What's New in MerusCase 4.0?

As you may have heard, the MerusCase team is extremely excited to roll out our Version 4.0 release over the next few months!

We have an incredible amount of updates and improvements, some of which will be obvious to you in terms of the platform's look-and-feel, and some of which are under the hood and will be harder to notice right out of the box. Nonetheless, get excited! Here's what you can expect to see in MerusCase once you get your hands on our 4.0 update:

• A total overhaul of the user interface, making for a cleaner, more modern MerusCase experience
• Brand new custom themes, completely reimagined with new colors, fonts, and options
• Mobile enhancements, including simplified billing entry via mobile phone
• The ability to add multiple Activity Tags at the time of activity creation
• Drag and drop calendar appointments and repeating events
• Enhanced tasks, including a new completion summary once a task has been marked as complete
• The ability to set multiple statutes per case, incident, and injury, as well as the option to mark statues as "Satisfied"
• A powerful contact search engine, scalable to millions of contacts with no performance degradation
• Added search fields, such as Social Security Number
• The ability to filter for unattached documents and search by time frame, activity, or case
• Case-level improvements, including an a new Agenda in Case Details, allowing you to view upcoming tasks and events
• Custom billing cycles as well as billing rules by client and the ability to set rates at the client level
• API enhancements, such as the ability to import bulk costs to Merus (i.e. Equitrac imports)
• ...and so much more!

We'll be sure to publish a more exhaustive list of release notes once all of the improvements have been finalized. Questions? Please contact support@meruscase.com.

Version 3.94 Isonoe Release

Activities

• Spurious  no longer added to activity descriptions when a trailing space is present

Case Files

• Archive created by Document Archive is no longer reported as corrupt/invalid by the built-in Windows extractor

Documents & Forms

• Post-upload preference now obeyed more consistently

Invoices

• Case caption is now presented on the PDF invoice as it is entered in Case Details; line breaks are no longer removed

The bulk of the work for this release revolved around infrastructure changes and updates in preparation for the upcoming 4.0 release.

Click to Subscribe

Note: This post features MerusCase Version 3.9 or earlier. As such, this post may no longer be accurate. For the most current and up-to-date information about the latest version of MerusCase, please visit our documentation at docs.meruscase.com.

Version 3.93 (Kalyke) Release

Contacts

• Contacts without a People Type set are now displayed in Browse Contacts
• More intelligent about populating a contact's Website when provided with an email address

Case Files

• Better handling when creating a Document Archive
• Previous archives are no longer included, significantly reducing the size of the archive and the time it takes to generate
• Documents are now placed in a folder based on their primary Activity Tag
• Document names now obey any changes made in Activities

Case Ledgers

• Better handling of Alternate Billing Code when editing historical ledger entries

Documents & Forms

• More consistent handling of contact and company addresses when merging

Injuries

• Carrier Billing Identifier and Carrier Billing Description fields are now disabled/locked for all user levels except Power User with Accounting and Administrator

Messages

• Better formatting of messages that are forwarded or replied to

Receivables

• Remaining Credit is again displayed properly after applying a refund

Uploads

• Now able to upload .csv (Comma Separated Values) files

Miscellaneous

• Privacy blur when tabs/windows are idle for more than 30 minutes

Click to Subscribe

Version 3.91 Release Notes

Activities

• Completed Forms (activities with 'Form Completed' and 'Document' tags) can be forwarded again
• Printing the Activities table properly includes the full description
• Improved handling of diacritical marks in activity descriptions

Contacts

• Properly displays primary phone number in contact list
• Better handling of website links
• Contacts synchronized to a mobile device now include all phone numbers
• Email addresses determined to be invalid due to a bounced message can no longer be clicked to start a new message

Case Files

• More consistent handling of data retrieved using the ADJ import
• Immigration
• Forms now display correct label
• Deleting a form from Activities now resets the completed status of the form and is displayed properly on the Case Details view
• Can now add Case Packets after case creation
• Forms in a packet are now ordered with optional forms after required forms

Case Ledgers

• BCS export format includes Branch Office Location again
• Export formats (TimeSlips, BCS, etc.) are now delivered to the user's Inbox even if the user is synchronizing a folder other than 'Inbox'
• Use of Select All Visible and Select Entire List links now produce invoices based on the set sort order
• New Export format option for Juris

