Proclaim is a great bit of kit and can be used straight out of the box, especially if you have also purchased some of the additional workflow packages that Eclipse Legal provide. However, if you want to get the most out of the software and ensure that the expensive desktop icon you’ve purchased translates into increased revenue for your Firm, then bespoke development and Proclaim enhancements by a skilled specialist is a must.

To that end here are the top 5 Proclaim enchantments that we at LPS know will repay your initial investment in spades;

Custom Reports

Custom reports are one of many Proclaim enhancements available. While Proclaim comes with some great default reports out of the boxes, it won’t be long before you realise you need to create some bespoke reports that work for your Firm’s unique needs.

Do you specialise in holiday claims and need to know which holiday provider or region is responsible for the most successful claims so that you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly? Are you a Firm that needs to know which CMC provides you with the best quality claims, so you’re not having your Fee Earners waste their time running duds? Are you a Clinical Negligence Specialist that wants to know how lucrative each claim is so that you can better target your marketing and focus on those high-value claims?

Proclaim is a database and in the right hands, it can be used to answer all of the above questions and much, much more. At LPS we’ve yet to encounter a set of data we’ve not been able to provide by producing a bespoke Proclaim report.  Needless to say, the Firms that utilise the reporting functionality of Proclaim to its greatest extent can make quicker and more informed business decisions than those that rely on gut feelings.

Enhanced Mail Scanning

While you can drag documentation into Proclaim, manually this can quickly become a tedious and time-consuming exercise. Not to mention risky, when you are relying on individuals to drag documentation in manually themselves. With the correct development and software integration, you can ensure all of your Firm’s documentation is automatically imported into Proclaim.

The benefits of an automatic scanning solution cannot be overstated, while the upfront development costs can seem expensive, most Firms see the initial investment returned in savings within the first 6-12 months. Beyond that point not only are you likely saving substantial sums of money every month but you’ll also be ensuring every bit of paper correspondence that enters your Firm’s doors is added into Proclaim automatically.

The most apparent advantages of this are that you can monitor who is and is not dealing with their correspondence via custom reporting. Furthermore, if you have sufficiently optimised your workflow you can set triggers to create automated actions when the correspondence is imported such as notifying the client you have obtained his medical report.

With the right setup, you can go as far as scanning the contents of the letter and dealing with it appropriately. Does it refer to a Court Order or perhaps a Part 36 offer? Once you are automatically scanning your incoming correspondence, you can ensure that this sort of critical documentation is never missed and ends up in the rights hands rather than sitting in a Fee Earners desk tray indefinitely.

Workflow Optimisation

While every Firm is going to undoubtedly have similarities in the way it conducts itself, (after all how many ways can you submit a CNF?) there are going to be key differences and bespoke precedents that will be utilised along the way. After all, do you want to risk losing out on indemnity costs because a Fee Earner forgot to draft a paragraph into a Part 36 offer letter rather than using the Firm approved precedent? Or continue running a claim via the MOJ portal when it timed out months ago but the Fee Earner found it easier to settle the claim by keeping it on the portal. Or found out one week before trial that the CNF was never submitted in the first instance?

Key Proclaim enhancements for workflows correctly ensure your files follow have a set path in a way that suits your Firms needs, and will ensure all cases are run in a preapproved manner, which will reduce the likelihood of any negligent mistakes being made and that they are progressed as efficiently as possible. Rather than having your Fee Earners manually draught their letters or trawl through a list of Proclaim letters trying to find the correct one, it’s much more effective to have a one click solution in place.

For instance, optimise your workflow so that at the press of one button the four letters that you have approved to be drafted when issuing proceedings are created and all the requisite details pulled in automatically from your Proclaim system, this will reduce an hour long process to minutes. When you are disclosing your client’s medical report to the third party, why not automatically send an SMS to the client notifying them of this? It’ll reduce the likelihood of a client telephone your Fee Earners to ask for an update, thus freeing the Fee Earners up to generate more revenue and bring the claim to a conclusion more promptly.

At LPS we know that no matter how complex a system may seem, in the right hands it can be effectively mapped and optimised into an efficient and effective Proclaim system.

Enhanced Web Services

Web services in Proclaim terms are effectively any system that relies on web technology to integrate an external system with your Proclaim system. Proclaim enhancements to web services can be particularly beneficial for law firms.

The obvious examples would be the stock A2A or Land Registry integration that can be purchased from Eclipse, this itself can be further enhanced in the right hands. For instance, do Fee Earners keep forgetting to attach the physio invoice onto the portal, why not automate that with a some of the bespoke development?

You might have a provider who you work closely with, ATE Insurer for example. Why not setup a web service to automate the process, with the click of a button you could feed your data directly into their system and pull back an ATE Certificate automatically attaching it to your system. It’s a solution that can be applied to any provider that offers a web service at their end; you just need the expertise to connect your Proclaim system and theirs together.

Or maybe you receive claims via your website and end up losing the leads due to poor response times. Why not link it in directly to your Proclaim system so an enquiry case is setup, and an automated SMS is sent to the prospective client advising them that claim has been received and that an advisor will be in touch shortly. Introducing a web service integration between your Proclaim system and your website could reduce the amount of lost prospective clients substantially and in turn translate into increased revenue for your Firm.

Optimise Your Task Servers

Proclaim enhancements can also be used to optimise task servers. Task Servers are an amazing tool that very few Firms utilise to full effect. Most are just left chugging along, performing the default actions that will have been in place since the time you had proclaim installed, such as sending faxes, SMS messages, and any default web services.

However, they are a vital tool that can be used to automate any repetitive action freeing up more time for fee earning staff to be performing actual fee earning rather than administrative tasks. Furthermore, they can be utilised to ensure you always have most up-to-date information at your fingertips. Want an hourly report tracking your Firms billed hours for the month and don’t want to watch as your screen freezes and your mouse become a swirling circle of loading doom? Then use a task server to ensure you don’t even need to think about that report running, you’ll just find a fresh copy in your mailbox hourly, or however frequently you need it.

Closing remarks

This list of Proclaim enhancements is certainly not exhaustive, and each area has considerably more application that this article has time to delve into. However, should you want to know more about anything in this article or perhaps some other areas that fall outside the top 5  Proclaim enhancements, then don’t hesitate to contact our Legal IT Director at enquiries@legalpracticesupport.co.uk. 

Check out our Proclaim development web pages to find out how a Proclaim developer could assist your firm.