Actionstep reviews

Stick with it - it's amazing

Opmerkingen: Overall, it has been fantastic. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] was incredibly helpful, easy going, and keen to answer my questions. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] also incredibly knowledgeable and honest in his suggestions, I think he was one of the main reasons I decided to proceed with Actionstep - and I am very happy with that decision.

Pluspunten:

The features and functionality built in to Actionstep are amazing. This is a company that actually understands legal practice and legal software. I am impressed that Actionstep offer features that should be standard in every legal software, but aren't always included.

Minpunten:

It does take some time to get used to it and to actually make it work for you. The key is to actually spend time using it and customising it to your needs. This isn't a plug and play solution out of the box, and firms will need to take time to make sure that they have configured it to meet their needs.

Excellent CRM for lawyers!

Opmerkingen: Overall, this is a terrific product worth purchasing!

Pluspunten:

We loved the ability to craft work flows based upon our specific practice. But we also had the flexibility to obtain pre-set work flows as well. The client management and task automation is incredibly helpful.

Minpunten:

My biggest frustration is that we created a webform so with a couple clicks, staff can create a new potential client matter using that information as it integrates into the software. However, 90% of the webforms are spam that has to be read every day because bots are completing the form. Have not seen a remedy for this because AS just refers us to our own IT but we have filters and the bots are coming in through AS system. This is a huge issue I've spent so much time on and it is the one issue that would make our work lives so much better if it could be remedied.

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

Opmerkingen: 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.

Pluspunten:

Workflow automation, task creation and automated emails

Minpunten:

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".

Great Product

Pluspunten:

I use this for my estate planning, probate, and elder law practice. The system has built in workflows, which I appreciate, and it grows with my firm. I like the client portal very much and the way I can track documents that I share with my clients and vice versa. Very easy to track my paralegal's work as well.

Minpunten:

It does take time to learn and customize. Even with all that I use, I am not using it to its fullest capacity.

Lots of Customization options, but lacking some basic common sense

Opmerkingen: Mixed. A number of positive features, but also a number of time consuming and expensive issues to set it up and keep going, and almost "TOO" much for our needs, since it is missing some simple features.

Pluspunten:

For a small law office, there is a lot of potential to customize the matter setup and use different workflows. Also as a supervisor there is complete transparency so I see everything my support staff is doing, I like that the system does a complete backup of saved documents and matters. The Home page is very workable. And the timekeeping functions are good. I also really like the Microsoft Outook integration, even if I keep having to reboot it.

Minpunten:

First, something simple. Make an "out of office" message available through the email system. When I set this up on my outlook, then even though it is integrated, if the client sends an email directly through the Actionstep platform,they do not receive that out of office message. Second, the billing system is not user-friendly. First, the billing templates are a lot harder to set up than they should be, even with the pre-made templates. Second, the trust accounting is difficult to integrate into the bills. Yes, it is there but not in a way that is client friendly. Third, this is so simple I fail to understand why it isnt in place. Make some simple billing features automatic like the ability to print aging on a bill. They have a form for it but it just looks weird! And why shouldn't you just be able to carry over onto a new bill in an easy way. Other case management software has this in a very easy format. Also, when we upgraded to the new billing format there are some ongoing and permanent glitches that make my bookeeper's job harder. Finally, this is a costly system compared to some others in the legal field. And we have received word that the cost is increasing. We will be in the process of reviewing other options. We may decide to stick with Actionstep since there are a lot of good features, but we don't feel strongly enough to keep it with a price increase down the road, even if we are "grandfathered" temporarily. We hired a consultant to help us get it set up.

Actionstep still the best but not yet perfect

Opmerkingen: Overall, I've been very happy with Actionstep. I get the most satisfaction when I get a new client and need to create a document that I have set up document assembly for, and am able to generate in seconds a document that would have taken an hour or more to create manually.

Pluspunten:

Document assembly tools are the most powerful of the many cloud based law practice management systems I have looked at. CLIO's document assembly comes close, but not quite as powerful. It is also the most customizable cloud based law practice management system I have tested.

Minpunten:

Options for integration with accounting and invoicing software is fairly limited. Learning curve is a bit steeper than other cloud based systems. They seem to have heard these concern and over the past four years that I've been using Actionstep, and their development team has making progress on these two fronts. They aren't perfect yet, but they seem to be continually improving.