Documents & Forms

• Address, phone, fax, and email fields for Attorney Responsible merge properly again
• Extended address block fields merge properly again
• Improved behavior when merging documents in a case with no injuries
• More consistent display of relevant forms after changing Jurisdiction in User Preferences

Messages

• Tab order adjusted for better flow from message header info (recipients, subject, etc) to message body
• Improved behavior when printing a message's full body, particularly when the message is in the middle of a conversation
• Better handling of messages bounced because of invalid email addresses
• Email addresses determined to be invalid due to a bounced message are no longer available for selection when composing a message

Preferences

• User
• Jurisdiction is now a multi-select option

Reports

• AR: Receivables (per Payor) now allows selection of Companies and Payors that are not in the rolodex

Tasks

• Assigning a task to a case after the task has been created now updates the Task list immediately (no refresh required)

Miscellaneous

• Administrative users are now notified if their firm expiration date is approaching (or has passed)
• Other changes for a better, faster MerusCase experience

Click to Subscribe

Note: This post features MerusCase Version 3.9 or earlier. As such, this post may no longer be accurate. For the most current and up-to-date information about the latest version of MerusCase, please visit our documentation at docs.meruscase.com.

Version 3.9 Carme [Release Notes]

Starting tonight, you may notice changes in your MerusCase experience as the new features of Version 3.9 are put into effect. This release will be staggered, meaning that some firms will have access to the new features prior to the global release, which is scheduled for next week.

You can check out our more in-depth blog posts and knowledge base articles about each feature, here:

• Employment History Tab
• Multiple Addresses (Current & Past)
• Click-to-Call Phone Numbers & Social Media Integration

If you're interested in the full list of features, feel free to read through our release notes, below:

Contacts

• No longer limited to a single address
• Addresses can be designated as Mailing or Physical
• An address can be designated as Primary
• Residency/occupation dates associated with each address
• No longer limited to five phone numbers (three voice, two fax)
• One voice number and one fax number can be designated as Primary
• No longer limited to two email addresses
• An email address can be designated as Primary
• Added ability to save aliases
• New fields
• Address
• Move-In Date
• Move-Out Date
• Country 
• Alien Registration Number
• Country of Birth
• City of Birth
• Nationality
• Facebook Profile
• LinkedIn Profile
• Twitter
• Employment History
• Company Name
• Company Address
• Position/Title
• Start Date
• End Date

Case Files

• New Immigration case type
• New file 'drop target' in the left navigation area when viewing a case allows uploading of documents using drag-and-drop
• Bill To contact's name and address now shown in Case Details and the case preview hover
• Name and address are italicized in the preview hover
• Cases created using the ADJ/EAMS Lookup now have proper start and end dates for associated injuries

Case Ledgers

• Billing Quick Codes are now properly limited to 5 characters
• More consistent behavior when a description has been entered, and a predefined description is selected
• General Staff users can no longer edit entries made by other users
• Export menu items now work on Firefox
• Improved compatibility of Tabs3 export format

Messages

• Print Full Body option now includes all CCs on the printed output
• Notification messages, i.e. Document Uploaded are now properly delivered if the folder being synchronized is something other than Inbox
• Resending no longer strips the message's attachments

Preferences

• Firm
• New Invoice format that displays Date, Case, Description, Qty, Rate, and Amount

Miscellaneous

• Removed Recent Contacts from left panel navigation area
• Other improvements for a faster, better experience when using MerusCase.

Click to Subscribe

Note: This post features MerusCase Version 3.9 or earlier. As such, this post may no longer be accurate. For the most current and up-to-date information about the latest version of MerusCase, please visit our documentation at docs.meruscase.com.

Version 3.8 Megaclite Release Notes

Activities

• Individual activities created by linking a message conversation no longer have the same description as the message used to link to the case 
• Related messages use the From and Subject format for the activity description 

Case Files

• When visiting Case Details, notifications are now presented if staff assigned are no longer active users 

Case Ledgers

• Ledger amount properly updates when changing the hours value again 
• Hours value no longer changes to '10' in certain circumstances 
• Billing Quick Codes are now displayed in ledger descriptions when appropriate 
• Tabs3 export no longer truncates ledger descriptions that contain double quotes 

Contacts/Companies

• Hover Preview no longer showing a case multiple times when more than one employee is attached to the case 
• Hover Preview no longer showing a case multiple times when the company is attached to a case multiple times, i.e. as Carrier and Adjuster 

