How can I use the 'Cloud Drive' feature in timeSensor LEGAL?

How can I use the 'Cloud Drive' feature in timeSensor LEGAL?

This article has been machine translated. If you find any errors, we would be grateful if you could report them to translation@timesensor.com.

General

Normally, your documents are in the document archive of timeSensor LEGAL and are only accessible there if you log on to the software and have the appropriate permissions. However, it could now be useful to share certain documents, i.e. to make them accessible from outside the law firm. Two scenarios in particular are central here:
  1. Access by professionals
    The lawyer goes to court and wants to be able to view the files on the case in question on his device (e.g. iPad).
  2. Access by clients
    You would like to give your client the possibility to access certain documents or to upload documents.
The 'Cloud Drive' feature is intended for these two cases: a feature that allows you to fill an external data room with documents directly from timeSensor LEGAL or to be informed when new documents are available there.

Publish documents to the data room

If the Cloud Drive feature is activated, a cloud icon appears in the mandate folder:



The new button allows you to publish the document archive of the selected mandate in the external data room. You can release the mandate for a certain period of time or without any time restriction:



As soon as these settings are active, timeSensor LEGAL populates the external data room with the documents from the document archive in the background. Which documents are now pushed to the cloud drive depends on the configuration, which is based on the scenarios described above:
  1. Access by professionals
    Here you configure the Cloud Drive so that all documents from the document archive are automatically pushed into the data room.
  2. Access by clients
    Here you configure the Cloud Drive so that all documents from the document archive are automatically pushed into the data room.
In the latter case, the documents that are to appear in the data room must be selected accordingly. This is recognisable by the small blue cloud icon, which is visible in the document archive. In the following example, the document "Cost Assessment Request" will appear in the cloud, while the document "Invoice No. 129-00" will not be pushed into the data room.


The corresponding setting can be made with the "Info" button:


Of course, you do not need to open the Info Dialogue for each individual document, but can also select several documents and make the setting in one go:





What is a data room?

So far we have spoken abstractly of a data room or a cloud drive. This refers to software that distributes files via the cloud to different devices or enables web access. timeSensor LEGAL pushes the documents to be synchronised into a directory on your server and from there the selected software takes over the further distribution. There are a variety of products from which you should choose, for example:
  1. Dropbox
    It is very well known and easy to set up, but does not have a particularly good reputation for data protection reasons.
  2. TeamDrive
    Similar to Dropbox, with a stronger focus on data protection
  3. Nextcloud
    This tool is actually good if you want to give your clients web access to selected documents. You can even adapt your data room to the corporate design of your law firm and set up individual access rights (users and groups) for your clients.
Please note that timeSensor AG does not specifically recommend or support any of the above products. You should ask your IT support to set up, manage and support the selected third-party products.

Details for administrators

This section contains a more detailed technical description for administrators and IT supporters.

Preparation

  1. Create the target directory on the server (or directly on the workstation in the case of single-user versions) to which timeSensor LEGAL exports the documents selected by the users. You can name the folder anything you like, for example tsl_archiv
  2. Install the desktop client of your chosen cloud software and set it up to synchronise the tsl_archiv folder to the cloud.
  3. In timeSensor LEGAL, go to the "Settings" area to the parameters of the software and select tsl_archiv as the target folder. In a multi-user system you will see the file system of your server. First select the desired drive with the arrow keys and then select the target directory.
  4. Select whether only selected documents are to be replicated to the cloud drive (for the scenario 'Access by clients') or whether the entire archive is always to be replicated to the cloud (for the scenario 'Access by professionals').

Monitoring

Once you have made the configuration as described, the users of timeSensor LEGAL can start publishing documents to the data room. You can monitor the process well because corresponding folders, subfolders and documents will appear in the background in the selected folder, e.g. tsl_archiv:
  1. on the top level you see the directory of the client
  2. on the second level you see the client's mandates
  3. on the third level you see (if available) the archive registers from the DMS
  4. and finally, on the third or fourth level, the individual documents appear.
In addition, a folder called - UPLOAD - is automatically created for each mandate. This folder is monitored by timeSensor LEGAL and if new documents appear in this folder, the mandate leader is informed with a ticket.
The management of this folder must be reserved for timeSensor LEGAL, so please do not create, delete or rename any subfolders!






Verwaltung der Cloud Software

With the steps described so far, timeSensor LEGAL users can publish documents in the cloud or are informed when new documents are posted in the - UPLOAD - directory. Depending on the use scenario in the law firm, further configurations must now be made in the cloud software (e.g. Nextcloud). For example, users and groups can be set up for clients so that they can access the desired data. Or the TeamDrive app must be installed on the professional's iPad so that the data can be viewed there.


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