Small NY Metro Area Law Firm, T&E

Opmerkingen: We find it perfectly fits our needs.

Pluspunten:

Comprehensive features, simple interface

Minpunten:

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

Workflows Good! But Search, Integration with other software, and Document Generation need work.

Opmerkingen: We are happy with the workflows. We like that we are able to access our client data from anywhere with internet. We are disappointed in our ability to utilize all the data we have stored because of the terrible document and data search functions, limited document generation abilities and difficulty importing or exporting data to other software we use for drafting and client contact.

Pluspunten:

Workflows, workflows, workflows. They help us keep our law office on track and help us keep deadlines and make sure we do not miss a step in complicated transactions. We like that Actionstep seems to be trying to improve the product.

Minpunten:

Search is terrible! Searching for documents is useless. Searching for contacts by employer/place of work is impossible. These are basic things a law office needs to do, and this software is a hindrance to getting work done because of its awful search capabilities. Also, the fact that you can only see so many results on a page is maddening. Imagine that you want to search your contacts and get a list of contacts that live in a certain city. You want to select them all and send an email or something. NOPE! Search results are limited to 200, no matter how many contacts you have from that city, and you can only see 10 per page, and the results are not sortable; they come in random order. Also, there is no way to select them all and take any action like sednding them all an email within the program. Copy and paste of contact info is also impossible. I have many opportunities during a week to send one person the contact info for another person. Actionstep has no way for me to easily do this. There is no button to click, function to use or work-around for selecting a contact and getting that contact's info onto the clipboard for pasting into a document or email. You can bring up the contact and drag your mouse over various places on the contact form to copy the address, then do it again for the name, then do it again for the email address, then do it again for the phone number, then do it again for the fax number. But be careful not to *click on the(I ran out of space on this form)

Actionstep Review December 2019

Opmerkingen: The overall efficiencies of the product are brilliant. Increasing productivity of fee earners and support staff.

Pluspunten:

That its online. That its simple (mostly) to use. That parts of it are customisable. The support.

Minpunten:

The trust administration functionality isn't the best. Infinity was much better!!!

Unethical Price Increase

Opmerkingen: Satisfactory until recently. Support has been pretty poor at times.

Pluspunten:

It works, although aspects of the accounting side are a little clunky and some of the field names (for example in contacts) are inappropriate.

Minpunten:

When I signed up to Actionstep it was about AUD $80 per user per month. The price steadily increased over the next 5 years. Currently it is about AUD $135 per user. Then suddenly I am told that the minimum monthly charge will be $469, which is for up to 3 users - there is no option for just 1 user. Yet the website still advertises the pricing as being "per user", which is clearly misleading. I have tried to speak to someone at Actionstep about this situation but have been ignored. Clearly they are no longer interested in sole practitioners. I regard a price increase of over 300% on 6 weeks notice to be very poor business practice, as is their failure to note that their minimum package is for 3 users in the pricing part of their website. I now have to find another provider of a similar service which is time consuming and disruptive.

Lots to love about this program

Opmerkingen: Overall I recommend ActionStep to other law firms. It has vastly improved our office workflow, and the various customizable features enable our employees to address clients' needs more efficiently. The ActionStep support staff are accessible and responsive to any challenges we face, whether they involve addressing problems or learning how to implement new features. What we love:
- Workflows that are customized for different types of cases
- Customized tasks that are automatically assigned to particular employees
- Case dashboard: the "one stop shop" for all basic info related to a case (employees involved, clients, other important players in the case, calendar appointments, notes, etc.)
- Contact records that exist independently of cases but may be linked to cases -- so updating a contact applies changes across the board
- Newsfeed-style case notes with tag options to identify notes as "important," "call," etc.
- Document folders with powerful search feature to easily locate documents
- Integration with MS Office (Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook) that allows case data to be merged into documents and e-mails and allows users to assign e-mails to cases
- Ability to create letter and other document templates that pre-populate cases
- Document portal that allows clients and other parties to securely exchange documents with the firm
- Fantastic support staff and easy-to-follow tutorials The most challenging aspect of ActionStep is the initial setup (hence my three-star rating for "ease of use"). There is no sugar-coating it: the downside of all those wonderful customizable features is that someone in your organization has to do all the customizing. It's a lengthy process, and the initial data migration can also be time-consuming, but the friendly support staff are available to assist throughout the process. For us the end result has been well worth the challenging setup process. The ActionStep developers are constantly working on improvements to the program, including ways to make it integrate with other types of software and responding to users' suggestions. Occasionally the updates cause hiccups in the system, but they are typically short-lived. We genuinely appreciate the drive to improve the product and the responsiveness to users' wishes.

