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Converting to Office 2007 and Struggling with Word?

By Lance Waagner
December 28, 2010

The Pareto Principle states that for many events and occurrences, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Better known as the 80-20 rule, this age-old axiom has modern-day application, particularly in business and economics. The same holds true in the world of the legal helpdesk, where a majority of user support calls, independent of firm size, geography or hardware/software configuration, typically pertain to just a handful of the most popular legal applications.

In collecting and analyzing massive amounts of legal helpdesk ticketing data, including more than 600,000 helpdesk tickets within a recent nine-month time frame, legal-specific outsourcers and internal helpdesks alike pinpointed a noticeable, albeit predictable trend: More than 50% of all tickets resolved by the helpdesk relate to Microsoft Office products, with Word and Outlook leading the charge. While everyone is buzzing about Office 2010, and many firms are plotting their upgrade to Microsoft's latest productivity suite “opus,” Office 2007 and older versions are actually seeing most of the action when it comes to helpdesk tickets and support questions. In fact, according to the 2010 ILTA Technology Survey, only 22% of firms currently use Word 2007, while 74% are still running Word 2003 or older; less than 1% among surveyed firms indicated using Word 2010.

Why Are We Still Taking About 2007?

With these statistics in hand, you might better understand why most firms are still dealing with Office 2007, which is now, by many standards, older software, given that it was first released to the public almost four years ago. It will come as no surprise that one of the biggest influences on new-version implementation time frames is software vendor integration readiness (with “readiness” and “willingness” on the side of the firm also included). This makes sense considering the typical law firm document production environment is complex; it is not unusual to see firms with 20 or more applications integrating with Office, including metadata scrubbers, PDF tools, comparison software, document management systems, etc.

Microsoft upgrades tend to be big or small (and not much in between). Microsoft Office 2007 has certainly been a big step with a new user interface to adapt to, not to mention the many additional features and functions in Word and other suite applications. With that said, experienced and proficient users have struggled to adapt to the new ribbon interface in Office 2007. For example, proficient Excel users may experience frustrations with Pivot tables, not due to functionality limitations, but because they can't find specific features (pivot tables, for example, previously on the Data menu, are now located on the Insert tab of the ribbon). In looking forward to 2010, there's a lot less, if any, talk about functionality vows or hidden features and a lot more about collaboration, integration and how Office can become a major productivity driver in law firms across the country.

In Word 2007, we saw power users involved in more than standard legal document production take a liking to the enhancements and additional functionality but get frustrated with the ribbon. On the contrary, firms with a controlled document production environment (i.e., a style for every occasion), and those who have done a thorough job of converting their toolbar to a tab on the new ribbon interface, experienced fewer issues getting used to the styles and formatting in the new version. This example should serve as a lesson learned for Office 2010 in terms of spending extra time up front planning and analyzing what worked better or less with the 2007 upgrade. This brings up the importance of establishing and “feeding” a knowledge base that addresses problems, solutions and workarounds ranging from common upgrade issues to custom, more obscure, challenges. A thriving knowledge base with constant updates is an invaluable asset to any law firm helpdesk and its user population.

From a helpdesk perspective, internal and outsourced, Word 2007 includes several features and functions that have firm end-users still scratching their heads:

  • Working with tables. To insert a table, users now have to click on the Insert tab and click on Table on the Tables group. The Insert Table option is not on the Home tab and therefore not immediately visible, whereas in previous versions, Insert Table was a button on the Standard toolbar.
    The other table functions that cause confusion are inserting or deleting rows and/or columns. With the cursor selected, right click to display the short menu, select Insert, and select the appropriate option, i.e., Insert Columns to the Left (Right) or Insert Rows Above (Below).
  • Insert a comment. Users soon get comfortable with the Insert tab that allows you to insert many features, such as tables, bookmarks, footers, etc. However, to insert a comment, you need to use the Review tab. Click the New Comment button on the Comments group.
  • Insert a section break. Inserting a section break is another feature that users might expect to find on the Insert tab, instead it is found on the Page Layout tab and then the Breaks dropdown on the Page Setup group.
  • Headers and footers. Headers and footers can be confusing because users who are upgrading will be very familiar with the View menu option in previous versions of Word. Now there is a Header & Footer group on the Insert tab.

Conclusion

Learning a new software program always brings frustrations, but if users know up front which changes are likely to be problematic, expectations can be managed, which helps soften the blow. Also, rethink how the helpdesk staff and users can benefit from the experiences of other law firms that have already gone through the Office 2007 upgrade and use this knowledge to be prepared for the firm's Office 2010 implementation. While even the more experienced Word user may well become extremely frustrated and confused with the changes in 2007, given the right tools and appropriate training and support, they could become the biggest allies and evangelists for the new features and functionality in this version and beyond.


Lance Waagner is the President and CEO of Intelliteach, an Atlanta-based legal-specific service desk outsourcing company. Prior to founding Intelliteach in 1998, he served as CIO for a 450-lawyer firm. Waagner leads a 110-person team of legal support analysts serving 30% of the Am Law 200 with 24/7 help desk support, overflow support and full-service outsourced helpdesk solutions. He can be reached at [email protected].