Events

• Number pad 0 key now works in Warnings and Follow-ups section 

Invoices

• Expense values exported as positive values when exporting in LEDES format 

Preferences

• Firm 
• Added preference for minimum billing time increment. 
• .1 (6 minutes) - default 
• .25 (15 minutes) 

Reports

• Cases List with Injury Detail - now completes properly regardless of amount of data presented 
• Reports that include ledger descriptions will now display billing Quick Codes when appropriate 

Messages

• More consistent behavior when moving between pages of messages 
• Better retention of read and deleted statuses 
• More consistently displaying case links after linking messages to cases 
• Display of BCC recipients when replying to a message is now restricted to the original sender of the message 
• Better display of draft message indicator in message lists 

Other improvements for a faster, better experience when using MerusCase.

Click to Subscribe

MerusCase Email Improvements | Release 3.7

Release 3.7 will be live for all users on Wednesday, December 10th, 2014. 

Everyone here at the Merus strives to ensure that MerusCase is the best practice management software for you and your firm. We continue to implement new features every 4-6 weeks. Our latest release - Version 3.7 - is one of the most feature rich releases we've had in awhile.

With this release, we are excited to unveil new Email Improvements such as quicker and more frequent syncing, a new Outbox tab, and syncing with Sent Items!

Note: Emails may load throughout the day on Wednesday, December 10th, 2014. Please be patient as it may take a few hours for your new inbox to synchronize.

Your Email Will Sync More Often

Messages in your inbox will now sync 33% more often. Previously, your Merus inbox would pull new messages from your email client every 3 minutes. Now, Merus will pull new messages every 2 minutes. 

Also, did you know that you can manually fetch messages whenever you want? With this update, Merus allows you to manually fetch new email messages 6 times as often.

Want your messages even faster? Manually fetch with this button!

Your Email Sync Will be Faster

Previously, messages in Merus pulled all emails from your inbox en masse. Most people's inbox took 2 minutes to sync to Merus. If your email inbox had hundreds of messages in it, then the sync to Merus took even longer! However, with this new release, our engineering team has done some behind-the-scenes magic to ensure your Merus Inbox pulls messages from your non-Merus email client one-by-one. This means that you'll see a significant change in how quickly you see a new message. We're talking about a 95% improvement--a sync that took previously took 2 minutes will now take only 3 seconds!

Why are some messages displayed in italicized text?
Since messages are now synced one-by-one from your external email account, messages displayed in italics signify that those messages are still loading content from the server.

• Italicized Messages - signify that your new email has been received and is currently loading in MerusCase.
• Bold Messages - signify that your new email has been received, is loaded in MerusCase and is ready to view.

Sent Items Sync

Messages sent while in Merus have always been shown in the Sent tab, but with this new release, your Merus sent items will sync with your sent folder on your non-Merus email client. So, if you send a message to first.name.here@gmail.com in your non-Merus email, your Merus sent folder will also show that sent item.

Go try it out tomorrow!

Newly Added Outbox Tab

Normally, once a message has been composed, you hit send and that message is now displayed in the Sent items tabs. However, what happens to a message that isn't deliverable? That's where the new Outbox tab comes into play.

The Outbox tab contains any message that has not been successfully sent to the recipient. If you have messages in your Outbox, then those messages need your attention! For instance, if you lose your internet connection when you initially send a message, the message will appear in the Outbox tab where you then have the choice to Discard the message and start over or Resend.

Note: If you see an email in your Outbox that means the recipient has not received your message and the message has not been saved to your casefile.

No message in your Outbox tab? That means your email was successfully sent to the recipient!

Click to Subscribe

Note: This post features MerusCase Version 3.9 or earlier. As such, this post may no longer be accurate. For the most current and up-to-date information about the latest version of MerusCase, please visit our documentation at docs.meruscase.com.

