program is very configurable. What that means is that there is a higher learning curve than other cloud based programs, but I am willing to spend the time to learn if the product provides what I need. I searched specifically for a program that would allow me to handle my front office (client and case management) and back office (financial accounting) needs, and this does the job. The Enhanced Billing Module was vast improvement over the previous billing capability. The user interface is clean and the response rate is rapid. My bookkeeper loves it.

Nachteile:

The reports list needs to be more user friendly, and there needs to be more standard accounting reports available. The CRM features are not very well suited to my practice. The creation of a "workflow" is very complicated.

Actionstep evaluation

Kommentare: We've been able to somewhat streamline our practice administration, and we like how all case information can be contained in one place

Vorteile:

e-mail integration is easy and seamless highly customizable excellent document management

Nachteile:

steep learning curve weak online training materials requires a consultant to truly make it work our version does not yet sync with Quickbooks

Hopeless Customer Service - Technical Staff not technical - Accounts do not work

Kommentare: Poor experience. The salespeople were nice and I believe genuine. The techo people are not trained in real technical problems and use the excuse of putting something to the 'development' team. I am not sure the development team exists. Am on hold now for 25 minutes while I wait for someone with a small understanding to talk to me.

Vorteile:

The system is a great concept. Great robust software that, if working properly, would allow practitioners to set up what they want by way of workflows and templates for each practice area.

Nachteile:

My accounts simply do not work. I cannot bill clients. I cannot receipt monies. I do not have an 'accounts' menu. The software has bugs and Actionstep are incapable of fixing them.

Awesome Product!

Kommentare: Overall, our experience with Actionstep has been great and has made the office much more efficient so that our clients receive top quality work.

Vorteile:

We like how we can use our workflows to track each client thru the process. The reporting we receive is great and helps us stay on top of our business.

Nachteile:

The accounting reports cannot be changed and at times the accounting functions don't work the way we would want them to.

Worst support

Vorteile:

Easy to use, intuitive, and in many ways better than Leap

Nachteile:

It has the worst customer service. No one responds and when they do, they don't get the problem and you have to explain yourself again and again. I hate their service. I hate their support. There's no phones number anywhere to contact them. I have an urgent issue and they don't care.

Actionstep review

Kommentare: We have been able to automate our invoicing which has allowed more time to be spent on other matters. We now have greater oversight as to how much time is spent is certain matter.

Vorteile:

Ease of use, ability to automate a number of tasks, oversight of office time.

Nachteile:

Inability to convert $ format to € format, for example $4,000.85 needs to be manually converted to 4.000,85€ and 1.5 hours manually converted to 1,5 hours. Inability to customise the automatic email that is sent to client portal users to grant them access. Inability to select size and font of text that will automatically be generated when copying text from Actionstep system to a word document. Sections of the system still refer to GST when using a different tax. Inability to change a matter type once a matter has been created, instead a completely new matter with a different matter type needs to be created.

Effective and Efficient Law Practice Management

Vorteile:

I now have an almost complete solution to practice management. Before, I had no system, no way of keeping things straight. But then I started to become too busy to keep track of things in my mind, and it started getting chaotic. That's where Actionstep has saved my practice from disorganization. I track all of my time and do all of my billing from Actionstep. I keep my entire database of contacts on Actionstep. Trust ledger accounting is great. Tasks, calendar reminders, document storage, file notes. It's all great. When a client calls, I quickly pull up their file and *bam*, there's everything. There are many other useful features that I know I just haven't even tapped into yet.

Nachteile:

- There is a pretty steep learning curve, and the user guides aren't always that helpful. Sometimes I find myself spending 20 minutes trying to figure out a very simple thing, like how to reopen a matter that I accidentally closed. - Before using Actionstep, I kept everything on Google Drive. Great, Actionstep integrates Google Drive. But not as well as I would like it to be integrated. I had to do a series of workarounds with Google Drive to get it *sort of* how I would like it to be. When you open a new matter, Actionstep creates a folder on Google Drive, but the folder is only the matter number. So if you're typing a document and want to use File > Save As > Google Drive, then good luck finding the folder. Instead every time I open a matter on Actionstep, I immediately find the folder it creates on Google Drive, then rename it to my matter name. - I would like a place to track mileage for business expense reimbursement. You can add things like this to matter disbursements, but I don't see a way to do it practice-wide. - I haven't gotten the Google email integration to work properly. Actionstep puts odd things in the subject lines of my outgoing email, so I stick to using Google's platform for that. - Document upload sometimes hangs when you try to do more than a couple files at once, but I'm not really using it because I'm keeping everything on Google Drive.

This product does everything that we were hoping for!

Vorteile:

I think I trialed almost all of the major case management software companies out there and this company blew all of the others out of the water for me. The product is reliable and does exactly what we need. Before we purchased this product I had to do most of my work manually and things would slip through the cracks. This product has resolved that issue. I also love the document generation feature and how deeply the product integrates with Microsoft Office Suite. Not having to type each document from scratch saves so much time! I personally enjoy how highly customizable the product is. I'm constantly pleasantly surprised to find new features it has that make my life easier. Some may complain that you need a third party firm to get you off of the ground and running, but I set up the entire system for my team by just reading their User Guide and talking to customer support. The price was another selling point for us. We're a local county government agency operating on a small budget so this price tag works well within what we could afford. The customer support is phenomenal. They try very hard to make their customers (or potential customers) very happy. Having our cases in a secure cloud means that we can work from anywhere which has greatly improved the way that we work. I would definitely recommend this product to anyone who is looking to get away from paper files and who wants to learn how technology can make your life easier and more organized.

