Version: 2024.3.1 Release Date: September 12, 2024

We're thrilled to introduce a major update that revolutionizes the timekeeping process in Laurel. This release introduces AI-powered narratives and significantly enhances the activity-to-entry workflow, making your timekeeping faster and more intuitive than ever before.

🌟 New Features

GenAI Narratives

• Automatic Generation: AI instantly drafts narratives when creating new entries.
• Smart Contextual Analysis: Considers activity details, past entries, and compliance rules.
• Instant Application: AI-crafted narratives are automatically applied to new entries.
• Flexible Editing: Users can easily modify AI-generated narratives if needed.

Revamped Work Activities Panel

• New Work Groups Tab: Dedicated view for easier work group management.
• Enhanced Visual Hierarchy: Cleaner, more intuitive activity view.
• Improved Organization: Reduce overwhelm with a more approachable layout.

Lightning-Fast Entry Creation

• Multi-Select Functionality: Choose multiple work groups and activities at once.
• Bulk Entry Management: Create new entries or add to existing ones in bulk.
• Shift + Click Selection: Quickly select a range of items.

Advanced Search and Sort

• Quick Search: Easily find specific activities or work groups.
• Create from Search: Select search results to create or add to entries.
• Customizable Sorting: Options for work groups include AI rank, duration, start time, and initiative prediction.

Focused Timesheet Mode

• Collapsible Left-Hand Navigation: Maximize screen space for your timesheet.
• Distraction-Free Environment: Focus solely on your time entries.

📘 Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I select multiple activities or work groups?

A: Use Shift + click to select a range, or simply click the checkboxes to select multiple individual items. The new selection action bar will appear for further actions.

Q: What does the GenAI narrative consider when predicting the narrative?

A: Three main things:

1. The metadata of all activities either from work groups or selected activities
2. The user's past released entries
3. Any compliance rules set by the customer

Q: What happens if I try to assign to an entry in a restricted state?

A: Entries in states such as validation-pending, release-pending, etc., cannot have any more activities or work groups assigned to them.

Q: How do I use the new search to create an entry?

A: You can search both work groups and activities. In the new paradigm, select activities to create/update entries by checking the 'select all' checkbox or individual activities. Then, either add to existing entries or create a new entry. You can perform multiple searches to find and select more activities.

Q: What sorting options are available for work groups?

A: You have the following options:

• AI Rank (default): Confidence in work group correctness, driven by AI team WG confidence
• Predicted Project: Any WG with an initiative prediction will be at the top
• Start Time: Sorted by the start time of the first activity within the work group (options: first to last or last to first)
• Duration: Sorted by duration (options: ascending or descending)

Q: What actions can I take on work groups?

A: You have several options:

• Remove WG: Removes the work group from the list
• Remove activity from a WG: Removes an activity from a work group, but it persists on the timeline
• Delete activity from a WG: Deletes the activity entirely

Q: What happens if I shift-select activities that include open time?

A: We will select the open time and add it as an activity in the entry.

Q: Is the 'All' tab defaulting to show only unaccounted time?

A: Yes, we're defaulting to showing unassigned time to speed up the workflow of assigning activities. This approach aims to streamline the process and provide a sense of accomplishment. Users can always change the view to see all activities if needed.

Thank you for your continued support and feedback. We're excited for you to experience the power of AI-driven narratives and our new streamlined workflow!

Thank you for your continued support and feedback.

We're excited for you to experience the power of AI-driven narratives and our new streamlined workflow!

For any questions or support, please contact our help desk at help@laurel.ai

We're excited to announce the launch of our latest update for the Laurel Assistant. Here's what's new in Version 57:

Features

• Improved Westlaw Capture: Pulling in client information when using Westlaw.
• Improved Quickbooks Online Capture: You are now able to capture client information when using Quickbooks Online.
• Incognito Window Privacy: All work from an incognito window is ignored
• Improved SSO Login: Ensuring that logging in via SSO is quicker by using a new Token Vault Alternate Storage Mechanism.

Bug Fixes

• Addressing Edge, Chrome, MsTeams, and Outlook slowness, 100x faster.
• Fixed website searching to be inclusive.
• General bug fixes and speed improvements.

Happy Timekeeping!

Do you use our narrative template feature to write your narratives quickly? Get ready to write them at warp speed. Now, you can apply multiple templates to a single narrative. Simply use the forward slash (/) command, select your shortcuts, and hit enter—as many times as you want.

Happy timekeeping!

We're excited to announce the launch of our latest update for the Laurel Assistant. Here's what's new in Version 56:

Features

Pause Capture: Laurel now allows you to pause the capture of activities for a set period of time.

Improved QuickBooks Online Capture: Enhanced integration with QuickBooks Online to better capture information about the client you are working for.

Bug Fixes

Always-on Capture: Resolved an edge case where activity capture occasionally didn't restart after logging out and logging back in.

Outlook Enhancements:

• Improved reading of emails within Outlook's folder structure.
• Enhanced interaction with Outlook's delayed send feature.
• Increased integration quality for more restricted instances of Outlook.
• Initial integration improvements to retry if the first attempt is unsuccessful.
• Improved error handling.

Happy Timekeeping!

We are excited to release some great updates to speed up and improve your timekeeping experience.

Advanced Code Predictions

We've extended our advanced code predictions to include both Phase Task and Action codes, building on the success of our Activity code predictions. Simply input a narrative or description of 8+ words to activate predictive coding and experience the efficiency firsthand.

