JCSM Shareware Collection 1996 September/JCSM Shareware Collection (JCS Distribution) (September 1996).ISO/prdctvty/12150l01.ziv/WHYBUY.PRO

Text File | 1991-08-22 | 6KB | 142 lines

Why do you need PRO?

Most busy people, especially professionals, spend much of their
time working with with four related categories of information:

TIME: measuring and recording the details of their use of time
for billing purposes. This job includes keeping up with matters
and clients to whom billings will be made.  This function
necessitates maintaining supporting information about your
clients and the matters on which you are working for them.

SCHEDULE: planning their activities and those of others. Keeping
up with future events, deadlines, appointments, things to do, and
so forth.

NAMES: finding and using basic information about people they
know, their phone numbers, matters with which they are
associated, etc.

ITEMS: bits and pieces of free-form information like what was
said in a phone call, what issues need to be considered at the
Friday meeting, questions for your expert, and on and on.

Managing this kind of information is a lot simpler with the help
of modern computer power. More and more people are using
computers to support their daily work activities. It is
understandable that more and more computer programs therefore
undertake to assist with personal and professional information
management.

There are many excellent programs around that deal quite well
with some or even most of the personal information management
needs of professionals. Until PRO no program has undertaken to
deal with all of them in a mutually supportive way.

PRO helps you manage your time, schedule, names, general
note-type information, matters and clients in the same program
using the same commands and operations for each. It is able to
transfer needed information between these tasks, and to take full
advantage of the interrelated and overlapping nature of the
information used by each. PRO can therefore take care of a lot of
your daily computer business without the need for separate
programs for each job.

If you are a network user, PRO enables you to allow others on the
network to have access to your information for adding, updating
and reference. You retain control who can use it, and can assign
(or revoke) access rights to your files.

PRO does not undertake to do everything you need to do on a
computer. There will still be a substantial need to use the
multitude of powerful programs like word processors and
spreadsheets. So PRO gives you with two ways to access other
programs. First, you can run other programs from a menu you
create within PRO.  Second, you can use PRO as a "TSR." This
means you can "pop it up" on top of another program with a single
keystroke, use it, and then return to where you were in the
other application.

Here are some things PRO can do:

TIME:

Keep your daily "time sheet" records.
Print Time Sheet.
Look up correct matter and client information.
Look up dates on pop-up calendar.
Allow unlimited free-form text to describe services.
Type user-defined phrases when you type a short abbreviation.
Total billable and nonbillable time for any day or month.
Project billable and unbillable time to end of month.
Detect days for which you have not recorded time.
Store time records in permanant file for year.
Select specified time records for your review.
Do reports such as time summaries by matter or month.
Summarize matter activities to help avoid overlooking a matter.

SCHEDULE:

Keep track of appointments, deadlines, to do's, yearly events.
Maintain list of assignments to others.
Duplicate repetitive events.
Move events individually or in groups.
Roll forward events from prior date.
Post reminders of significent events as you specify.
Transfer completed events to your time file.
Select events by matter, date, responsible person.
Print calendars, assignment lists, matter schedules.
Import and export schedule records for use by other PRO users.

NAMES:

Maintain needed information about people and entities.
Locate addresses and phone numbers with a few keystrokes.
Dial numbers including matter numbers via modem.
Make entries about phone calls in your schedule and time files.
Print Address and telephone number lists, mailing labels.
Select Names by city, state, matter.

ITEMS

Maintain your notes, short documents, lists, memo's, forms,
virtually anything you used to jot down in a legal pad or write
out in longhand for your secretary.
Enter free-form text supported by "shorthand."
Locate items containing key words.
Select items meeting your specifications for review or editing.
Print reports of all or selected items.
Prepare and print deposition summaries.
Import item text from files created by a word processor.
Import items from and export to other PRO users.
Duplicate information from existing items to cut down on needless
repeat typing.
Do simple text processing like block movement and copying.
Swap text to and from a clipboard "scratch" area.
Change information in multiple items in one operation.
Store or "shelve" items you don't currently need, then "unshelve
them later as needed.

OTHER

Run other programs from menu you can create and change.
Load as a TSR and pop up when you press a "hot key."
Permit multiple users (like support personnel) access to your
information files subject to your permission and control.
Pop up a calendar from anywhere.
Provide extensive context-sensitive help.
Read and change computer system files like autoexec.bat.
Import text prepared by other programs.
Backup and restore data its files for security purposes.
Maintain log of computer use including other programs.
Summarize computer usage by week, month, or program.

Uses standard dBase files so you can access information using
other compatible database programs.

Uses industry-standard R&R Report Writer(tm) from Concentric Data
Systems, Inc. for most reporting. If you are a licensed R&R user
you can use this fine program yourself to add reports or modify
existing ones, and then run your own reports from a menu within
PRO.