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Kraft & Kennedy, Inc. provides technology and strategic consulting services to law firms, corporate legal departments and financial services firms. We can help you analyze, plan, implement and manage business and technology solutions to optimize your organization's functionality and processes.
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With eDOCS DM 5.3 gaining traction among our clients, I wanted to take this opportunity to share my overall experience with the latest version and the upgrade process. I recently upgraded a client from DM 5.2.1 CU5 to DM 5.3 Patch 1. The back-end upgrade went remarkably well, as have all my recent experiences with Open Text eDOCS for the past year or two. In testing the updated client, I couldn’t be happier that Open Text embraced MSI technology for the installation and deployment of the DM client. With a simple single command line, I was able to customize a complete client install, without having to run through the DM Extensions Server Setup on the DM server itself as with previous versions. The MSI properly upgraded the previous version without any apparent issues or error messages. Adding the MSP patch to my installation script was also tested without any errors.
In testing our pilot deployment, one issue was apparent. The ODMA integration between Adobe Acrobat and DM was broken! I checked the Open Text Knowledge Center on the proper steps to integrate Adobe with DM, and verified that yes, the API file is in place, and yes the PassiveODMA registry value is in place. Upon opening a support ticket, I was informed that ODMA integration is gone with DM 5.3. In fact, starting with DM 5.2.1 CU4, Open Text was not including the ODMA integration with Adobe. That seemed strange, since it was working with our 5.2.1 CU5 client just fine. Turns out that if the API file and PassiveODMA registry key are in place from a previous installation, it will still work with CU5 and CU6. However, with 5.3, ODMA integration is no longer in the code, so if you have the API file in place, that DM menu option in Adobe is there but that does absolutely nothing.
In double-checking the release notes for DM 5.3, I found that this integration change was mentioned, but as the 4th footnote on a page — definitely not prominent. And no mention of this change with 5.2.1 CU4 in the Knowledge Base or in the Application Note titled “eDOCS DM 5.2.x – How to Successfully Integrate Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader”.
This leads to two valuable lessons for any product integrator:
- Be sure to read all Release Notes, including footnotes!
- Before deploying a software upgrade, deploy to a small pilot and test all integrated applications.
Regarding the Adobe integration with DM 5.3, the DM Interceptor is needed. This is actually documented as an option in the Application Note referenced above, but is a requirement starting with DM 5.3.
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One of the most overlooked pieces of technology in law firms is PDF creation. Yet it’s also one of the most important to an end user. It needs to be simple, stable, and usually needs to integrate well with a DMS system.
With iManage, you have three main choices. Do you A) use the built-in “Convert to PDF/Send as PDF” utility function, B) find a third-party tool with full integration, or C) use the native Save As PDF option available in the Word 2007 Office Button.
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