Coming Soon: Version 3.6 Release

Activities

• Restored ability to filter using the file's name
• Uploaded TIFFs now get previews and thumbnails

Cases

• Restored ability to change the Bill To party on a case, and apply that change to historical, non-invoiced ledger items (Power User with Accounting- and Administrator-level users only)
• Add Case
• Improved behavior when creating and linking parties when using ADJ Import
• Settlements
• Medicals no longer refers to the case when there are no medicals
• No longer possible to edit Payment ledger items
• No Settlements message now displayed more consistently

Events

• Similar Events are shown again when creating or editing an event

General Account

• My Billable Time/My Time table now displays subtotals for hours you have logged, and hours others have logged for you

Ledgers

• Better segregation of ledger types to prevent nonsensical entries in General Account, Client Account, and Settlements

Messages

• When using the Preview Pane, now selects the next message when deleting a message, and no longer leaves the deleted message on screen
• More consistent behavior displaying attachments when removing multiple attachments and then adding new attachments
• Better behavior when using the autocompleter for recipient addresses

Parties

• Party Group filter icons are displayed again

Preferences

• No longer possible to save an empty string as a preference, particularly in Custom Pre-loaded Filters

Reports

• Login History 
• No longer include logouts in the displayed data
• More appropriate column headings
• Now includes the user's IP Address
• Date of Injury/Incident
• Case Type selector now allows multiple selections
• Billable Time: My Hours
• Now able to select Logged By/Billed By when generating this report, bringing this in line with the other Billable Time reports

Tasks

• Page navigation controls are properly shown when visiting Tasks from the dashboard

Miscellaneous

• More consistent button labels in Create Invoices
• More consistent icon in Settlement Ledger
• Improved behavior after having Third-Party Filing turned on or off by Merus Support

Click to Subscribe

Note: This post features MerusCase Version 3.9 or earlier. As such, this post may no longer be accurate. For the most current and up-to-date information about the latest version of MerusCase, please visit our documentation at docs.meruscase.com.

Version 3.5 Ananke: New Recent Firm Activities List

Version 3.5 Ananke has arrived, and one of the premier features of this latest release is a new Recent Firm Activities list, which displays every case-related activity each user has recorded in MerusCase over the last seven days.

This allows users and administrators to quickly and easily preview all logged phone calls, emails, documents, court forms, events, notes and tasks attached to every case in the firm.

In a large firm where multiple employees work on myriad cases, it’s easy to develop a sense of “tunnel vision,” only concerning yourself with the cases in front of you. This new feature gives employees and administrators access to all the goings-on in a firm, delivering a new level of information-sharing to MerusCase users.

The Recent Firm Activities list also empowers administrators to check up on what individual users have been doing in MerusCase over the last week.

Has your boss ever approached you and asked, “Hey, what have you been doing all week?” With MerusCase’s new Recent Firm Activities list, now you can respond, “Hey, just filter the firm-wide activities by user and take a look.”

Accessing Recent Firm Activities

Users have two options for accessing the Recent Firm Activities list.

Option 1:
1. Navigate to Cases
2. Select Recent Firm Activities from the drop-down menu under Cases.

Option 2:
1. Navigate to Cases > Browse Cases
2. Select the Activities tab.

Filtering Recent Firm Activities

What makes this feature more impressive is the ability to filter the list by several different categories, including Description, Activity Tag, Case, Date/Time and User.

To filter, select an option from the drop-down menu and type in the data you want the list to display exclusively, such as activities associated with a certain user or recorded on a certain date. Hit the "+" button to add a second level of filtering to the list.

A set of quick links anchored at the top allows users to quickly filter the list by certain Activity Tags, including Phone Calls, Messages, Documents, Events, Tasks, Notes and Court Forms.

Examples:

If you want to see all case-related emails that were sent or received on a certain day, just filter the Recent Firm Activities by Message and Date.

Looking to view all the documents saved or created by a certain user over the last seven days? Simply filter the list by Documents and User.

This same logic applies to all other filter categories as well. To see more details on all of Ananke's upgrades, please see our previous new version release blog post and stay tuned for further updates.

Click to Subscribe

Note: This post features MerusCase Version 3.9 or earlier. As such, this post may no longer be accurate. For the most current and up-to-date information about the latest version of MerusCase, please visit our documentation at docs.meruscase.com.

Coming Soon: Version 3.5 Ananke Release

Within the next few days, MerusCase users can look forward to a date with destiny. Ananke, our latest new version release, shares a name with one of Jupiter's 67 moons. This moon was named after the Greek goddess of fate. For MerusCase users, Ananke will soon be knocking at the door with a new batch of upgrades.

A few of Ananke's divine developments include new data displayed in case and party previews, enhanced list sorting by due date and alphabet, and formatting fixes for email messages and invoice printouts.
See below for a list of all the upgrades to look forward to when Ananke arrives on a fateful mission to improve your user experience.

