Tutorial for Using the Microsoft Office 365 Integration in Law Ruler - Word, Excel, PowerPoint Follow
Law RulerTM proudly supports our highly secure document integration with the Microsoft Office 365 suite using the latest Microsoft technology. This tutorial will also help familiarize you with how to edit Microsoft Office 365 documents in Law Ruler. The Microsoft Office 365 suite integration allows Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents to be edited inside of Law Ruler cloud, without the need to download documents to edit them, which is considered more secure and enabled for today's virtual workforce. The integration includes support for using the online or desktop versions of Microsoft Office 365.
💡 If you want to use the Law Ruler and Microsoft Office 365 Integration and it is not currently activated for your firm, then please contact Law Ruler support who will provide access for your IT team to review the related article.
Table of Contents
How to Use the Microsoft Office 365 Integration in Law Ruler
Creating New Office 365 Documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) in Law Ruler
Expanding the Ribbon in Office 365 Apps for the Online Version to Look Like the Desktop Apps
Collaborating in Office 365 with Multiple Co-Authors, Document Sharing, and Comments
Track Changes: Reviewing Version History of Documents
Downloading the Newest Version of Documents to Law Ruler
Opening Office 365 Documents from Law Ruler in the Desktop Version of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
Access Denied - Resolving Authorization Issues with the Microsoft Office API
How to Use the Microsoft Office 365 Integration in Law Ruler
Video Overview of Using the Law Ruler > Office 365 Integration:
You may edit any Microsoft Office 365 document in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint from directly inside of Law Ruler in either the lead or case page in the Documents tab or from the Law Ruler Document System by right-clicking on any Office document and pressing “Edit” as shown below.
Editing an Office document in Law Ruler will open the document inside of the Office tool depending on the type of document, whether it be Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.
💾 Even easier, Microsoft Office Online uses autosave with version history, so as co-authors make changes to each Office document in realtime, all changes are auto-saved and automatically update the document in your Law Ruler document system.
Microsoft Office 365 is a third-party application and is a cloud-based set of productivity applications that contains compatibility with the desktop versions. Law Ruler is a legal case management software CRM that integrates with Microsoft Office to provide advanced document management for law firms by combining Law Ruler with Microsoft Office via the integration.
Aside from Law Ruler, all other logos, trademarks, trade names, screenshots, or company names referenced herein are used for identification purposes only and are the property of their respective owners.
🏢 For any support needs regarding Microsoft Office 365, please contact Microsoft 365 Office support directly since Law Ruler may assist with the integration process but they cannot support the Microsoft 365 Office service. You may access the official Microsoft Support Office 365 forum here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office
Creating New Office 365 Documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) in Law Ruler
Inside Law Ruler, you will click on the green “Document Options” button inside of any lead, intake, or case. Then, select the type of Office 365 document that you would like to create.
- New Word Document
- New Excel Spreadsheet
- New PowerPoint Presentation
After selecting your Office 365 document type, you will then name your document, select your document category, and add a document description. If you make a mistake or need to come back later and change the Document Filename, Document Category, or Document Description, then you will right-click on the document, then select "Edit Document Info"
- Filename - the filename of your document. It is usually a good idea to put the client's name in the filename. Example: John Smith – Demand Letter
- Document Category - choose a document category that matches the type of document that you are creating. The default value is Client Communications, but you may select anything that you would like
- Document Description - this is an optional field, but highly recommended since the description is keyword searchable in the Law Ruler advanced document management system.
After setting your Office 365 document properties and saving them, you will right-click on the file that you just created and select “Edit” from the menu. This will open the document inside of Microsoft Office 365.
You may also click the “Edit” link if you are inside of the Law Ruler advanced document management system.
Expanding the Ribbon in Office 365 Apps for the Online Version to Look Like the Desktop Apps
The online, cloud version of the Office 365 Apps, for example, Microsoft Word, will open in “low profile” mode. What this means is that you may not see the look of the top-menu that you are accustomed to seeing in the desktop versions. You can easily resolve this one if it is a concern for you.
At the top-right corner of Microsoft Word online, click on the small, downward-facing arrow. It looks like a small triangle. This will allow you to expand and collapse the additional features menu on the top.
Before:
After:
Collaborating in Office 365 with Multiple Co-Authors, Document Sharing, and Comments
Microsoft Office 365 includes powerful collaboration features such as auto-save, multiple co-authors (at the same time), document sharing, and document comments. All Office 365 documents will auto-save automatically and there is a complete version history of every edit made by every user, so don’t stress if you need to go back to an earlier version at any time. The desktop versions of the Office 365 apps do not allow multiple co-authors at the same time. The cloud versions do offer it.
As far as sharing documents with your team or clients, and document comments, in the top-right corner, you will see the “Share” and “Comments” buttons. Click on these and unlock even more power in the Law Ruler Microsoft Office 365 integration.
💡 You can easily share a document at any time with someone on your team or with clients by with one-click in the “Share” menu.
- Edit shared documents - Even better, any edits made to Office 365 online documents will auto-save to Law Ruler!
