Crescendo and Voicepath join forces to facilitate transcription outsourcing for UK law firms

16 July 2007

Law firms wishing to take advantage of the cost savings and efficiency benefits of outsourcing support work now have another option within the UK, as transcription specialist Voicepath and digital dictation provider Crescendo complete a 360º integration of their systems at a customer's request.

The integration was prompted by Dodd Lewis, a South London-based Crescendo user which was keen to begin outsourcing work through Voicepath as part of a post-merger efficiency drive.  Having received a number of outsourcing-related enquiries from new and existing customers, Crescendo began work with Voicepath on creating a 'module' for its digital dictation software which would allow transcriptions to be completed externally and tracked through its systems.

John Bendall, Crescendo technical sales manager, comments: "As Crescendo is a flexible, modular solution which already links to many other service providers and systems we had the right architecture in place to create a customised 'connection' between it and Voicepath very rapidly.  The integration module was written and in testing within two weeks of Dodd Lewis's request."

The integration works when, on starting a dictation, a fee earner elects to send it to Voicepath rather than an internal secretary. This can also be initiated by the secretary or administrator or fully automated based on various criteria. This instructs Crescendo's workflow management system to send a copy of the digital dictation file and its corresponding data to a secure upload folder.  Voicepath regularly polls this folder and, when files are present, these are sent to its systems via a secure (SSL) link.

From here, Voicepath manages the automatic distribution of dictations to its network of home-based transcriptionists.  Once a dictation has securely uploaded, an acknowledgment receipt is issued by Voicepath allowing Crescendo to update the status of the job as "transcription in progress". Completed, quality checked documents are retrieved from Voicepath's secure web sever and sent to a secure download folder on Dodd Lewis's server.  The Crescendo workflow management system and the status of the job are automatically updated upon completion of the document retrieval.

John continues: "We are finding that an increasing number of law firms are interested in principle in making savings through outsourcing, but often find the process lengthy and complex.  The beauty of integrations like this is that they make the process simple, secure and intuitive, meaning the customer gets all of the benefits with none of the worry."

Dodd Lewis partner, Graham Dodd, comments: "We are very pleased with the way Voicepath and Crescendo have worked on this project.  When we came to use the service we were delighted with how easy it was."

Richard Bate, general manager of Voicepath, concludes: "At Voicepath we pride ourselves on making outsourcing easy, and are committed to working with leading digital dictation providers to put this principle into action.  We are delighted to have been able to work with Crescendo to get such rapid results and look forward to bringing the advantages of integration to more firms throughout the UK."