nFlow, a leading supplier of digital dictation solutions today announced that Trowers & Hamlins, one of the UK’s Top 100 law firms with 8 offices located in the UK and overseas, has selected and implemented a firm wide roll out of nFlow digital dictation. The decision to select nFlow was largely based on their unique ability to deliver a proven Microsoft SQL Server replication solution.
Having carried out an internal technical and HR review to assess the potential benefits of implementing a digital dictation system the firm invited nFlow, as well as two other competitive suppliers, to demonstrate the features and functionality of their respective product suites. With the international team spanning 5 offices the ability to share work between offices was key to the firm, so a fundamental requirement of the chosen system was the ability to offer global scalability and resilience without sacrificing performance at the user level
Marina Herbert, IT Manager, Trowers & Hamlins “nFlow was the only digital dictation supplier with the ability to offer a fully proven solution with the replication capabilities we recognised would be able to support our operation and with clients where SQL replication is in place and working. Doubt was cast over the feasibility of replication however we followed up references very closely and found that they were all overwhelmingly positive, not only about the capabilities of the product, but also about the level of service, experience and expertise of the nFlow team.”
By effectively using replication nFlow can deliver a resilient segmented system that acts as a global service provider. All users can see all the data they have permission to across the global system however if there is a link problem between sites the segments act like individual systems that automatically update themselves as soon as the link is re-established. The users are not affected by this as they can still dictate and transcribe locally as if nothing has happened. As users connect to a local replicated database server they can access data from across the whole organisation but don’t suffer from problems such as slow performance of loading data in the client application.
“The replication capabilities of nFlow digital dictation have already been tested. Our Oman office recently had to shut down all servers for 4 days as a result of a cyclone warning. Within 2 hours of restoring the servers the Oman office had full access to global data again on their local server. We have also had blips on our links with our Manchester office and the users have not even noticed. Replication has definitely proven itself.” Stated Herbert.
nFlow digital dictation was initially implemented in the London office before being rolled out to the entire firm in a 6 week period. Working closely with the nFlow projects and training team, nFlow and Trowers & Hamlins have carried out training for every single user and feedback has been extremely positive.
“We have found that secretaries and fee earners alike have embraced digital dictation. The significantly improved sound quality coupled with the speed at which work gets on to the system are just some of the improvements that users have mentioned. Flexible working and home working users have also benefited from the new system with secretaries downloading dictations on behalf of users, previously we had had issues of tapes being couriered in to the office, getting lost or damaged, we don’t have to worry about this any more.” Continued Herbert.
Rob Lancashire, nFlow Sales & Marketing Director commented “We believe that we are unique in our ability to prove nFlow’s scalability advantage with Microsoft SQL Server replication. It is not an easy task and has taken a number of years to perfect, it is not something you can just turn on without the knowledge or experience that prevent issues such as lost data. With 10 firms having now implemented nFlow with the replication capabilities we feel we stand apart from the competition. Ultimately we are a technology company first and foremost so I would urge any firms out there who are having problems with the performance of their digital dictation system over multiple offices to give us a call and we will be happy to discuss how we can make nFlow digital dictation work effectively for them using replication.”