Activities

• Improved Activity Description and File Name interaction so that 'almost exact' matches of the two will hide the File Name. 
• This should reduce the likelihood of entries in the Activity List that look like this: My Activity [My_Activity.docx]

Cases

• Settlements 
• Now possible to delete settlements 
• Added Back to Summary button to make it easier to leave a settlement's detail view 
• Case File Preview now displays Incident/Accident Date for Personal Injury cases 
• New Activities tab that displays all activities, on all cases, firm-wide, that have occurred in the past seven days 
• Accessed via the 
• Recent Firm Activities menu item in the Cases menu, or 
• Activities tab that is available when browsing Cases 
• Provides an at-a-glance overview of what is happening in the firm 
• Can be filtered in all the ways that an individual case's Activities can be 

Client Account

• Settlements that have been deleted no longer appear on the Open Settlements tab 

Events

• Event Types are now in alphabetical order when creating a new event, or editing an existing event. 

Invoices

• Improved behavior when ledger descriptions contain fancy characters, i.e. curly quotes and apostrophes. 

Messages

• Improved linking-to-case behavior of new messages when previous messages were linked to a case 
• Font no longer shrinks after deleting text when composing a message 

Parties

• Party phone numbers (Phone Number, Fax Number, etc) are no longer hidden in the summary dog tag after editing the party 
• Ability to search by People Type when adding parties to a case 

Reports

• Case Number obeys the Secondary Case Identifier Firm Preference in more reports 
• Stale Cases is no longer limited to the Stale Cases Interval User Preference. A selector is provided with a variety of intervals. 
• Invoices
• No longer includes deleted invoices 
• Description is more accurate 
• Dates of Injury now includes case type, and properly reports on incident dates for personal injury cases 
• Billable Time: Summary description indicates that suspended users are included in the report, and displays (Suspended) next to the initials of suspended users 
• Referrals now reports on an additional people type - Referral Recipient - to indicate the individual to whom the referral was directed 

 

Tasks

Initial sort is now ascending on the Due Date, so tasks with the closest due dates are now at the top of the list. 

Uploads

• Now able to upload WordPerfect templates (.wpt), and text files with the .log extension 

Miscellaneous

• Case Statuses are now sorted in proper alphabetical order

Thyone 3.4 – Why We Added File Names in Activity Descriptions

Since releasing the latest version of MerusCase (Version 3.4 Thyone) earlier this week, we've received several questions asking why documents now show two names [with one of those names in brackets].

The new version displays both the Activity description and the file name as separate entities for each document. The Activity description is the first set of characters shown under the Description category. The file name follows behind the Activity description, sitting comfortably between a set of brackets.

This change was prompted by a request from our users, who noticed that documents being sent by email contained a file name different from the Activity description. Sometimes, the file name also contained words or descriptions the outside parties were not meant to see.

Before the latest release, users could only edit the Activity description for documents within Merus. Version 3.4 Thyone, however, delivers a brand new capability, allowing users to quickly and easily edit the Activity description and the file name of documents within the system.

By editing the Activity description of documents, users can place keywords in the descriptions to search for and reference at a later time while keeping that information separate from the file name, which may later get emailed to an outside party.

Another reason behind this upgrade stemmed from the fact that Merus allows users to enter up to 16,000 characters when filling out the Activity description. Due to technical restrictions, file names will not accommodate the same, large number of characters as Activity descriptions.

Version 3.4 Thyone Has Arrived

Our latest release, Version 3.4 Thyone, has arrived. MerusCase users can now take advantage of a new package of features and upgrades, including new keyboard shortcuts, added personal injury case types, double-column address displays, new billing features and other developments.

This new version empowers MerusCase users with brand new billing and payment options. Users may now alter how far back activities and items are displayed in My Billable Time with options of 30 days, 90 days, 180 days, or from the 1st of the year.

Additionally, all cases now allow users to access the Settlements tab, which was only available to personal injury cases in the past.

Here are a few quick tips on how to access medical expenses associated with each case:

1. While working within a case, navigate to the Settlements tab.
2. From there, you can create a new settlement by clicking the Add Settlement button.

3. Click on the large settlement icon (which appears after you create a new settlement) to access the details, ledger and medical expenses associated with the settlement.

4. Click on the Medicals tab.
5. To record a new medical expense, click the Add Medical button.
6. After inputting the details of your new medial expense, click Save in the top, right-hand corner.

