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Saturday, January 28, 2006
Getting to know MyTicklerFile
I spent a little time getting started with MyTicklerFile. Following are my initial thoughts on this web based calendar system.
The sign-up process is pretty straightforward. However, the confirmation e-mail contained only my username and password. There was no link to click. Not that it's necessary, I suppose. Maybe I'm just used to having to click a link to confirm that I'm a real person for so many different things. But, it does make me wonder what the developer of MyTicklerFile has in mind as far as security.
MyTicklerFile has three basic plans:
- The free plan is limited to 15 ticklers,
- The basic plan costs $9.00 per month, or a discounted $99.00 per year, and is limited to 150 ticklers, and
- The power plan costs $19.00 per month, or a discounted $199.00 a year, and places no limits to the amount of ticklers.
For my purposes, and for the time being, I signed up for the free plan. Obviously, the free plan is not at all suitable for busy law offices; whereas, the power plan would be most suitable. Either of the first two plans can be upgraded at any time.
I was disappointed to see Paypal as the only payment option. Without getting into the complaints people have about Paypal, it's clear that MyTicklerFile will, at some point, need to accept other forms of payment, including credit cards, if it is to be a viable web service.
As soon as my account was set up, I created one tickler for the fictitious "Smith brief." The fields are clearly marked.
One of the main features of the system is to have tickles sent by e-mail. The send on choices are: Tomorrow morning, next Monday, one week, one month, 3 months, 1 year. Or, at a specific time. I chose the specific time of January 30, 2006, at 7:00 a.m.
There are several choices under frequency, including: One time, daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, and yearly. I chose daily. There is also the opportunity to delete the tickler after it has been sent. This really isn't necessary for law offices, since lawyers save everything.
At this point, enter the e-mail addresses where the tickle is to be sent. I entered my own e-mail address.
In the field to attach a message, I included the actual due date of the brief.
The final field is for tags. I used, "Smith, brief" (without the quote marks). This is a great feature. By using tags, I'll be able to produce a list of all tickles for Smith and for brief. I'll be able to see every brief that's due, no matter for which client.
Clicking the home link goes to the dashboard where the upcoming and delivered tickles are displayed.
In the sidebar, I was very alarmed to see that e-mail reminders will be sent to someone I don't even know. I clicked the link to change the e-mail.
But, nothing happened. I wonder if that's because I'm using Firefox as my browser. In any event, this is a dangerous security breach that should have been dealt with before rolling this system out as a pay for product.
Another problem is security, in general. I don't see any indication that MyTicklerFile uses any kind of security system. I'll leave it to the experts as to what and why security is needed for something like this. But, in the meantime, I can't recommend MyTicklerFile for anyone, especially lawyers, who need to be mindful of confidentiality.
One element I would like to see added to MyTicklerFile is the ability to download a file that would be compatible with something like Quattro Pro or Excel.
MyTicklerFile has a blog. But, as yet, there's not a lot there.
Conclusion: While MyTicklerFile has simplicity going for it, it's not at all ready for prime-time. In fact, it's so not ready that I'm surprised they're already charging to use the service. However, it does hold a lot of promise. I'll go back to it at a future time to see if any of the concerns raised here have been addressed.
Related entry: The tickler file: From clunky to slick.
• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 10:01 PM
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Comments
Marie,
Thanks for the feedback. The payment concerns are valid and we are exploring additional options. The email address you are referring to is the address that you would use to send incoming email reminders to yourself (e.g http://www.myticklerfile.com/media/sending_email.mov ). The address is automatically created by the system in an attempt to prevent spam. This also why there is a "get new address" capability, so that you can change the address if there is ever a need. We probably need to change the text to make that more clear, but we added a question mark link to explain it better (still work needs to be done in this area to make it clearer).
So again thanks for your concerns and your feedback. We truly appreciate all of it. We are please to count you among the many other attorneys using MTF for case and brief reminders. We will be making interesting imporvements soon, so please stay tuned.
Solomon Folks
My Tickler File Team
http://www.myticklerfile.com
Posted by: Solomon Folks at February 15, 2006 10:52 AM
Solomon,
Thanks so much for your reply.
For the record, I'm a former legal secretary with nearly 30 years experience who now consults and assists law offices with their technology needs. I'm not a lawyer.
Posted by: Marie at February 15, 2006 12:47 PM