The Pareto Principle states that for many events and occurrences, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Better known as the 80-20 rule, this age-old axiom has modern-day application, particularly in business and economics. The same holds true in the world of the legal helpdesk, where a majority of user support calls, independent of firm size, geography or hardware/software configuration, typically pertain to just a handful of the most popular legal applications.

In collecting and analyzing massive amounts of legal helpdesk ticketing data, including more than 600,000 helpdesk tickets within a recent nine-month time frame, legal-specific outsourcers and internal helpdesks alike pinpointed a noticeable, albeit predictable trend: More than 50% of all tickets resolved by the helpdesk relate to Microsoft Office products, with Word and Outlook leading the charge. While everyone is buzzing about Office 2010, and many firms are plotting their upgrade to Microsoft's latest productivity suite “opus,” Office 2007 and older versions are actually seeing most of the action when it comes to helpdesk tickets and support questions. In fact, according to the 2010 ILTA Technology Survey, only 22% of firms currently use Word 2007, while 74% are still running Word 2003 or older; less than 1% among surveyed firms indicated using Word 2010.

Why Are We Still Taking About 2007?

With these statistics in hand, you might better understand why most firms are still dealing with Office 2007, which is now, by many standards, older software, given that it was first released to the public almost four years ago. It will come as no surprise that one of the biggest influences on new-version implementation time frames is software vendor integration readiness (with “readiness” and “willingness” on the side of the firm also included). This makes sense considering the typical law firm document production environment is complex; it is not unusual to see firms with 20 or more applications integrating with Office, including metadata scrubbers, PDF tools, comparison software, document management systems, etc.

Microsoft upgrades tend to be big or small (and not much in between). Microsoft Office 2007 has certainly been a big step with a new user interface to adapt to, not to mention the many additional features and functions in Word and other suite applications. With that said, experienced and proficient users have struggled to adapt to the new ribbon interface in Office 2007. For example, proficient Excel users may experience frustrations with Pivot tables, not due to functionality limitations, but because they can't find specific features (pivot tables, for example, previously on the Data menu, are now located on the Insert tab of the ribbon). In looking forward to 2010, there's a lot less, if any, talk about functionality vows or hidden features and a lot more about collaboration, integration and how Office can become a major productivity driver in law firms across the country.

In Word 2007, we saw power users involved in more than standard legal document production take a liking to the enhancements and additional functionality but get frustrated with the ribbon. On the contrary, firms with a controlled document production environment (i.e., a style for every occasion), and those who have done a thorough job of converting their toolbar to a tab on the new ribbon interface, experienced fewer issues getting used to the styles and formatting in the new version. This example should serve as a lesson learned for Office 2010 in terms of spending extra time up front planning and analyzing what worked better or less with the 2007 upgrade. This brings up the importance of establishing and “feeding” a knowledge base that addresses problems, solutions and workarounds ranging from common upgrade issues to custom, more obscure, challenges. A thriving knowledge base with constant updates is an invaluable asset to any law firm helpdesk and its user population.

From a helpdesk perspective, internal and outsourced, Word 2007 includes several features and functions that have firm end-users still scratching their heads:

  • Working with tables. To insert a table, users now have to click on the Insert tab and click on Table on the Tables group. The Insert Table option is not on the Home tab and therefore not immediately visible, whereas in previous versions, Insert Table was a button on the Standard toolbar.
    The other table functions that cause confusion are inserting or deleting rows and/or columns. With the cursor selected, right click to display the short menu, select Insert, and select the appropriate option, i.e., Insert Columns to the Left (Right) or Insert Rows Above (Below).
  • Insert a comment. Users soon get comfortable with the Insert tab that allows you to insert many features, such as tables, bookmarks, footers, etc. However, to insert a comment, you need to use the Review tab. Click the New Comment button on the Comments group.
  • Insert a section break. Inserting a section break is another feature that users might expect to find on the Insert tab, instead it is found on the Page Layout tab and then the Breaks dropdown on the Page Setup group.
  • Headers and footers. Headers and footers can be confusing because users who are upgrading will be very familiar with the View menu option in previous versions of Word. Now there is a Header & Footer group on the Insert tab.

Conclusion

Learning a new software program always brings frustrations, but if users know up front which changes are likely to be problematic, expectations can be managed, which helps soften the blow. Also, rethink how the helpdesk staff and users can benefit from the experiences of other law firms that have already gone through the Office 2007 upgrade and use this knowledge to be prepared for the firm's Office 2010 implementation. While even the more experienced Word user may well become extremely frustrated and confused with the changes in 2007, given the right tools and appropriate training and support, they could become the biggest allies and evangelists for the new features and functionality in this version and beyond.


Lance Waagner is the President and CEO of Intelliteach, an Atlanta-based legal-specific service desk outsourcing company. Prior to founding Intelliteach in 1998, he served as CIO for a 450-lawyer firm. Waagner leads a 110-person team of legal support analysts serving 30% of the Am Law 200 with 24/7 help desk support, overflow support and full-service outsourced helpdesk solutions. He can be reached at [email protected].
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