Livewire Technologies

BACKGROUND

Can you provide a brief description of your company?

We’re a law firm.

What is your position within the company?

IT Manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your company’s business goals or reasons for undertaking the project with LiveWire Technologies?

Our goal was to manage our document mass for litigation. We needed a better way to quickly find and retrieve firm documents. Staff members had to be able to find documents quickly, even if they had never filed the documents in the first place.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting LiveWire?

We had tried a couple of local IT integrators and just weren’t having good experiences. I had worked with Angela [owner of LiveWire] a long time ago in Houston. Hummingbird recommended them as an integrator that provides support. When I found out Angela and her company was recommended by Open Text, it was an easy decision.

Why did you decide to use Open Text Hummingbird?

We compared many different offerings; they were all similar. We already had a version of Hummingbird at that time. It was more convenient and easier to stay with it and merge the new system with it. It seemed to be the best out there. Even the best competitor was so similar that there wasn’t enough contrast to change our minds.

What parts of the project was LiveWire involved in?

Pretty much from the ground up, we were two different law firms merging into one. The law firm we were merging with already had the document management system. All of ours were in WordPerfect in a directory structure. They helped get it all installed, upgraded on the network, and helped with importing our documents. We’ve had other projects where they’ve even imported from other document management systems into our Hummingbird system. It has saved us a tremendous amount of time.

Can you give us a sense of the size of the initiative in terms of dollars or personnel?

They imported all of our documents over a weekend. It was very close to a terabyte of data, 500 gigs plus. They imported it in and installed it on 75 to 100 workstations. We were up and running that Monday morning. They stayed around and made sure to correct issues on particular PCs. They imported all of our old emails and address books into Outlook. It was a huge undertaking for the two firms to merge and share one server. How recently was the project finished?

That was about 10 years ago. Since then, we’ve had other attorneys who have been hired with additional legal documents. We’ve always used LiveWire to do our import. Twenty gigs of data is imported overnight.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any stats or metrics to track improvement after the project?

Employee feedback has been awesome. They might have a couple of questions on how to find something. They can all do it.

Do you feel you made the right decision to use Hummingbird?

Absolutely.

How did LiveWire Technologies perform during that project?

Very attentively. I knew I was important to them. If I called in the middle of the night, they were up and helping us get back up before morning. They made us feel special. I know they have a lot of other clients, but I feel like I’m their only one.

Was there anything unique about LiveWire compared to the other companies that you may have worked with?

Yes. There is never a delay in reaching LiveWire staff if we have problems. Most vendors do not respond so quickly and attentively. You cannot put a dollar amount on that.

Is there any area where you think LiveWire could improve upon or you would do differently?

To be honest, nothing.

BACKGROUND

Can you please provide a brief description of what your company does?

We are a labor law firm, and we represent labor unions and workers. We have about 50 attorneys and 85 staff members in four locations. Our firm has three offices in California and one in Hawaii.

What is your position?

I’m the IT manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your firm’s business goals or reasons for undertaking the project with LiveWire?

We needed to update our document management system; we were on a previous version of it. We also needed to update all of our desktops to Windows 7 and Office 2010, and we decided to do it all at the same time. We also implemented template builder software [customized LiveWire software] as the new document manager.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting LiveWire to work with?

My process for selecting LiveWire was influenced by the Document Manager (DM) manufacturer, Hummingbird. They gave me three references, and I called all three and spoke to them. I liked my interaction with the staff at LiveWire.

Why did you decide to use OpenText Hummingbird?

We had OpenText Hummingbird prior to this. We were upgrading our version of it. We’ve had it for about 15 years. The people in our Alameda office were very familiar with it and the concept of document management systems in general. During this process, we decided to roll it out to our branch offices as well, which didn’t have any type of DM product. Hummingbird has served us well for many years. We didn’t really want to change.

Can you tell me about the scope of the project and which parts LiveWire was involved in?

LiveWire gave us a live demo. After we selected them to be our vendor, they were involved from the beginning to the end. They’re still involved in my life. They provide me with support for the DM, rather than going to Hummingbird directly. I receive much better support in terms of turnaround time. From the very beginning, we set up a schedule and we got our new servers built. They helped with that. LiveWire actually did the conversion of our documents from our old database to our new database.  Everything else that came up, they were helpful with. So, they were totally involved.

