Helpdesk Announcements

Please read this section for important information about OPSIS Products.

• Software Releases - Product Versions, Release Notes, Downloads, Technical Specs
• Legal Aid - Latest updates, LSC announcements
• Weblink Server - Status and Maintenance Announcements

OPSIS News & Info Blog

Subscribe to the RSS feed of our OPSIS News & Info Blog for the latest news, and information about OPSIS software releases, exhibitions, legal aid updates and more. Current posts are:-

Built-in Product Help

Don't forget - Help is at Hand! The context-sensitive Help files built into our products are an invaluable source of information always available right at your finger-tips, that we upgrade with each new product release. Just click the applications Help button for help Topics, latest Version Notes, Tip of the Day, searchable Index, and the Answer Wizard.

Data Protection Act 1998

Click here for our Support and Data Conversion Policy regarding the Data Protection Act.

Can't find something?

If you cannot find a particular topic or answer to your problem, please contact us, stating the information you require and we will be pleased to answer your question and review it for inclusion in this Support site.

Software Releases

Please scroll down for Product Version Information, Release Notes & Downloads.

Subscribe to the OPSIS News & Info blog RSS feed to be kept informed of new software releases.

Another great way to keep up to date with OPSIS software releases and news is to "follow us" on Twitter.com.

Simply click the Follow Me button below.

If you don't yet have a Twitter.com account you will need to Sign Up (this is very quick and easy to do). Once signed in just click the +Follow button near the OpsisPMS profile details.

We have provided some documents in PDF format, indicated by the image, for you to download and view or print on your computer. To view Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files you will need to download Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader, click here to go Adobe's download pages. You will only need to do this once.

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Solicitor Case Manager

Latest Version: 5.4.10 Click for SCM Release Notes (Online & PDF formats for all releases) Download SCM Technical Specification 114k PDF Format Download PMS/SPS Technical Specification 307k PDF Format Click here for more Case Manager documentation.

 

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Millennium Accounts

Latest Version: 5.84 Millennium Accounts release 5.84 provides the latest LSC Legal Aid changes for February 2012. Click here for Legal Aid release 5.84 details & upgrade instructions Download general 5.84 Release Notes PDF Format Download V5.84 (ADO for MS SQL Server) (large ZIP file 85Mb)   Download V5.84 (DAO for MS Access) (large ZIP file 85Mb)   Download Millennium Accounts Technical Specification PDF Format Millennium Accounts Installation / Upgrade Instructions 1.3Mb Download Millennium Solo Technical Specification PDF Format Download Millennium Report Viewer (SetupRepView.exe 887Kb)

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Weblink

Latest Version: 1.7.9 If you are on an older version of Weblink, please contact us to arrange an update (we need to set this up on the Weblink Server). This may require updating your release of Solicitor Case Manager also. Download Technical Specification PDF Format Click here for further Weblink documentation.

 

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Legal Aid Updates

Here you will find the latest information regarding legal aid updates made to our Millennium Accounts software to comply with changes required by the Legal Services Commission.

• Legal Aid Update - Millennium Accounts V5.84 February 2012

Additional information regarding Legal Aid updates can be found at the IRIS Legal Customer Support Portal.

Another great way to keep up to date with OPSIS software releases and news is to "follow us" on Twitter.com.

Simply click the Follow Me button below.

If you don't yet have a Twitter.com account you will need to Sign Up (this is very quick and easy to do). Once signed in just click the +Follow button near the OpsisPMS profile details.

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LEGAL AID UPDATE

MILLENNIUM ACCOUNTS RELEASE V5.84
February 2012

Millennium Accounts Version 5.84 is available for download.

Click below to download a PDF document describing the following Legal Aid V5.84 changes, and providing important instructions for changing Millennium to use the latest V12 Activity Structures:-

OPSIS-LA_Feb_2012.pdf 862Kb

Millennium Enhancements

Undertakings processing has been enhanced in order to accommodate Republic Of Ireland requirements; new fields have been added for extra information to be stored, and for later reporting (see below).

These are on the Matter details screen.

Reporting:

Undertaking Report (ROI) - a new has been report created to include information, selections and sorts as required.

VAT Return: this has been enhanced to take account of the 'Percentage deductible' field on Setup of a VAT Rate, such that the full amount of VAT is NOT reclaimed should there be a value less than 100% in this field.

Legal Aid Criminal information

For time recording specifically for Representation in the magistrates’ court relating to LSC Paragraphs 10.35 to 10.113 of the Specification USE OUTSIDE LONDON rates in ALL cases, as London rates are no longer applicable as from October 2011 (i.e. LSC 'All Areas' values are those for Outside London).

Legal Aid changes for February 2012

Note: Some of the following information has been supplied by the LSC and is accurate at the time of inclusion. Please refer to the LSC website for the most up to date information.

Millennium general changes:

There are new LSC lower fees for all aspects of Family PFLRS (Private Law Representation fees) and FAS (Family Advocacy Scheme) which are effective for matters with legal aid granted (certificate applied for) date on or after 1st February 2012. Ensure the matter legal aid granted date is set correctly (change effective for 1st February 2012) for the applicable rate: manually input as the system default is empty or 0. Some examples of the rate changes are shown below but please refer to LSC documentation for full list of fees.

Note: The Level 1: Legal Help Initial advice (standard fee) has been reduced to £86 (from £96)
and the Legal Help – Divorce Petition Only (higher fee) has been reduced to £146 (from £162) as from 1st February 2012.

The Level 2 Legal Help - Children and Finance (processing case/stage level with prefix 'FPL') rates have all been reduced as from 1st February 2012.

