HoudiniEsq Client Access provides law firms with a competitive edge in today's market place. Here are two videos on the subject.

How Remote Client Access is Managed

IMPORTANT: Client access is granted at the matter level. You will find the client access settings under the client access tab of the Matter Dashboard. Permission is granted by data type. This means documents will not be accessible unless the document has been assigned a type and that type is selected in the Client Access tab of the Matter Dashboard for the selected Matter. The server logs all client access actions as the granting staff so if you grant a client access, you are the responsible party.

In order for one of your clients to be granted remote access to one or more of their matters you have to: 

1. You must have a email address in HoudiniEsq. This email address is what will be used to send the login information to the client. 

Please note: You can not use the same email address for client access that exist for a staff member either as their email or login. This will of course cause a conflict when either the client or the staff member tries to login. So to put it plainly; if you are testing and you set a contact's email address to the same as your login user account or email address and then, you provide your test client account with remote access using the same email, you may lock yourself out of the system. This is because HoudiniEsq will terminate the staff account due to the email conflict. This is a security precaution to keep staff from providing themselves a back door using the remote client access feature. 

2. The contact must have an email address and it must be set as the primary email address for the client.

3. You must implicitly allow remote client access to the given matter by selecting the Matter in the Matter Dashboard and from the RCA tab select the related contact and click the [√] Allow checkbox.

4. You must specify what the client can and can not view or do form the RCA tab of the Matter Dashboard.

Getting Started

From the Practice Ribbon open the Matter Dashboard. Select the Matter you want the client or related contact to have access to. Click the RCA tab of the Matter Dashboard.

If you or the contact DO NOT have email addresses in the system you will receive one of two possible warning messages as depicted above.  You must have an email address in HoudiniEsq. This email address is what will be used to send the login information to the client. The contact must have a email address and it must be set as the primary email address for the client. Make the corrections or additions and proceed.

If the Matter has one or more related contacts you must select the Contact that you wish to grant access to and then click the [√] Allow checkbox. IMPORTANT: Although you have just granted the related contact remote client access you are not done. You must grant access to areas, functions, data and documents. 

When you first click [√] Allow the default access privileges are displayed. As with all organizational settings, you manage the defaults under Settings->Organizational Settings->RCA tab. Please note; You must have administrator rights to gain access to the Organizational Settings.

You may override the defaults. To reset back to the defaults click the [use defaults] button located in the lower left hand corner of the RCA tab.

Every record, document, etc. in HoudiniEsq must have a record Type assigned. It is this type that you will use to permit related contacts to have access. For example, you can add a document type called Notices. If you grant the contact access to this type the contact will have access to it.

When you are satisfied with your selections click the [save and notify] button. The related contact will receive a Email confirmation with the URL, User name (their email address) and password. 

Client Uploads

You may have noticed that you can allow related contacts to upload documents to a Matter once you grant them remote access.

IMPORTANT: When the contact uploads a document to the Matter the Staff member that granted access to the contact is notified via the GTD "Items to Review" as depicted below.

Watch this video as it demonstrates how the RCA and DTG work together to help you stay on top of what's going on and capture more time. RCA Videos

For more information on HoudiniEsq, please click here.