Were any other technologies used besides OpenText?

We also implemented through LiveWire a Nuance PDF converter, and they helped with that implementation as well. It has been really good to us, too.

Can you give us a sense of the initiative in dollar terms or personnel hours?

The DM product was sold on a per-user license fee. LiveWire was able to get us a lower per-seat price than we could have gotten going directly through Hummingbird.

How long did the project take to complete?

The actual conversion was done over a weekend. It was probably six or eight weeks leading up to it. We were planning it, talking about it, and getting our desktops ready.

The actual conversion of our database over to the new product happened during one weekend. And then on Monday morning, our people were on the new product.

When was the project completed?

October 2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Did you receive any feedback from employees?

Since we have installed the DM in our branch offices, they now have access to all the documents created in the home office. Our employees are overjoyed, truthfully. Our attorneys love being able to search for documents easily and quickly.

Since implementing the OpenText system, do you feel you made the right decision?

Absolutely.

How did LiveWire perform during the project?

LiveWire was fantastic during the project. They gave us great advice about how to organize and set up our search feature for documents. They were always professional and polite while making the best decisions for our firm.

Is there anything unique about LiveWire compared to other companies?

I hear from Angela [owner of LiveWire] all the time, asking me how things are going. As I said before, Rudi [Network Engineer of LiveWire] is always there. If Rudi is not not available, there’s somebody else there to talk to. That kind of relationship is great because we are friends. I don’t want them to just sell me the product and disappear.

Is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you’d do differently?

Nothing that I can think of now.

BACKGROUND

Can you provide a brief description of your company?

We are a medium-sized general practice law firm and practice several different areas of law. 

What is your position within the company?

I am the IT Manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your company’s business goals for the project?

At the time, we used the Open Text DM product called PCDOCS. We enlisted LiveWire’s help in moving forward from the PCDOCS product to Open Text’s more current DM product.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting LiveWire?

They were referred to me by Open Text.

Why did your firm decide to use Open Text initially?

In 1998, the company that did our network installation recommended Hummingbird [since acquired by Open Text].

What part of the project was LiveWire involved in?

My association with them has occurred over the last two years. There was the project conceptualization, meaning laying out what the project entailed. We had to schedule the project and then implement it. They provided me with a detailed description of what they expected to happen, the steps that needed to happen, and who was responsible for execution. The execution of the project was excellent.

They did almost all of it remotely, which was awesome. We had Angela’s partner on site when we did the rollover from the old product to the new product. That was mainly for risk management and training. It was helpful for him to be here. Things came up, and he was able to very quickly make changes on the spot. He actually did better at getting our training in place than the company that we hired to train us. They were very knowledgeable about the product and how to set it up. I’m a repeat customer for LiveWire.

Can you provide a sense of the size of the initiative?

It only took about one month to finish the project, and then LiveWire was available to answer our support calls for weeks after when small issues arose.

When was the project finished?

We finished in the July or August of 2011.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Did your employees offer feedback about the changes?

They were trained in it. Some liked it, some didn’t. That was totally product-based. At this moment, people have used it for two years and nobody complains.

Do you feel you made the right decision to use Open Text?

Yes, I do. It fits our environment quite well. It is great for document management at our firm since we have millions of documents that we need to retrieve quickly.

How did LiveWire Technologies perform in the project overall?

Excellent. I have no complaints whatsoever.

When working with LiveWire, was there anything that stood out about them, something unique compared to other companies that you’ve worked with?

My comfort level is very high with LiveWire and their staff.

When working with Angela [owner of LiveWire] and Rudi [Network Engineer at LiveWire], I was comfortable. They understand what my knowledge of the system is and treat me respectfully.

Something came up a few months ago when they had to be away. One of their employees had to troubleshoot something with me, and it was excellent. Their employee solved it right away.

Looking back on the project, is there any area that you think LiveWire could improve upon or you would do differently?

Not that I can think of right now. I think the only disadvantage that can happen when you’re working with a vendor that you never meet, is that you don’t always have the perfect sense of somebody’s personality.