Additional Updates

• Edit Cancellation: Realized you need to discard changes while editing an entry? We've introduced an option to cancel your edits seamlessly, ensuring your workflow remains uninterrupted.
• Nickname-based Sorting: Initiatives with assigned nicknames will now be sorted in your recent initiatives list, making it easier to access and manage your most important projects.
• Visibility of Miscellaneous Work Groups: We have removed miscellaneous work groups. Activities that cannot be grouped will now appear in your Timeline, allowing you to address them directly.
• Visibility of Single Activity Work Groups: Work groups consisting of a single activity that lasts less than 20 minutes will no longer clutter your view. Only single activities exceeding this duration will be displayed, ensuring relevance and efficiency.
• Improved Reassign Logic for Increments: When reassigning between 6m and 15m increments, we have improved our logic here to ensure it correctly matches the increment the initiative requires.

Version #s: v1.192.1, v1.192.3, v1.194.0

We're excited to announce the launch of our latest update for our assistant. Here's what's new in Version 55:

Enhanced Virtual Environment Support: Your virtual machine sessions are now more seamlessly understood, ensuring robust and accurate capture of activities.

Idle Time Enhancements: Updates to ensure our idle time functionality kicks in at the right time, regardless of your hardware or environment.

Duplicate Activity Handling: We've made strides to reduce reported duplicate activities, helping keep your activity log precise.

Web Capture Improvements: Experience more reliable capture on webpages added beyond the default set.

Happy Timekeeping!

We're excited to roll out two new features designed to fine-tune your timekeeping!

Maximize Your Time with Open Time Actions

Spot an open time slot and recall what you were doing during that time? Great, you now have full control with:

• Activity Adjustment: Seamlessly extend adjacent activities to cover any untracked moments, ensuring every minute counts.
• Create entries from open time: See an open time slot, but remember what you were doing? One click on "create entry" pre-fills an entry form with the gap's duration.

Streamline with Easy Activity Deletion

We get it—sometimes, not all captured time needs to be billed. With Laurel, you can now effortlessly delete any unassigned activity. This action will also automatically reflect in your work groups.

Additional Updates

Alongside these two new feature updates, we have updated the application with the following:

• Confirm Delete: When you select 2 or more entries, we now request a confirmation of the action as well as letting you delete the activities associated with the entries if desired.
• Timer Stability: We have increased the stability of our in-line timers.
• Work Code Reassignment Logic: When an entry is reassigned, we now clear the work coodes and re-apply default codes to ensure accuracy in the code range.
• Timeline in History Updates: We have adjusted the height of the activity line items to show more in a single view as well as make it more obvious what the activity was e.g email, document etc.
• Adding Work Groups to Existing Entries: Fixing an issue where work groups couldn't be added to existing entries.

Version #s: v1.188.0, 1.189.1, V1.189.3, 1.190.0& 1.190.1

Hi there,

We're excited to introduce a trio of new improvements in Laurel: an enhanced work history feature, and user-friendly error messaging! 🙌

Work History

With Work History, Laurel presents your collected work in a unified panel, allowing you to easily navigate through your tasks.

The top view features Work Groups, in which Laurel intelligently organizes the hundreds of activities you work on all day and presents you with just a handful of work groups that should be billed together.

Beneath the Groups view, you'll find your activities listed chronologically. After adding your work groups, refer to this list to complete any remaining entries.

📝For more information on adding work groups to entries, check out this article.

Improved Error Messaging

Say goodbye to confusion and hello to clarity. 🤩

Our improved error messaging is your trusted guide, ensuring that every error becomes an easy-to-understand and actionable opportunity for success within Laurel. 🙌

Jump into Laurel now to try out these new features!

We're thrilled to introduce the latest update for our Windows Assistant. Enhance your productivity and ensure no task goes unrecorded with our newest features.

Version 54 Highlights:

Offline Capture: Now, Laurel continues to track your activities even without an internet connection. Once you're back online, all captured data will be automatically synced.

Microsoft Teams Integration: Laurel extends its capabilities to Microsoft Teams. Whether you're messaging colleagues or editing documents, rest assured that your efforts are accounted for in detail.

Enhanced Outlook Email Capture: Experience seamless integration with Outlook, capturing every detail without compromising on efficiency.

Idle Time Improvements: We've refined how Laurel detects system inactivity or shutdown, ensuring accurate timekeeping.

Happy Timekeeping!

We are delighted to announce the release of the following features:

✏️ Enhanced Narrative Template Management

Get ready for an upgraded experience in managing your narrative templates with Laurel. Not only can you apply them to your entries just like before, but now you can also:

• Add Narratives: Effortlessly add as many narratives as you need with a simple workflow.
• Edit Narratives: Tweaking your existing narratives has never been easier.
• Delete Narratives: Clean up your list by removing narratives you no longer use.

And there's more:

• Cross-Device Access: Your narrative templates now travel with you. Access them on any device where you're logged into Laurel.
• All Your Narratives, Preserved: Rest easy, all your previously created narratives are safely stored.

🚥 Assistant Status

For users of Windows Assistant version 52 and above, we're excited to introduce the 'Assistant Status' feature. It's a simple yet powerful way to keep tabs on the status of your assistant, directly through Laurel.

Check the Laurel logo located in the top left-hand corner and understand the status colors:

• Green: Your assistant is logged in and ready to go.
• Yellow: Heads up! Your assistant is logged out.

Happy Timekeeping!