Thyone also brings an entirely new functionality to MerusCase’s billing interface in the form of Client Accounts, which makes managing funds received from settlements much easier. The new version allows users to access, edit and add payments to Client Accounts as completely separate entities from Operating Accounts.

Beyond the advances to our billing features, users can also take advantage of improved Case List reports and upgrades to our Calendar, Events and Email / Messaging sections.

In the Activity tab for each case, users may now search for and edit both the file names and activity descriptions for each case-related document.

For more details, please see our previous blog post on Version 3.4 Thyone, which lists all the new developments and features available in this latest release, and stay tuned for further updates.

Coming Soon: Version 3.4 Thyone Release

Within the next few days, users can expect a flurry of new features and capabilities in MerusCase with our latest release, Thyone. Where does the name Thyone come from? It's one of 67 confirmed moons orbiting Jupiter. It's also the genus for a type of marine animal called the "sea cucumber," and the name of a mortal woman in Greek mythology, who bore a child with Zeus named Dionysus that became god of the grape harvest.

A few exciting developments in this latest release include new keyboard shortcuts, double-column address displays for templates and enhancements to our email/messaging and invoice capabilities. Please scroll down for more details.

Activities

• Including the file name of documents in the activity's description
• If the name and activity description are identical, the file's name is not displayed
• New Rename control for renaming files in the activity's details
• Forwarding a document from the Activities list will no longer create a new activity entry for that document.  An activity entry for the message is still created, however.

Browse Firm PDFs

• Can now set the priority of the message sent when choosing to Notify Attorney Responsible
• Can now add and remove any number of Activity Tags from a document
• Can now edit the document's Description after it has been attached to a case
• Editing the Description creates a new activity in the case's Activity feed
• Better filtering for unattached documents

Calendar

• Improved filtering when a case name contains accented characters
• QuickLinks for filtering by Firm Branch Office are now available

Cases

• Citation Number for Malpractice cases is now saved and retrieved properly
• Venue selector no longer disappears for users with non-California jurisdictions set

Companies

• The list of people types is now ordered alphabetically

Contacts

• Staff Responsible added to the Cases table
• Ability to filter on the newly added Staff Responsible

Events

• Events' Where data is now shown in the Events table
• Filtering on Where data is now possible
• Filtering on Firm Office is now possible
• OR filters on Assignees now work properly

Exporting

• Timeslips, BCS, and Tabs3 exporting improved for moderately-sized datasets (400 - 1000+ entries)
• Better behavior for all formats when exporting large datasets (8000+ items)
• Expense Code E101 amounts now placed in the Photocopy column of Timeslips exports rather than the Misc column

Firm Branch Offices

• Changing the Default Venue after creating the Firm Branch Office is now possible

Forms

• Improved behavior when working with forms that use descriptions no longer used by the court

Invoices

• Better behavior of the Save button so extra clicks do not cause unnecessary saves
• Attorney (Atty) column on PDF Invoices relabeled Billed By (By) to reflect that not only attorneys' entries appear on invoices
• User column in summary box on PDF Invoices relabeled Billed By to reflect the change to the column in invoice line items

Ledgers

• Improved sorting and filtering by the Amount column

Messages

• Improved handling of recipients when performing a Reply to All
• Now able to attach documents from a case's Activities without first downloading them
• Attaching a document from a case's Activities list will not create a new activity entry for that document.  An activity entry for the message is still created, however.
• Sender name is included in default Description text when linking a message to a case
• From: <sender name>. Subject: <message subject>
• Removed automatic double-dash (--) from signature blocks; it can be added manually if needed
• Print Full Body now includes a list of attachments
• Improved behavior when linking messages to cases when using the Preview Pane (aka, widescreen mode)

Parties

• Insurance fields now have placeholder text
• When adding parties, searching now also checks a contact's Uniform Assigned Name (UAN), if present, to determine a match

Preferences

• User preferences
• Start of Week is now settable
• Sunday or Monday can be chosen for the start of the week
• Setting affects both the Event Calendar and the date picker calendars that are shown when choosing a date
• The default is Sunday
• Audible notifications for messages can now be turned off; the default is ON
• Age of items shown in My Billable Time is no longer hard-capped at 90 days, and can be set to one of the following:
• Since the 1st of the Year
• 30 Days
• 90 Days (default)
• 180 Days