Pluspunten:

- Workflows that are customized for different types of cases - Customized tasks that are automatically assigned to particular employees - Case dashboard: the "one stop shop" for all basic info related to a case (employees involved, clients, other important players in the case, calendar appointments, notes, etc.) - Contact records that exist independently of cases but may be linked to cases -- so updating a contact applies changes across the board - Newsfeed-style case notes with tag options to identify notes as "important," "call," etc. - Document folders with powerful search feature to easily locate documents - Integration with MS Office (Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook) that allows case data to be merged into documents and e-mails and allows users to assign e-mails to cases - Ability to create letter and other document templates that pre-populate cases - Document portal that allows clients and other parties to securely exchange documents with the firm - Fantastic support staff and easy-to-follow tutorials

Minpunten:

- Challenging initial setup (customization of features) - Cumbersome process to unlock encrypted zip files after backup request - Previous difficulty with calendar integration caused problems with client scheduling and has made us skittish about returning to use of the calendar, even though we see this as a high-value feature of ActionStep

Great Features with Not So Great Service

Opmerkingen: Overall it's been a decent system. There is room for improvement, but ultimately it does give you a lot of customization for a better price than a lot of cloud based services out there.

Pluspunten:

You can customize it according to your needs, including custom reports and exports. It's easy to use on a daily basis and has an attractive platform that is well organized. It has it's own document storage, so you don't have to use two different programs/services to get it to work (such as box or another doc storage service) It does conflict checks and syncs with e-mail so you can assign e-mails as you send/receive them to the matter they are relevant to.

Minpunten:

The customer support is terrible. Response time has been poor. When there is a response, it typically is, refer to the on-line manual. My spouse is an IT person, so I'm fairly computer program savvy. So I don't contact tech support unless I've gone through everything in the manual and tried everything I can think of first. When that is met with "look at the manual" it's beyond frustrating. Once we get past that, it usually doesn't take them long to get the issue resolved or walk me through what needs to be done to achieve the goal. Also, in order to use the macros letters/documents where information auto-populates from your case into the letter or document, you pretty much have to be a computer programmer to get that to work.

Decent legal software

Opmerkingen: We keep track of our time better, and thus bill more.

Pluspunten:

The best feature is the ability for everyone to enter their time contemporaneously. The customizable workflows are nice, though there is a bit of a learning curve to implement them. Also,it's nice to have practice management and accounting all rolled into one software.

Minpunten:

Some of the reports aren't very good. The basic accounting reports, like the income statement and balance sheet, are fine. But some of the others, like the ones that look at time entries or payments by clients, are difficult to understand. They have some very fine nuances that aren't explained anywhere, and that makes it hard to make apples to apples comparisons if you have to use two different reports.

Cloud legal practice management with the functionality of premise-based applications

Opmerkingen: The breadth and depth of Actionstep's features are quite impressive for a cloud-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) product. Its functionality can compete with the best of the premise-based practice management programs, and it has the "any time, anywhere" advantages of a cloud-based system. It offers unlimited custom case fields by practice type, so you can automatically have a statute of limitations field in a PI case and an Estate Plan Type in an Estate Planning matter. All fields can be used to merge documents and emails(!) using Actionstep's internal merge function or HotDocs. Your standard tasks and document/email merges can be created automatically as the case proceeds from one step to the next, so that when a bankruptcy case is filed a letter to the client with the 341 meeting date, time, and place is created automatically. Views can show filtered lists of cases, tasks, or appointments that need your attention. Any of these lists (think PI cases that have outstanding medical records requests, overdue high-priority tasks, or all court dates in the next 30 days) can be emailed to you automatically each day so you can prepare for your day if you schedule the email in the morning, or the next day if you schedule the email at night, without having to log into Actionstep. Because Actionstep has such a wide range of features, it can be challenging to configure it for your practice and to learn how to use it, but that's true whenever you compare a program with more functions (think Word) to one with fewer functions (think Notepad). If you don't need the additional functionality, stick with the simplest solution that meets your needs. But if you do need the additional functionality (case management, document/email management, billing, and accounting), then you may want to consider hiring a consultant to guide you through the implementation. (Do you prepare your own tax return or do you hire an accountant?) Full disclosure: We are an Actionstep Certified Consultant/Partner. There's nothing else on the market that has Actionstep's range of functionality in a cloud-based practice management system that can be configured for the specific needs of different practice areas, and tailored to an individual firm's practices and procedures. If you're looking for a complete end-to-end practice management solution, especially if you don't want the cost and potential headaches of a local area network, you should take a look at Actionstep.

