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Overview of tracking features: Tracking supports client chargebacks for legal and consultative practices — as well as interdepartmental expense allocations in corporate environments. Tracking features include:
[back to top] Summary of considerations: There are a number of issues you may want to think about in preparation for setting up Tracking on your account, including:
[back to top] Items to track and how much detail to include: You can configure your company's account to track time and various activities routinely performed on Delphion, including: Date/Time, Searches, Integrated Views, File History, Family Legal Status Reports, Images (PDF & TIFF), Derwent Searches, Derwent Record Views, Derwent Alerts, Citation Link, Snapshot, PatentLab, Clustering, Corporate Tree, Data Extract, Alerts, and PDF Express. In determining whether to track time, you should consider whether your organization wants to charge back clients based on time spent on the site. You may also wish to track billable activities (e.g. document downloads, Data Extract and Snapshot) to enable proper chargeback for transactional charges incurred on your Delphion account. Additional information about transactional items for different subscription levels can be found on the Subscription Comparison Overview. You also have the option to track details, which can be useful in constructing and describing a particular trail. A trail is a list of all of the activities tracked against a single Client Reference during a session. Detail information will let you reconstruct search histories and provide an auditable trail for billing or client reporting purposes. You should also consider your organization's confidentiality and privacy policies. Companies with the most stringent policies may choose only to track time and cost. Others may be comfortable enabling tracking of the full details. Delphion employs a robust security infrastructure to prevent others from discovering the details of your work if you choose to track full details. For more information about Delphion security measures, see FAQs: Security, Privacy & Reliability [back to top] Mandatory or Optional Tracking: Based upon the needs of your organization, the Administrator can enable Mandatory Tracking, requiring users to provide a Client Reference upon login. If it is a requirement that all work done on Delphion be charged back to a client, you should consider making tracking mandatory. If users in your organization sometimes do work that is not billable, then perhaps it would be best to leave tracking as optional. In this case it would be at the individual user's discretion as to whether or not to initiate a trail. Alternatively, if you would like to require users to make a decision upon login, you could choose to enable Mandatory Tracking, and provide an internal Client Reference to track non-billable work. This option would provide consistency and ensure that your organization captures all necessary information for cost recovery.
 [back to top] Determining number of Client Reference segment: Delphion Tracking includes a 3-segment Client Reference hierarchy that can easily be configured to match your company's accounting charge code standards. Client References can be configured to use from one to three segments of hierarchy (client, project, sub-project). At a minimum you must use the client level of hierarchy to allocate time and activities. If your organization is working on multiple projects for the same client, then you may want to allocate usage to the individual projects that you are working on for that same client. If more detailed information is required, you also have the option to allocate usage on a sub-project (or task) basis for individual projects. Client Reference segmentation also applies to those who want to allocate costs to specific business units, departments and even individual employees. [back to top] Level of user authority in creating Client Reference The decision to either centralize or de-centralize the creation of Client References can be critical to the successful implementation and capturing of accurate chargeback information. Centralized control allows the Administrator to pre-define Client Reference information and provide the user with a distinct set of choices from which to choose when using the Tracking functionality. This may be needed to comply with your organization's accounting charge code standards. This approach ensures data uniformity, increased data accuracy, and ease of reporting without extensive data cleanup; however it places the burden of system maintenance on the Administrator. A fully distributed approach to the input of this information does lessen the administrative effort, but can result in a high degree of data variability. In the distributed approach users are able to add new clients, projects or sub-projects; however there is the possibility of redundancy that may require subsequent data cleanup. Alternatively, a blended approach to this issue would allow the Administrator to control the client segment (and the project segment, if desired) and distribute the management of (projects and) sub-projects to the user community. This would permit a level of consistency at the client and project levels, while providing flexibility to the user at the sub-project level. When selecting a Client Reference, end users will only see segments that you have chosen to use for your account. For example, if you choose to only use the Client and Project segments of the Client Reference, users will not see a field for Subproject. In addition, if you choose to only allow end users to add new Projects, but do not allow them to add new Clients, then only Project will have the text entry box available on the Tracking page. In this scenario, end users will be forced to select a Client from the dropdown list, but will have the option to create a new Project.  [back to top] Flexible or pre-defined Client Reference formats The formatting of Client Reference information is also integral to data uniformity and compliance with your company's accounting charge code standards. The Delphion Tracking functionality incorporates "masking," which allows the Account Administrator to control the way client references are entered by defining what type of characters and how many should be allowed for each field. Use of masking enforces these standards by requiring users to enter Client Reference segment information in the prescribed format. If Masking is turned on for an account, end users will see the required format and a format key whenever they select a Client Reference. If the wrong format is entered, the user will receive an error message upon clicking the Start Tracking Now button.  [back to top] Automatic termination of Tracking after period of inactivity: The Administrator has the ability to select the lapse in time whereby a tracking session is ended due to inactivity. Inactivity is described as a dormant period where there is no further navigation to other areas of the Delphion website or use of productivity or analysis tools. Various options are available on Delphion to accommodate your organization's billing practices (e.g. 15-, 10- and 6-minute increments). [back to top] Cost information Reporting: Delphion Tracking provides cost/charge reporting. The Admin selects one or more of the following from the Reporting Preferences screen:
[back to top] Overall Reporting options: You can set separate reporting options for administrator reports and for end user reports. For any items you have chosen to track, you can decide whether or not to show that item on user reports or on administrator reports. In order to show an item on any report, it must be tracked (checked on the Tracking Administration page).  Reports can be run for any period, for all Clients/Projects/Subprojects or a specific one and for all users on an account or for a specific one. End users have all of the same options except for the choice of users — they can only generate reports on their own activity.  Each trail is shown on a separate line on a report, and the report columns can be sorted. Reports can be viewed in a printer-friendly format, downloaded in CSV (spreadsheet) format or emailed in HTML format.  A research trail shows the activities performed by a user during a single Tracking session. Depending on preferences set in Tracking Administration overall and on preferences set for Reporting, trails can include Details. Details provide specific information about each activity.  [back to top] Next steps: For help with overall account administration (excluding Reporting), please see: Tracking Help for Group/Corporate Account Administrators. For Account Administrator Help on Reporting, please see: Tracking Report Help for Group/Corporate Account Administrators. Your end users should review Tracking Help for Group/Corporate Account End Users — you will want to review this page also. [back to top] |
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