Product Review: Onit

Market statistics across all industries, including professional services, reveal that cloud products will drive the automation train. This is particularly true of Software-as-a-Service (Saas) products designed for small and medium-sized businesses.

Onit is a SaaS vendor that initially developed project management solutions for several professions, including legal. In response to customer feedback, they have now added single-function app solutions that address specific processes within your firm or legal department. And if you have a particular need they haven't already thought of, they will customize an app that does what you want, the way you want to do it. Onit apps, they say, are for those who don't think about their work as a project, but as a process.

In 2011, Onit developed a project management system and modified it to serve the evolving legal project management market. While the software was designed for legal departments, it is suitable for a law firm environment as well, with a few twists.

In the legal version of the system, each legal matter becomes a project to be managed based on the principles of project management theory. The design included every aspect of a matter's lifecycle. But what the Onit team found, when marketing its product to lawyers and corporate law departments, was a clientele not quite prepared for a complex management theory or system. The learning curve was just too high.

Onit's Single-Process Apps

Onit responded by adopting the mindset of its market and revamping and expanding its products to give the market what it was asking for: tools that automate specific processes in their workflow. From a graphic viewpoint, it is analogous to buying pizza by the slice instead of the whole pie. Onit now offers both full-service systems that are process-driven and a variety of apps, which automate those specific procedures that all matters have in common. These apps work both as stand-alone systems and in conjunction with your existing practice or project management automation.

For example, all matters, whether a contract proposal or a legal dispute, go through an intake process. In many instances, the decision to go forward requires authorization from a variety of sources, particularly in the law department setting. Onit streamlines this process with an app called Contract Review and Approval.

This app standardizes intake into a process tool that includes real-time notifications, custom templates, flexible workflow, easy-to-use checklists and collaboration. It serves as a comprehensive intake form and a central information source when initiating a request to bring in a new client or enter into a new agreement. It can be customized to gather the particular categories of information your organization needs to accomplish this task.

The app is designed to provide this information in a structured, centralized format and routed to anyone within the firm or corporate legal department involved in the decision-making process. For law firms, it would provide the framework for pre-qualifying a new client and matter. For law departments, it includes all the information relevant to the various departments to make an informed decision.

It enables you to see all your matters or contracts in one place, know who is working on them, see where in the pipeline the matter is, and read all of the interactions between parties. Once the matter is authorized, the content of the intake form can be uploaded into your matter management system, eliminating any duplication of data input.

Other single-process apps Onit offers are:

Governance, Risk and Compliance:

• Ethics;
• E&O Claims;
• Whistleblower;
• SAS-70/SSAE ' 16 Compliance; and
• Incident/Accident Reports.

Legal:

• Contract Review and Approval;
• Service Mark or Trademark Registration;
• IP Infringement;
• e-Billing and Spend Management;
• Matter Management;
• Matter Intake; and
• Invention Disclosure.

Sales:

• Quotes/Pricing; and
• NDA Requests.

HR:

• Employee Onboarding;
• Involuntary Employee Termination; and
• Worker Compensation.

Onit's App Customization

All of Onit's apps are built on a platform that combines business process management, collaboration, communication, information/document management and project management into one tool, with the intention of driving efficiency and productivity. The platform is also designed to increase visibility into the processes in which your firm or department is engaged, improve the utilization of resources, enhance efficiency and drive profitability.

All customized apps inherit the platform's core features. With that as a foundation, the platform is highly-configurable and flexible, allowing for customization that aligns itself with what process you need automated and how you like to do it.

Fully Functional Process Management Platforms

Onit continues to offer its original Project Management system, including the following functions:

• Project Planning;
• Collaboration;
• Document Management;
• Task Management;
• Status Updates;
• Outlook Integration;
• Budgeting and Estimating;
• Reminders; and
• Tagging.

From that system, it developed their Business Process Management platform, which redirects the workflow away from project-centric to process-centric, and offers the following:

• Automation of all manual processes;
• A “Front Office” that enables form publication;
• Customization that creates legal forms specific to legal departments;
• Resource Management simplifies how legal work gets initiated;
• Workflow creation; and
• Collaboration.

Access to the system's content is created through a series of process links that can live on your own shared drive (intranet), SharePoint, or can be hosted by Onit. A process is a combination of a form(s), a wizard for data entry and collection and workflow that can be either fixed or variable, conditioned upon the occurrence of an event. The system includes templates for standard processes, but it also supports the ability to modify the forms and workflow as necessary.