• Firm preferences
• Limit the length of Case Ledger Descriptions to a desired number of characters

Receivables

• Now able to unlink a receivable from an invoice without deleting the entire receivable
• Better behavior of the Save button so that extra clicks do not cause unnecessary saves

Reports

• Billable Time: Full Detail now shows the Invoice Reference Number as indicated in its description
• Stale Cases now allows selection of users for Attorney Responsible filtering
• Improved Cases List report

Tasks

• Case links in the Browse Tasks table now give a proper right-click menu

Templates

• Merge fields for the new Personal Injury case types are now available
• Updated Merge Field Reference Guide now available (version 4.1)
• Address Block merge fields now have a two-column option
• MULTIPARTY:addressblock_two_column
• MULTIPARTY:addressblock_with_phone_two_column
• MULTIPARTY:addressblock_with_email_two_column
• MULTIPARTY:addressblock_with_phone_and_email_two_column

Workflows

• Tasks created by subsequent workflows are no longer created as sub-tasks of the task created by the first workflow that gets triggered.
• Example: 
• Workflow 1: create a task: My Task when an activity of type Email Received is created
• Workflow 2: create a task: Your Task when an activity of type Email Received is created
• These workflows will now create two separate tasks, rather than a task (My Task) with a sub-task (Your Task)

Miscellaneous

• Count of injuries in the Left Panel Navigation no longer disappears
• Improved behavior when using a right-click to open a new tab when viewing a case
• Improved display of text with accented characters
• Timer now shown in global Time Tracker dialog
• Downloaded documents now respect any renaming done in Message Compose, Activities, or Browse Firm PDFs.
• When filtering, using double-quotes around the filter term will force an exact match, i.e. "AC" will match AC, but not ACE or RAC
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Esc - triggers a box's Cancel button
• Ctrl-Enter - triggers a box's Save button
• Ctrl-Shift-Enter - triggers the Save and Add Another (green plus) button when adding Ledger items
• Ctrl-\ - opens the global time tracker window
• '\' is the key above the Return/Enter key

Our engineers also toiled in the trenches of "coding land" to optimize other technical aspects of the software to make for a faster, better experience when using MerusCase.

Version 3.3/3.31 Praxidike Release

Cases

• Changes to the Personal Injury case type
• Personal Injury has been split into five separate types
• Motor Vehicle Accident
• Premise Liability
• Product Liability
• Medical Malpractice
• General
• These separate types replace the previous sub-type or incident type selection that was associated with the Personal Injury case type

Companies

• Delete widget in Browse Companies properly deletes again, instead of displaying the company's details

Contacts

• Cases tab now shows the Hidden/Visible status of the contact.
• Cases tab can now be filtered on the Hidden/Visible status of the contact.

Firm PDFs

• Better display of tags assigned to documents from the Activity list

Forms/Templates

• Improved behavior when merging documents created with different versions of Microsoft Word.
• Improved feedback when encountering issues saving documents to MerusCase using the Save to Merus button.

Messages

• QuickLinks are now available on shared inboxes.
• Saving a draft message now correctly saves the priority of the draft.

Parties

• Additional fields for parties on case types other than Workers' Compensation
• Insurance Policy Number
• Insurance Claim Number
• Insurance Claim Status
• Insurance Policy Notes
• Alternates for each of the above

Reports

• Billable Time reports now include a Total

User Preferences

• Ability to set a default filter on Contacts.
• Corrected labeling for Inbox, Sent, and Drafts.

Miscellaneous

• Read-only users can no longer remove contacts from a case using the contact's Cases tab.
• Adding a firm branch office no longer spawns multiple Add boxes.
• NOT keyword is again respected when used in filters.

Other improvements for a faster, better experience when using MerusCase.

Version 3.27 Erinome Release

Exporting

• Open Charges, Reviewed Charges, and My Charges to Tabs3.

Parties

• Improved auditing of changes to the parties on a case.

Reports

• Improved the Billable Time Summary By Day report.
• the location used for grouping is now based on the user's assigned office, rather than the case file's location.
• corrected the determination of the user's role.
• users are now represented by their full names, rather than initials only
• New Report Audit Log: Party Activity displays the audit history for user interaction with Parties.

Miscellaneous

• Ability to upload .avi and .wmv video files.
• Better searching with accented characters.
• Printing the Events List respects Assignee filters again.

