The Limitations of a Downgrade – Actionstep

In this article, you will learn about the system limitations that arise from downgrading to a different plan.

Overview

Firstly, it is important to understand the difference you will experience by moving to Actionstep Express. Express is a much simpler version of Actionstep to get started on, but it may lack some of the options or features that you have grown accustomed to.

Below are the functions that will no longer be available to an Actionstep user if their system is downgraded to Express. Please ensure that you do not currently use any of the functionality listed below.

In system accounting including:

Expenses
Expense templates
Banking
Financial reporting
Multi-currency general ledgers
Divisions

All customizable user permissions
Advanced calendar options
Matter type converter
Advanced search
Over 50 of the standard reports that come with Actionstep

Dashboards
Actionstep hosted calendars
Advanced alias options
Email aliases
Re-assigning work between users
Heads Up email rules
Customisable list views including any already created
Customizing Accounting templates (eg, invoice, receipt, cheque) Including any existing ones in your system

Client portal
Document templates including any templates already created
Webforms or client intake forms
Phone call Logs
Advanced options for time recording
Customized email templates including existing templates
External data reporting
Knowledge Base

It is important to know that, even with features that are retained through a downgrade, there will be some differences to usability or visualization. For example, the matter types you have in your current system will not be available in Express. The same applies for any custom data, steps and other automation you have added through workflows. There will be matter types, custom data, steps and some automation, but it will not match what you currently have and an Express system cannot be tailored to match the configuration of a Practice Pro + Accounting system.

Migrations: Automatic or Manual?

While users are able to automatically upgrade their Actionstep plan (from Express to Practice Pro or from Practice Pro to Practice Pro + Accounting), they are not able to downgrade in the same way. This is due to the loss of functionality that a user would experience being too great to be able to manage through a software process.

Because functionality will be lost by migrating to a more basic plan, Actionstep would not be able to guarantee a loss of critical data through an automatic migration. This is why we do not offer an automatic downgrade.

There are, however, migration paths for customers that have an existing database and want to move to an Express/Practice Pro plan.

Option 1: Export / Import

An Express system does offer some import functions, so it would be possible to import some data into a new system. These import options available include:

Matters
Contacts
Unbilled time
Tasks
File notes
Trust opening balances

Note:

Note: It is important to note that you cannot import emails or documents into an Express system.

Tip:

Exporting and importing information in Actionstep is as simple as we can make it, but it can still be a complicated and timely process. Actionstep would highly recommend that you engage the services of an Actionstep Certified Consultant Partner to do this for you. A Partner may be able to help facilitate the import of documents into your system.

Option 2: Manually Populate a New Express System

With this option, you will be able to create a new Express system and populate it manually as you go. You may want to run both the old and new systems for a short period of time to help with copying of any relevant open information.

Actionstep will be able to provide you with a complete backup of your current system. This backup will contain every document and email and will include tables which contain the details of your matters, contacts, transactions and all other details in your Actionstep database. It will, however, not be in a user-friendly format for referencing. The information will not be displayed in a report format and while the documents will be provided with a manifest so that specific documents can be located, those documents will not be saved in a folder structure that corresponds with how they saved in your version of Actionstep.

Exporting Information from Your Current System

If you are sure you wish to export information from your current system, the best option available to you would be to use Custom list views and reports to extract your data.

As Actionstep uses Excel files with the information that you are wanting to import, you may have to export reports into Excel and reformat those files to make them more suitable for import again.

When exporting information out, it is important to realise that there may not be equivalent fields to import against in your Express database. Custom data fields and the participant types that contacts are loaded against matters against may not be available in Express.

Matters

You will want to capture as many details about your matters as possible and the best way to do this is by creating a custom matter list view.

You will want to create columns for each of the following:

Each different participant type on each of your matter types
Each custom data field for each of your data collections on each of your custom data types
The details of the matter such as matter name, type, step, assigned to, status, etc.

Contacts

You would be able to create a custom contact list view to capture the details about your contacts but you will be able to capture the majority of the fields you want on your contacts by going to Admin > Import data