important steps for preparing your...

Keyhouse Desktop Chapter 9: Briefs

Chapter 9: BriefsThis tool automates the task of generating a brief to counsel, saving you time. It amalgamates all the required documentation in chronological order into relevant sections, complete with a cover page, table of contents and pagination.

Important Steps for preparing your Brief

1. Review your Case Documents in the Diary – Case Documents window and ensure the necessary files are classified and the Document Date is correct as it will be in your brief.

2. If you cannot view or open a document from the Case Documents screen you will not be able to use this document in your brief.

3. Once you begin to generate your Brief you should not use your PC until the brief is completed. There are many different programs being used to generate the brief so to try not to view/use another program as this will cause a disruption to the brief.

4. Please review Chapter 8 - Document Manager for details on how to rename and reclassify a document.

If you need assistance adding Document Classes please contact your Keyhouse administrator or [email protected]


How to Create a Brief

1. Open the required Case in the Case Diary.

2. Click on Case Documents located on the Case Diary Shortcut Bar. The following screen will appear

3. Click on the Brief tool located on the toolbar.

4. A Welcome Screen will appear. Click Next.

5. To use a Brief Template to create a brief. Select the template brief from the list or click next to create a new brief. Click Next.


6. Put the tick in Non-Classified Documents if you want to include them in your brief. At a later stage you will be able to move them to appropriate sections. Click Next.

7. Input/Amend the following details:

Title: Enter the name of the brief.

Author: Enter the name of the author of the brief.

Description: Enter a description of the brief.

Location: Folder location of brief, recommended to leave as default.

Created On: Creation date of brief.

Published On: Enter publish date for brief.

8. Click Next, a Thank You screen will appear summarising the choices you have made. You can amend these choices using the tick boxes provided.

9. Click Finish, a brief maintenance screen will appear. See the following section on Brief Sections for further information.


Brief Sections

Note : The Cover Letters section will be automatically be created in the brief.

How to Add a Section

1. Right Click in the section pane a menu will appear.

Click New to add a new section a new section will appear in the list.

2. Right Click on the section a menu will appear.

3. Then click on Rename Section.

4. Input the new section name and click outside of the name box to confirm.

How to amend a Section

1. Right Click on the section, a menu will appear.

2. Click on Rename Section to amend the section name.

3. Input the new Section Name and click outside of the name box to confirm.

How to delete a Section

1. Right Click on the section, a menu will appear.

2. Click on Remove Section to delete the Section. A message will appear asking you to confirm.

3. Click Yes.


How to Move a document to a Section

1. In the section pane locate the document required.

2. Then drag and drop the document to the required section.

How to Search for a document in a Section

1. Click on a Section in the section pane, a search bar will appear in the right hand document pane.(Circled in Red)

Tip: First ensure the section is collapsed otherwise the search bar does not appear.

2. Input a key search word in the document name search box (Circled in Red)And/Or

Select a date to specify a date criteria

Select a document class from the drop down list provided.

3. Click the Reset button to clear the search.

How to Sequence Sections

1. Select the Section you want to move.

2. Using the sequencing buttons below move the section to a new position in the brief.

Sequence Arrows

This will move the highlighted object to the very to of the list.

This will move the highlighted object up one on the list.

This will move the highlighted object down one on the list.

This will move the highlighted object to the very bottom of the list.


Generating or Re(Generating) Brief

1. Click on the brief tool located on the brief maintenance toolbar, a menu will appear.

2. Click on (Re)generate Brief. The following brief generator wizard will appear.

3. Using the drop down arrow provided, select if you like your brief outputted to a Single File or Folder.

4. Click Next. The following screen will appear. Select the documents to be generated. If you are re-generating tick the additional documents or sections.

Alternatively tick already generated documents to re-generate if you want to re-generate documents already processed for quality purposes.

5. Using the option buttons provided select the resolution quality required. Then select the colour depth required.

Note if you use the higher resolutions it will take longer to generate your brief.

Put a tick in use microsoft outlook to use outlook to convert MSG files.


6. Click Next, the following screen will appear showing the progress of the generating.

Tip : Close all associated programs before generating. Othewise the system will pause and request you to do so.

7. Using the Footer option buttons select the location of the footer on the page.

Using the Print Order option buttons select the order in which you want your documents printed.

Put a tick in exclude page footers from the printout to remove footers from printouts.

Using the Page Numbering option buttons select one of the options provided ie. page number, the Section number and the page numbers, the section number, name and page number.

Put a tick in include Totals to include the total number of pages in the page footer.

Put a tick in Exclude Page Footers to exclude page footers from printout.

Footer font size click on the down arrow and select the font size of the footer.

8. A screen will appear stating it is ready to assemble the brief.

During this process do not use your PC for other activities.

Click Finish and the brief will start to assemble.


9. If you are (re) generating a brief a message will appear asking if you would like to re-assemble a brief in a new PDF document or to keep the existing brief document click on the appropriate button.

10. When complete the following message will appear.

Click on Show Brief PDF to view the document in Adobe Acrobat.OrClick on Show Brief in MS Word OrClick Show Brief in Folder.

Note: The Brief Folder contains two Index documents (one in MS Word format and one in PDF Format), followed by all the documents in the Brief in order of appearance, named DOC000001, DOC000002, etc. The index documents contain a Table of Contents, with hyperlinks allowing the user to open each document included in the Brief.

These documents can be added to a ZIP archive or burnt to a CD/DVD as required.


Brief Menu Functions 1. Click on the following brief menu tool located on the brief maintenance toolbar to access the

Brief Menu.

2. Then click on the required function below.

Open Brief: This will open the brief.

Close Brief: This will close the brief screen.

New Brief: This will open the wizard to create a new brief.

Update Brief: Click on this to change the brief details ie. name, author etc.

Finalise Brief: This will lock a brief rendering it Read Only.

Re-Open Brief: This will re-open a previously finalised brief.

Delete Brief: This will delete the brief.

Re-Order all documents by Date:.

This will re-order all documents by date

Add new Section: This will create a new section.

Save current Brief as Template:

This will create a template based on the current brief.

(Re)generate Brief: This will run the generate wizard to create a new brief or to update an existing brief.

View Brief (PDF): Click on this to view the Brief in Adobe Acrobat.

View Brief (Ms Word) Click on this to view the Brief in Word.

Open Brief Folder (documents)

Click on this to view the brief documents in a folder.