- View-only shared documents - Or, if you want to show a document but not allow edits, then you can send a document to a client or other users in Read-only mode.
The Office 365 Comments feature - Collaboration has never been easier with Microsoft’s comments feature that allows each member of your team to send comments and document tasks to one another.
For example, if you wanted to assign a document review to a member of your team, you could comment to them and ask them to review it and click “Assign Task” in the comments section of a document. This will create an email from Office 365 with a link to the document that requests them to complete this task. Pretty neat! 👍🏽
Track Changes: Reviewing Version History of Documents
Microsoft Office 365 includes a complete version history of any edits made in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. In Microsoft Office 365, you can see version changes by going to the “File” menu in the top-left corner of the Office app. To get there, click on File > Info > Version History. If you want to see an earlier version of a document or make a mistake, then you can roll back a document to a prior version at any time.
The original Office 365 support article on this topic can be located here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/view-previous-versions-of-office-files-5c1e076f-a9c9-41b8-8ace-f77b9642e2c2
Downloading the Newest Version of Documents to Law Ruler
When you are finished editing an Office 365 document, please close it to immediately trigger the newest version to be sent to the Law Ruler document system. This is how the Office 365 integration works since the Office 365 integration would not know that a newer version exists if the document remains open and is being edited on your system.
By default, the Office 365 integration does automatically send the document in intervals of roughly every 10-20 minutes, so this is how the integration will behave if you keep the documents open in Office 365 and do not close them.
Opening Office 365 Documents from Law Ruler in the Desktop Version of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
Office documents will first open in the online/cloud version of each Office app in your web browser. However, with 1-click, you can open them in the desktop version of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
⚠️ Any changes made in either version will auto-save to Law Ruler, however, multiple co-authors with real-time changes being visible are only supported in the cloud version of the Office apps. And, if you open a document in the desktop version of Office 365 apps, then it is stuck on that version until the document is reopened and the latest changes will not show since the desktop version is not cloud/multi-author enabled in real-time. If you have multiple users that edit documents simultaneously, then our recommendation is to use the cloud version.
💡 Times and technology are changing, and cloud-based document editing is the way of the future and allows your team to work from anywhere. It may be a bit of an adjustment at first, but real-time collaboration with co-authoring of documents, dictation, transcription, and auto-save are only some of the powerful features of editing documents with Microsoft Office Online. Please try it before you pass judgment and go back to the desktop version.
If you would like to edit a document in the desktop version of Microsoft Word, you will first open it from the Law Ruler document system. This will open the document in your web browser window. Once you have opened a document in the desktop version of an Office 365 app, you will see it in the previous documents menu, and you will be able to open it again with the changes saving in Law Ruler.
After it is opened, you may click on the “File” menu.
Then press: “Open in Desktop App”
Access Denied - Resolving Authorization Issues with the Microsoft Office API
With more users working virtually than ever before, robust security for documents is of critical importance. The last thing that you want to do is download sensitive documents to each user's personal computer, and risk having them stolen or misused by accident. This is why Microsoft's new Office suite is cloud-based and requires login to Office 365 to open/edit documents. So you no longer have to download documents to a personal computer to work but still have full editing capabilities and more in the cloud.
⚠️ For security reasons, the Law Ruler > Microsoft Office API integration will not allow any user to view or edit any documents unless the user is signed in to Microsoft Office 365 or an approved federated application.
If you are not signed in and attempt to open an Office document from Law Ruler, the Microsoft system will give you a security warning and tell you that “Access Denied – You don’t have permissions to access this resource” as shown below.
To resolve this issue, please log in to your Office email account since Microsoft uses email to authorize access to Office documents.
Then, click the link shown by Microsoft that says:
“Sign in with the account provided by your work or school to use with Office 365 or other Microsoft services.” After you click on this link, the document should open for you if you are logged into both Law Ruler and your Office 365 account.
Also, since the Office documents open in a browser window, if you log out of your email and then try to access the link, it will become invalid. To reopen any Office documents, you will need to go back into Law Ruler and access the document again, while signed in to your Microsoft Office 365 account.
Sync Error - "Authentication token is null"
Another possible error condition is "Authentication token is null" This sync error indicates that the instructions may not have been followed correctly. Usually, this indicates that the application that needed to be set up inside of Azure was given delegate permissions, not admin permissions. Admin permissions are required for Office 365 to be able to sync with Law Ruler. Please check your application settings inside of Azure and verify that the Law Ruler app that you created has admin rights, not delegated permissions.
Support/Assistance
If you need further assistance, then please contact Law Ruler Support to assist you further.
🤗 Thank you very much for choosing Law Ruler!
If you want to use the Law Ruler and Microsoft Office 365 Integration and it is not currently activated for your firm, then please ask your IT team to review this related article:
Setting Up the Law Ruler < > Microsoft Office 365 API Integration – For IT Administrative Users Only
🏢 For any support needs regarding Microsoft Office 365, please contact Microsoft 365 Office support directly since Law Ruler may assist with the integration process but they cannot support the Microsoft 365 Office service. You may access the official Microsoft Support Office 365 forum here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office