Onit includes a Matter Management Toolkit in its arsenal of solutions. The Toolkit is designed to help your organization improve usage by means of its management tools. Through the use of a simple form, any collaborator within your system can submit status updates, make and disseminate notes of meetings or other events, or give notice of important actions or tasks. This can also be done via e-mail or a mobile device, all without needing to log into the user interface.

Security

Cloud security and its extenuating effect on lawyer's ethical obligations of competence and confidentiality are certainly top-of-mind when considering cloud products for management of legal matters. Model Rules and several state bar draft opinions are including “reasonable” efforts to vet and understand the technology lawyers use in their practices to the extent it effects client obligations. North Carolina has recently become the first state to publish a final opinion on this topic using the “reasonable” standard, although none of these opinions, draft or otherwise, include a definition of specific conduct.

Onit has implemented one of the most complex and cross-platform security configurations available, including physical, system, application and operational security functions. Its policies and procedures include prohibiting employees access to hosted data, no claims of data ownership, 24/7 monitoring and escalation and user e-mail verification.

Conclusion

With the launch of single-process apps and app customization, Onit has raised the bar for diversity in cloud technology choices for law practice management. Single-process apps offer an any-way-you-want-it element that is available on IaaS and PaaS systems, but at a much greater cost. This feature is missing in SaaS products because their designs are generally not customizable.

But like time, tech innovation never stands still. The next big influx of legal cloud apps is begging to tap into the use of knowledge tools. One of the ways knowledge tools have been used is to learn the habits of their users, and then suggest new processes, design or content that would help the user overcome an inefficient behavior or expand beyond existing patterns. Onit's products seem uniquely designed to incorporate this capability in future iterations, creating technology that not only helps us do what we do, but also informs us of ways to expand beyond our own thought processes.

Cloud apps and platforms for legal management and productivity come in several shapes and sizes. Functional capabilities differ from one to another, sometimes requiring an extensive review and comparison to learn how each can offer solutions to your particular workflow management needs. Often, this process requires sitting through vendor tutorials, where they show you how the system works in words you don't understand, leaving you frustrated and wondering how long it is until happy hour.

In other words, shopping for a cloud product that meets your specific needs is just no fun. It takes too much time, makes you feel confused and often leads to indecision, until the next time you think “there's got to be an easier way to do this.”

But let's face it: A business functioning without digital tools that automate management processes, including the process of practicing law, will soon be unable to compete in their particular marketplace. The workflow efficiency and productivity that automation can create is unparalleled and significantly affects your profit margin in this discount-shopping, ease-of-use, consumer society. Customers and clients expect nothing less than the best product or service at a reasonable cost, given with a happy face. Automation makes it possible to meet those expectations.

Market statistics across all industries, including professional services, reveal that cloud products will drive the automation train. This is particularly true of Software-as-a-Service (Saas) products designed for small and medium-sized businesses.

Onit is a SaaS vendor that initially developed project management solutions for several professions, including legal. In response to customer feedback, they have now added single-function app solutions that address specific processes within your firm or legal department. And if you have a particular need they haven't already thought of, they will customize an app that does what you want, the way you want to do it. Onit apps, they say, are for those who don't think about their work as a project, but as a process.

In 2011, Onit developed a project management system and modified it to serve the evolving legal project management market. While the software was designed for legal departments, it is suitable for a law firm environment as well, with a few twists.

In the legal version of the system, each legal matter becomes a project to be managed based on the principles of project management theory. The design included every aspect of a matter's lifecycle. But what the Onit team found, when marketing its product to lawyers and corporate law departments, was a clientele not quite prepared for a complex management theory or system. The learning curve was just too high.

Onit's Single-Process Apps

Onit responded by adopting the mindset of its market and revamping and expanding its products to give the market what it was asking for: tools that automate specific processes in their workflow. From a graphic viewpoint, it is analogous to buying pizza by the slice instead of the whole pie. Onit now offers both full-service systems that are process-driven and a variety of apps, which automate those specific procedures that all matters have in common. These apps work both as stand-alone systems and in conjunction with your existing practice or project management automation.

For example, all matters, whether a contract proposal or a legal dispute, go through an intake process. In many instances, the decision to go forward requires authorization from a variety of sources, particularly in the law department setting. Onit streamlines this process with an app called Contract Review and Approval.