Version 3.25 & 3.26 Erinome Release

Important

• Filter selectors in User Preferences now act as defaults even if no filter text is specified; setting these to your most-used filtering options will significantly reduce the time it takes to filter your lists.
• Save to Merus button in Word now saves the document only if it has been modified

Activities

• Default activity tag is now respected when tagging uploaded documents in Browse Firm PDFs.
• Bulk deleting activities properly respects user permissions again.
• Linked document activities retain their links when the document is updated.
• Now able to link an activity to related cases when creating a new activity. Previously, linking was only available when editing an activity.
• Removing the link from a linked activity is now immediate; it is no longer necessary to refresh the page.

Events

• Improved handling of timezones when interacting with events.
• Browsing calendar events now respects the 'NOT' keyword when filtering.

Invoices and Ledgers

• Reviewed ledger items that have been invoiced no longer show as reviewed in the case ledger; they are now properly shown as invoiced.
• Exporting invoices in LEDES format now correctly truncates all carrier billing ids.
• Summary box on PDF invoices properly summarizes again.
• Ledger items behave better when the 'Review Ledger Items' preference is toggled.
• Improved behavior when applying payments to invoices; it is now much harder to overdraw the receivable, and payments won't be marked reconciled if they have a negative balance.
• Improved handling of very large numbers.
• Placeholder Invoices properly displayed when creating a receivable (3.26)

Messages

• Deleting a message and then browsing the message list no longer jumps to the previously selected message.
• Viewing messages on smaller screens has been restored. (3.26)

Preferences

• Firm preference for requiring a billing code selection is respected when logging time in an activity, and when composing a message.

Reports

• New Report: A/R Receivables (per Payor) - a report that summarizes receivables from selected Payors.

Tasks

• Better integration of Tasks with the Activity list. Editing tasks, including marking Completed/Not Completed, can now be done in the Activity list. It is no longer necessary to jump to the Tasks view to work with your Tasks.
• Tasks are properly displayed on the Dashboard again. (3.26)

Miscellaneous

• Contact preview icons in Company Details have been restored.
• Now able to change a Firm Office's venue after creation.
• Notifications sent to the Attorney Responsible when attaching a Firm PDF to a case display the case name properly again.
• No longer creating an empty applicant when creating a new case using the ADJ lookup and forcing the creation of the contact (a.k.a, allowing duplicate contacts).

Other improvements for a faster, better experience when using MerusCase.

System Downtime Friday, June 6, 9pm to 12am

MerusCase will be unavailable on Friday, June 6, 2014, from 9:00 p.m. until 12:00 a.m. while we perform database maintenance. 

We apologize for any inconvenience.

What's New in MerusCase? (Version 3.2 Sponde Release)

Here's the latest MerusCase release:

Billing and Invoicing
You can now get a pre-invoice/bill review of ledger items:

• New 'Reviewed Charges' tab in the 'Books' area
• 'Mark Reviewed' button replaces 'Create Invoices' button in the 'Open Charges' if the preference is set
• Ability to mark reviewed items as 'Not Reviewed'
• Reviewed items can not be edited in 'My Time' or a case's 'Ledgers' table

Exporting

• 'Open Charges' to 'Timeslips'
• Invoices in LEDES format as a single file

New User-level Improvements
You now have the ability to now make user-level preferences:

• Auto-filter now available on 'courts/venues' and 'forms' by state
• Auto-hide feature for the built-in Word templates

New Firm-level Enhancements
You can now set preferences at the firm-level too:

• Review case ledgers before invoicing
• Noted above
• Enforce a 'Predefined Description' when recording new case ledger entries (This applies to non-e-bill cases. UTBMS-only cases are always enforced.)
• Requires users to select a description when entering the time charges
• Hide/Show the Case column on invoices

Additional Improved Features

• Now, no more prompts on 'unsaved changes' when you are discarding a draft message.
• You will now no longer be able to paste negative values into payment allocation fields.
• 'Case File' venue now respects the 'Firm Office' venue choice.
• MerusCase now has the ability to turn off preventing duplicates while importing a contact CSV file.
• Broader court (venue) case support now available—Civil and Criminal cases now have a court venue selector. New 'Criminal' court venues entered for 16 additional states.
• Improved merging of Social Security Numbers.
• Enhanced auditing.
• Other improvements for a faster, better experience when using MerusCase