iManage is powerful with a capital P, but requires effort on the implementation
October 07, 2019
iManage is powerful with a capital P, but requires effort on the implementation
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with iManage Work
iManage Work is used by our organization as a document management system. We set up folders in iManage for each of our matters (and then subfolders within each matters), and then file documents and e-mails there.
It solves a couple of business problems:
It solves a couple of business problems:
- most files at large corporate law firms require teams of lawyers to work on a particular file. This helps us share documents among the internal team.
- document retention. When you've spent 100 hours working on something, it's generally a good idea to file all of the e-mails so that you can retrieve the information if an issue with the file comes up in the future.
- knowledge sharing. When a lawyer is looking for sample language, they can look at similar documents that colleagues have done in the past in order to expedite the work flow.
- The full text searching feature, once implemented properly, is incredibly powerful.
- Integrates seamlessly with Outlook to reduce the number of pieces of software you need turning at any given time.
- Filing is relatively quick most of the time.
- Proper implementation of the software is important. We have a client who also has iManage for their large in-house legal department but the implementation seems to have not been as thorough so their experience with the software has not been as positive.
- Again, proper implementation is key to how powerful the software can be. For a long while our organization did not have the full-text searching implemented, and it was a game changer when we finally did it.
- I understand that our implementation of iManage does not allow for multiple template matters based on different situations. So we have five default folders, but it would be nice to have a couple of templates, with different numbers and names of the subfolders depending on the situation.
- Positive ROI when it allows us to find precedent documents or language (because we do not have to reinvest the wheel).
- Positive ROI from workflow continuation when other lawyers go on maternity leave or are otherwise dealing with medical issues, because it allows another lawyer to look at the history of the file and piece things together.
- Positive ROI from having all documents on a single server. This means if a laptop is lost or stolen, the important documents do not have to be recreated from scratch.
There are a couple of different types of Alternatives:
- In terms of e-mail, the default is just to leave everything in Outlook and archive them when the total inbox size gets too large. This doesn't work for our organisation because the emails are not sufficiently backed up and it does not further collaboration.
- For file sharing and back-up, it is possible to use something like Dropbox but Dropbox is not as focussed on versioning of documents which is so important to law firms.
- I guess a firm could use Sharepoint but it would be a bit of a pain in this circumstance because it is not as integrated with Outlook, which is the lawyer's primary hub for requests coming in and out.
Do you think iManage Work delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with iManage Work's feature set?
Yes
Did iManage Work live up to sales and marketing promises?
I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process
Did implementation of iManage Work go as expected?
I wasn't involved with the implementation phase
Would you buy iManage Work again?
Yes