This app standardizes intake into a process tool that includes real-time notifications, custom templates, flexible workflow, easy-to-use checklists and collaboration. It serves as a comprehensive intake form and a central information source when initiating a request to bring in a new client or enter into a new agreement. It can be customized to gather the particular categories of information your organization needs to accomplish this task.

The app is designed to provide this information in a structured, centralized format and routed to anyone within the firm or corporate legal department involved in the decision-making process. For law firms, it would provide the framework for pre-qualifying a new client and matter. For law departments, it includes all the information relevant to the various departments to make an informed decision.

It enables you to see all your matters or contracts in one place, know who is working on them, see where in the pipeline the matter is, and read all of the interactions between parties. Once the matter is authorized, the content of the intake form can be uploaded into your matter management system, eliminating any duplication of data input.

Other single-process apps Onit offers are:

Governance, Risk and Compliance:

• Ethics;
• E&O Claims;
• Whistleblower;
• SAS-70/SSAE ' 16 Compliance; and
• Incident/Accident Reports.

Legal:

• Contract Review and Approval;
• Service Mark or Trademark Registration;
• IP Infringement;
• e-Billing and Spend Management;
• Matter Management;
• Matter Intake; and
• Invention Disclosure.

Sales:

• Quotes/Pricing; and
• NDA Requests.

HR:

• Employee Onboarding;
• Involuntary Employee Termination; and
• Worker Compensation.

Onit's App Customization

All of Onit's apps are built on a platform that combines business process management, collaboration, communication, information/document management and project management into one tool, with the intention of driving efficiency and productivity. The platform is also designed to increase visibility into the processes in which your firm or department is engaged, improve the utilization of resources, enhance efficiency and drive profitability.

All customized apps inherit the platform's core features. With that as a foundation, the platform is highly-configurable and flexible, allowing for customization that aligns itself with what process you need automated and how you like to do it.

Fully Functional Process Management Platforms

Onit continues to offer its original Project Management system, including the following functions:

• Project Planning;
• Collaboration;
• Document Management;
• Task Management;
• Status Updates;
• Outlook Integration;
• Budgeting and Estimating;
• Reminders; and
• Tagging.

From that system, it developed their Business Process Management platform, which redirects the workflow away from project-centric to process-centric, and offers the following:

• Automation of all manual processes;
• A “Front Office” that enables form publication;
• Customization that creates legal forms specific to legal departments;
• Resource Management simplifies how legal work gets initiated;
• Workflow creation; and
• Collaboration.

Access to the system's content is created through a series of process links that can live on your own shared drive (intranet), SharePoint, or can be hosted by Onit. A process is a combination of a form(s), a wizard for data entry and collection and workflow that can be either fixed or variable, conditioned upon the occurrence of an event. The system includes templates for standard processes, but it also supports the ability to modify the forms and workflow as necessary.

Onit includes a Matter Management Toolkit in its arsenal of solutions. The Toolkit is designed to help your organization improve usage by means of its management tools. Through the use of a simple form, any collaborator within your system can submit status updates, make and disseminate notes of meetings or other events, or give notice of important actions or tasks. This can also be done via e-mail or a mobile device, all without needing to log into the user interface.

Security

Cloud security and its extenuating effect on lawyer's ethical obligations of competence and confidentiality are certainly top-of-mind when considering cloud products for management of legal matters. Model Rules and several state bar draft opinions are including “reasonable” efforts to vet and understand the technology lawyers use in their practices to the extent it effects client obligations. North Carolina has recently become the first state to publish a final opinion on this topic using the “reasonable” standard, although none of these opinions, draft or otherwise, include a definition of specific conduct.

Onit has implemented one of the most complex and cross-platform security configurations available, including physical, system, application and operational security functions. Its policies and procedures include prohibiting employees access to hosted data, no claims of data ownership, 24/7 monitoring and escalation and user e-mail verification.

Conclusion

With the launch of single-process apps and app customization, Onit has raised the bar for diversity in cloud technology choices for law practice management. Single-process apps offer an any-way-you-want-it element that is available on IaaS and PaaS systems, but at a much greater cost. This feature is missing in SaaS products because their designs are generally not customizable.

But like time, tech innovation never stands still. The next big influx of legal cloud apps is begging to tap into the use of knowledge tools. One of the ways knowledge tools have been used is to learn the habits of their users, and then suggest new processes, design or content that would help the user overcome an inefficient behavior or expand beyond existing patterns. Onit's products seem uniquely designed to incorporate this capability in future iterations, creating technology that not only helps us do what we do, but also informs us of ways to expand beyond our own thought processes.