Various dialog boxes in this world have a Cancel button. In 99.9% of them, I can hit the Escape key to activate the Cancel function without having to move a hand from keyboard to mouse and back.
The AppColl user interface has various dialog boxes with a Cancel button. None of them respond to the Escape key. I would love it if the Escape key would cancel dialog boxes in AppColl.
USPTO outputs its patent correspondence as images in PDF files, encoded without searchable text.
As my standard procedure, I run OCR on all patent correspondence from the USPTO. It has the two benefits of allowing me to search the documents while working and allowing my computer's file system to index the documents so that I can quickly search for relevant documents in the future.
I usually multitask while OCR is running, but it still takes about 15 seconds out of my day for each document and probably a bit more for some other users. It would increase productivity a bit if AppColl would automatically run OCR on all patent correspondence that it retrieves from the USPTO.
Sometimes I enter a value in a field for a matter, contact, task, etc., and I forget that I made a change or which filed(s) I changed. If I attempt to close the browser tab, I get a warning that there are unsaved changes. I am not quite sure which field(s) changed and whether the change was intentional or an error. Whenever that warning comes up, I am nervous about whether I should have saved my changes or not.
I would not have that problem if, whenever I change the value of a field in my browser, there was an indication that the field was changed. This could be indicated, for example, by the background color of the field changing from white to a slight yellow. Whenever the values are written to the cloud database, such as by clicking Apply, the field would return to being all white.
For views with multiple tabs such as the Matter view having Bibliography, Applicant, Abstract, and Conversations, it would be ideal if the tab included an indication of whether any field within the tab has an unsaved change.
It might be ideal if, whenever there was any unsaved change, an indications such as a '*' character was prepended to the name of the browser tab, and the * character was cleared whenever the user clicks Apply.
When looking at a matter Prior Art page, it would be nice to know what IDS form(s) have been generated for the matter in the past. Perhaps they could be shown as links at the bottom of the left-hand button bar. (The position of links to family members from a Matter page). Clicking a link to an IDS form could bring up the Information Disclosure Statement view showing the list of date, name, and list of references.
AppColl nicely lets me enter Asian characters for things such as contact names and matter titles. AppColl CSV exports are encoded with plain ASCII text, which cannot represent Asian characters. AppColl replaces all Asian characters with question mark '?' characters. Asian characters can be represented if characters are encoded in UTF-8 format.
Microsoft Excel is probably the most widely used tool to view CSV files. Unfortunately, Microsoft is stupid. Excel cannot simply read CSV files with UTF-8 character encoding. It can with a hack, but it would probably be inconvenient for most AppColl users.
Microsoft Excel can read XLSX files with UTF-8 encoded characters.
Therefore, please provide XLSX format report downloads also or instead of CSV format report downloads.
XLSX format would let AppColl do other nifty things like adjust column widths correspondingly with AppColl reports in the browser, add row coloring for tasks correspondingly with Task reports in the browser, and even conveniently export all saved report views at once as separate sheets in a combined XLSX file.
It would be nice to have TextBox, DropDown, MultiSelect, and Date custom user fields for tasks like there are for matters.
In a Contact view for an Inventor I see a button in the left panel called Inventor Matters (X) where X is the number of matters for which the contact is named as an inventor. Clicking the button brings up a Matters report filtered for all of those X matters.
I would love it if there was an Attorney Matters (X) button in the Contact view for an Attorney.
Similarly, a Paralegal Matters (X) button, a Law Firm Matters (X) button, and basically a <Role> Matters (X) button for each kind of Role that can be assigned to a contact.
The ability to define Task Background Colors is helpful for giving users information about tasks at a quick glance that helps direct their intention to the information that is most important. There is also information about Matters that would sometimes be helpful to see at a quick glance. In particular, if Administrators could define Settings for a table of Matter Background Colors based on a grid of Status and Type, it could help to improve user efficiency.
It is very helpful that AppColl provides all the details when the values of fields change. Changes are sometimes described in task comments and always in the History window pane. AppColl usually shows the change described as as a field changed "from 'X' to 'Y'".
When the value is a long string, sometimes the description is too long for the display and gets truncated. When that happens, I can't see all of the value that the field was changed to.
Usually I am more interested to know what the value was changed TO than to know what the value was changed FROM. Therefore, I would be more likely to get the information I want without it being truncated if changes were described as "to 'Y' from 'X'" instead of "from 'X' to 'Y'".
The Background Operations list, which can be viewed by hoovering the pointer over an icon in the upper right, is a helpful feature. Some kinds of background operations, such as PAIR updates, are associated with matters. Those operations are shown in the list with the matter's AttorneyRef in parentheses.
I often highlight and copy the AttorneyRef value from within the parentheses and paste it into the search bar to open the matter. It would be convenient if the AttorneyRef values shown in the Background Operations lists were URL links that could be clicked to open the page for the matter.
It would be too hard for me to convert JSON to CSV and likely too hard for some other users. It sure would be nice if AppColl could make it automatic.
I believe that an underlying tenet of AppColl tasks, and most docketing system tasks in general, is that one and only one person is responsible for a task. Surely, within the processes of a multi-person firm or company, the person doing the task will rely on the involvement of others. However, that one person is responsible for ensuring that the task is complete and then closing it in AppColl.
It would be possible to have two separate tasks, such as one for the working attorney and another for the supervising attorney. You might even have one generated as an effect of the other becoming closed.
But, just as tasks have one and only one respond-by date and one and only one final due date, they also have one and only one owner. That's the person who receives a holiday card when something goes right and where the fingers point when something goes wrong.
@JasonP2345 I would be glad to. I am a fairly experienced AppColl user and in-house at a tech company "shadow" docketing a portfolio prosecuted by multiple outside law firms.
@mike_appcoll Thank you for doing Learning Series tutorials on often overlooked features. But please also always consider why often overlooked features are often overlooked. Perhaps some eventual user interface tweaks will result in fewer features being often overlooked.
I had the same question and made a feature request only to have the AppColl support team let me know about the tiny unlabeled icons near the top. I bet that other users haven't discovered the valuable features that can be invoked by the tiny unlabeled icons near the top. Perhaps if they were more prominent and each had a descriptive word, users would discover them.
@support_appcoll I use the search feature, but this is a valuable request for 2 reasons.
It would be more convenient than searching if your most recently used forms are right at the top.
It is easy to forget a form that you like to file (e.g. authorization of internet communication). Then 3 years later you realize that you forgot to do it, so you have to do a special filing project then. If the most recently used forms were at the top of the list, it would be easier to remember all of the ones that you like to file.
I think not. That seems like a good feature request.
An example of my attorney ref format would be T567AU1 for a trademark (T) application filing in matter family 567 (567) in country AU (AU) being the first application (1) filed in that country in that family. Using that system, search results are ordered by family then by country. As long as all members of the family have the same title, and the search query matches that title, the results will be ordered alphabetically by country, and I can tell which country because the search box results show the attorney ref on the left of all other information.
