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4 minute read
Fastcase Fast Facts
By Cathy Underwood
It was great to see so many familiar, and new, faces at the ArkBar Mid-Year Meeting. Many of you came by the ArkBar/Fastcase booth to look at the new handbooks and ask questions about Fastcase. Your questions gave me a lot of food for thought. Some members seem frustrated with the new version of Fastcase, so I spent some time thinking about how we can make that better, and came up with a couple of things: we have created a Fastcase User Forum on our website and will also feature Fastcase tips in this new column of the magazine.
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We can use the Fastcase User Forum to communicate and help each other with our Fastcase questions. Also, when an upgrade occurs in Fastcase, I will post the information there, so it will come directly to your inbox (assuming you join the community, of course—just click the “Join” button!). I’ve already posted some helpful documents out there, as well as a link directly to the video tutorials that Fastcase provides, and information about the changes in the latest release. (And remember, you can always contact the Fastcase research attorneys for help at 866-773-2782 or by email at support@fastcase.com.)
In this first column, I talk about two things that seem to give folks a bit of trouble when they first log on to Fastcase: what are the entry points to use Fastcase, and the difference between searching and browsing.
Cathy Underwood has provided editing services to ArkBar for over 35 years, and provides training to its members on Fastcase and ArkBar Docs.
Entry points: When you look at the Fastcase entry screen, there are three basic entry points: (1) the search bar, (2) browse, and (3) advanced search. The search bar: From the beginning screen, you simply type in your search and click the “search” button. Your search will be run in the entire database (unless you have changed your default settings). Remember that you can easily filter the results down later.
Browse: When you browse, you are just reading; after you hit the browse button, click on the source you want to browse, and then just drill down through the tree structure (like a table of contents in a book) to get to the section you want to read. This option is available for sources like the code, court rules, constitutions, and our new ArkBar Handbooks. (ArkBar Handbooks in Fastcase require a yearly license fee, except for the Guide to Arkansas Statutes of Limitations—that one is part of your free member benefit).
Advanced search: Choosing this option allows you to select your jurisdiction up front, and walks you through creating your Boolean search, for a more detailed, tighter search. To reach this option, click on the cog just to the right of the browse button. (You can also reach this option by clicking on “Jurisdictions & Sources,” but I personally like the screen you get with the cog better.)
Browse and search are two totally different functions: Remember that search and browse are two distinct functions. If you are browsing, you choose your source in the browse screen; if you are searching, you choose your source in the advanced search screen. One mistake that I think some users have made is that they click on the browse function, choose the Arkansas Code or whatever source they want to look at, and then instead of browsing, they click up in the search bar and type in a search, thinking that it will search just the Arkansas Code. Once you click up in that search box, anything you have selected in browse is gone, and you will be searching the entire database (unless you have changed that in the search function).
Hope this “entry” information helps! Join the Fastcase User Forum in the ACE Community and send me your Fastcase questions. They just might appear in a future column!
Join the Fastcase User Forum in the ACE Community Go to www.arkbar.com/communities/allcommunities, find “Fastcase User Forum” and Click JOIN!
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