Turnkey solution for legal practice management

Vorteile:

ActionStep runs a variety of reports and queries from our data tables very quickly, and we can customize views and reports as needed. The financial software and G/L is included, which is rather rare. Trust accounting is treated as it should be with separate reporting and functions. Their development of the APIs to connect to Microsoft and Outlook has given us a lot more efficiency in workflows. The support staff is very responsive and will try to thoroughly understand and address the issues for us.

Nachteile:

Some of the accounting functions need some work to run smoothly and to be more intuitive. Also the Outlook add-in and Microsoft Plug In are nice to have but the average user cannot properly install them and maintain them it seems on their own, there are too many steps to the install and updates.

A huge necessity!

Kommentare: Actionstep helps us stay organized and on track with our daily tasks.

Vorteile:

We rely on tasks and steps to complete estate planning for our clients, and Actionstep makes it easy to keep track of where we are in our planning process. With Actionstep we can easily transition from one step or task to the next, eliminating the need for pen and paper. We use this program frequently throughout the work day. We can even email and upload documents through their secure client portals. We would be lost without it!

Nachteile:

the only con to Actionstep is not having a local customer service rep, but they are good about getting back to you in a timely manner, so the lack of someone local doesn't usually come into play.

Customizable

Kommentare: I do like the billing feature and being able to see who needs to be invoiced.

Vorteile:

I like that it keeps all of our records easily accessible without having to pull each file.

Nachteile:

It is so customizable it makes it hard to set up and use the software. I had to watch several hours of videos to design one matter type and invoice. I also wish that the HOME section of each matter had "sticky note" capability.

We regret using Actionstep

Kommentare: We started using Actionstep in 2019 but we quickly realised that it was not suitable for small law firms. The only real attraction for using Actionstep was it used to be cheap but that is no longer the case. We moved software in late 2021 but left a single licence to access historical records. The cost for customisation is expensive through third parties, it has terrible integration regarding document storage, and we were not satisfied with its functionality regarding trust. It was an inferior product and it took less than two years to make the jump to something better. The cost of licences has increased from the cheapest software on the market to one of the most expensive with the necessary integration to make it almost useable. I can't see what type of law firm they could be targeting. It seems entirely unsuitable for any level of law firm. Although we would have been forced to something better with our growth, the only one benefit they had was low cost, and whilst that might still seem partly true, the functionality requires costly integration and it ends up more expensive. I would not recommend this product, and regret the hassle of using it temporarily and having to change to a different provider.

Vorteile:

It used to be cheap, but that is no longer really the case.

Nachteile:

Terrible/the worst document management. Limited trust accounting capabilities. Increasing cost. Cost of integration and customisation. Customer service issues.

Best Practice Management Software for running your practice as a checklist/process

Kommentare: If you want a practice management system that actually will ensure you do not miss a step when undertaking a certain piece of legal work, then ActionStep is your best solution. I have tried other practice management solutions, but none of them take the unique approach of allowing you to drive each of your client matters in a series of logical steps/actions so you do not miss any essential task when carrying out a legal process. The cons are that it can take some time to set up your own processes. There is a fair bit of learning involved and the user guide can be hard to follow at times. But they are developing this continually and when in doubt you can raise a help ticket and their team get back to you fairly promptly. If you do not love setting up systems, I would engage someone to do this for you (I believe they have consultants who can help with this). The payoff of having a checklisted process with powerful document assembly is huge and will really make your practice more efficient. I do not run a trust account so cannot comment on the accounting feature, but I do generate my bills and this is fairly simple. I can generate a bill and email it to a client in a matter of minutes. And unlike other practice management systems, I can use my exact .docx template as the basis for my bill - I am not limited by a particular bill format. The integration with Xero also works well for me. I would have given this five stars if there was better integration with other apps, like Gmail, but I understand that integration with Zapier is forthcoming in Q1 of 2016 which will make this a very powerful system. Looking forward to that enhanced capability.' Overall, I have been using the system for several years and would not move to anything else because there is no other product that I am aware of that has the built-in action-based logic for different matter types like ActionStep has.

Using Actionstep

Kommentare: Overall, I enjoy using action step. I cannot recall any problems with this software.

Vorteile:

I like the idea that client information is easily accessible. I am able to determine the status of a case at moments glance. I can plug in all my tasks and assign due dates to keep me organized.

Nachteile:

Not being able to update or correct information in the client profile, such as adding, title, Mr./Ms. This site only allows for address changes, or adding emails.

NO buyers remorse here

Vorteile:

its ability to intergrate calendar/ email / documents into one plac.e

Nachteile:

adding things can be difficult, it can be very slow and freeze. It is difficult to load letter heads etc if they are not the selected size More compatibility with MAC would be better

Lifeline

Kommentare: My overall experience with Actionstep is excellent.

Vorteile:

ActionStep is easy to use and maintain as a central portal for keeping up with client files and work between staff.

Nachteile:

I wish the software had better search functions including an ability to look up contacts by phone number.

works well but needs improvement

Vorteile:

helpful that it is cloud based, can access anywhere

Nachteile:

no advanced search function to search for all possible results