Actionstep review

Opmerkingen: 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.

Pluspunten:

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

Minpunten:

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.

Organization = Success

Opmerkingen: The information is organized in such a way as to keep everyone on task, organized and successful in the day to day operations of the firm. Actionstep Webinars are efficient, effective, insightful and when paired with customer support, outstanding. Overall the program and support adds to my ability to remain a step ahead in meeting client expectations. A program that does that is worth applauding.

Pluspunten:

Actionstep's fields and layout are intuitive, data is easy to enter, monitor and track.

Minpunten:

additional tiers of user privileges would be nice

Legal Asst opinion

Opmerkingen: Before ActionStep, our office was using DropBox as our inter-office storage, which was not very reliable for record keeping. We needed everything to be in ONE place and ActionStep has solved that issue. Our office has been using ActionStep for about 3 years now & I personally love it. It's easy to customize.

Pluspunten:

What I like most about the software is that everything is in one place - past & present records, notes, time tracking & billing, tasks, etc. I find the File Notes feature EXTREMELY useful because myself AND any of my co-workers can create a File Note for record keeping when we speak to the client or need to keep current notes on a project. ActionStep is also very easy to customize.

Minpunten:

It is difficult for me to find something that I dislike about this software. The only opinion I can offer is what I hear from our office book keeper - she dislikes the billing feature because it is not compatible with her Quik Books.

A huge necessity!

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

Pluspunten:

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!

Minpunten:

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

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

Pluspunten:

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

Minpunten:

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.

One Stop Shop

Opmerkingen: Trust accounting is very easy and efficient along with creating and managing matters

Pluspunten:

Actionstep does it all, from trust accounting to matter creation and workflows and firm accounting. Fully customisable matter and document templates.

Minpunten:

Updates and user suggestions take a while to be onboarded

Excellent Practice Management Tool

Opmerkingen: I believe this is one of the best practice management programs available at a reasonable cost.

Pluspunten:

I have found that the combination of file management, ticklers, calendar and ability to operate across the law firm by our users was very helpful

Minpunten:

As an Internet cloud-based program it is subject to the rims of the various Internet providers use across the firm. That being said, in four years I have only had one problem which lasted more than half a day, and it was probably addressed by customer service

NO buyers remorse here

Pluspunten:

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

Minpunten:

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

Actionstep is a powerful practice management solution, but that power comes with its own challenges.

Pluspunten:

Actionstep is nearly infinitely customizable, and its orientation around workflows offers great promise for automating certain routine tasks. The user interface is logical, and each screen is packed with the information you would expect to see. The layout minimizes unnecessary keystrokes and scrolling to find the most important information related to a case or a contact. Document automation works very well. Likewise, time keeping is straightforward and easy. Recent upgrades have improved the billing process significantly.

Minpunten:

Power comes at a price, in this case in the form of time. Actionstep is not an application for the faint of heart or those unwilling to devote significant time to onboarding and setup. Many users may find a consultant necessary to complete that process.

works well but needs improvement

Pluspunten:

helpful that it is cloud based, can access anywhere

Minpunten:

no advanced search function to search for all possible results

Atrocious Customer Support

Opmerkingen: Our business remains potentially exposed by Actionstep's limitations and their failure to acknowledge or fix them.

Pluspunten:

Generally pretty good system to use, but don't believe all the features they offer are actually implemented properly.

Minpunten:

Emails "stored" in their system are lost and/or corrupted and are irretrievable. Once a ticket is raised with their support you will be ignored.