Note: The Levels 3 & 4, also referred to as the 'LSC table 7b' & '7c' values already had their new lower rates set up (October 2011), when instructions were given to apply the uplift (of 10%) to regain pre-feb 2012 rates.

Note: The 'FPC' prefix case/stage level fees have been reduced to FPC01 = £132 (from 147) & FPC02 =£365 (from £405) and their total FPC03 = $497 (from £552).

Effective 1st February 2012: For Private Law Family Help, Controlled Work Hourly rate relating to Employment then use the appropriate Activity entry Table 7b, formerly for just titled Family and Housing, check the hourly rates are as expected:-

e.g.

for Preparation, Attendance and Advocacy London rate = £48.74 (was £54.15) and non-london rate is £45.95 (was £51.05)

for Travel & Waiting Time London rate = £25.74 (was £28.60) and non-london rate is £25.74 (was £28.60)

for Routine Letters out and telephone calls London rate = £3.78 (was £4.20) and non-london rate is £3.65 (was £4.05).

The Standard Civil Contract (Family and Housing) is scheduled to come into force in 01/02/2012 so the format of the Reference number will change.

The Submission Reference will be a combination of their “Office Account number” and “/CIVIL”, therefore adopting the format: NANNNA/CIVIL eg 1A123A/CIVIL.

There will be no validation in Millennium except the LSCBulkload report will warn if 'CIVIL' does not appear in the global/branch schedule reference in case it has not been updated.

When creating a Civil type Matter the manual input of a schedule reference number is required by the LSC: it should be made up of the global/branch schedule reference and the selected case type and the accounting year in the format specified:-

schedule reference will be in one of 2 formats presently made up of the following components:

“Office Account Number”/”SCC”/”Year” in the format: NANNNA/SCC/NN with LSC Example:

1A123A/SCC/13 or “Office Account Number”/”FAM”/”Year” in the format:NANNNA/FAM/NN with LSC Example: 1A123A/FAM/13 for Family and Housing types which include categories: Family, Housing, Community Care, Consumer General Contract, Debt, Employment, Personal Injury, Welfare benefits or Miscellaneous (Residual list).Please also check LSC Guidance with respect to Tolerance indicator here.

Note: an Information message appears if this field is empty as it may mean the LSC REJECT the bulkload file completely.

When Posting a Bill the schedule reference number appears on the Civil Claim 'page' and can be amended for this bill - note a change here does NOT change the matter's schedule reference number.

There is a new facility to enable Civil billing without VAT being added to the fees/costs in order to calculate the bill total.

This is for use where Legal Aid work is performed for clients who are non resident in the EU. (see section 4.23 of LSC Cost Assessment Guidance June 2001 document).

The example quoted was for use in a claim where a non EU resident is in receipt of Nass Support i.e. a CommunityCare matter with outcome code CNAS. In order to cater for this, a non-VATable tickbox option has been added to the Setup for Matter Type (within Client, Matter, Individual Type) of a new VAT rate shown beside the fees that are, in this case, to be input
as values with no added VAT. So create a new Matter Type, with the Exempt from Vat box ticked, for use in this type of case in order for the resulting FEE on bills to be net of VAT.

This Matter Type tickbox information gets used it the Civil Legal Aid Bill Posting so that VAT does NOT get added to the bill total ie its value matches the fee values etc without adding the standard VAT on top.

Note: The Vat code is set to 'EX' for exempt (or '04' for zero in ROI) from VAT and, if matter type option to show on VAT return is requested/ticked, this will then show in the correct place on the VAT Return report.

Note: ensure any disbursements and miscellaneous charges to be included in the bill, have also been set to 'No VAT' if the whole bill is to be non-VATable.

Note: The claim VAT may need to be cleared i.e where Profit Costs includes time that has had VAT added to it as ONLY the Fixed or Tolerance FEE itself is affected by the exempt from VAT.

Reporting:

Bulkload Report has been enhanced to contain the new Civil schedule reference field required by the LSC.This appears in the CMSF (new matters starts) and CMRF (consolidated matters) sections of the report and file created for the monthly submission to the LSC which take effect on 1st February 2012.

 

We are dedicated to making sure our product keeps pace with the requirements for Legal Aid practitioners, you can help by giving us your views and feedback.

Sincerely
OPSIS Support Team

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Weblink Server

Weblink Online Case Information system is an application service hosted on our Weblink Server. Click here to learn how your company web site can link to OPSIS Weblink to provide Online Case Information services to your clients.

 

Weblink Server Current Status and Service Announcements

Weblink is an Internet service designed to be available 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. However there will be times when the service is not available due to planned maintenance times (details can be see at the Service Announcements page) or inevitably, there may be problems with the server or internet access. We have a monitoring system in place to check that all is running smoothly, and that notifies OPSIS Support immediately if something does go wrong.

Customers can see the current status at any time by viewing the Weblink Server Status Page.

Weblink Service Levels

For terms and conditions of the Weblink service please refer to the Weblink Application Services License Agreement, and for specifications of the level of availability that we aim to provide see the Support Level Agreement.

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Anti-Virus

Please make sure your main server and all PC's anti-virus software is completely up to date with the latest virus definitions, by checking the Version and latest Date, and then choosing the Update option appropriate to your type of anti-virus software.

Please note that Opsis do not provide support for Anti-Virus software.

For Virus removal tools it is best to use the resources available at your vendors website resources or the Symantec Norton Anti-Virus centre where you will find up to date information, instructions and downloadable virus removal tools.

Go here: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/

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