My Profile

In this article, you will learn about the 'My Profile' page and all of its functions.

The 'My Profile' page is a place where an individual user can set the preferences that they would like to have for different parts of Actionstep including the timesheet and emails as well as other options.

Accessing the My Profile page

To get to the 'My Profile' page, click on your name at the top of the Actionstep screen, beside the 'Help' menu, as shown in the screenshot below.

Contact Information

This section will display essential details that Actionstep has about you based on the information stored in your contact record. You can change the details by updating your contact record in this system. There is a button to the right to be able to open your contact record.

The name, password, and timezone fields entered onto the My Profile page are applied to multiple systems (if you have access to more than one Actionstep system).

Password

Actionstep enables Administrators to control how often your passwords must be changed (see our admin section on Password Policies for more details on how to set these up). If your password does expire, you will see when the password was last updated and when it will be required to be changed again.

There is also a button to the right to be able to change the password that you access Actionstep through.

The name, password, and timezone fields entered onto the My Profile page are applied to multiple systems (if you have access to more than one Actionstep system).

You are also able to activate or deactivate 2-step authentication in this section. 2-step authentication will make your login more secure by requiring another validation step when you log in. Learn more about 2-step authentication here: 2-step authentication.

Email mailboxes

This is where you add your personal mailbox so that you can send emails from within Actionstep from your personal email address. 

Timekeeping

In this section, you set values used in the timesheet and timekeeping in Actionstep.

Term	Explanation
Timekeeper initials	By default the initials of the current user. These initials will be shown next to the time entries you record and can also be used in your invoicing to help define who recorded what time.
Fee income account	Some systems like to record all income from a user's time record to specific general ledger accounts. For example, to an income account for that user or that user's team. This field sets which income account to use when fees for this user are invoiced.
Work hours per day	On your timesheet screen, you will see the days of the week allowing you to navigate to any particular day. Each day contains a bar to indicate how much of your day is recorded on your timesheet. Populate the Work hours per day to set the target that this user should work towards each day.
Show weekends on timesheet	On your timesheet screen, you will see the days of the week allowing you to navigate to any particular day. By default, this does not include weekends. Switch on the Show weekends on timesheet button to add weekends to this screen.

Locale

This section lets you set what day should be the first day of the week and timezone.

The day of the week will change the weeks as they appear on your calendar, your timesheet and within date select widgets in Actionstep. There is also the option to use the default options set against your database.

The 'Timezone' is used to set your current timezone. If you choose a timezone that is different from the default, then items in your calendar will be updated accordingly.

The name, password, and timezone fields entered onto the My Profile page are applied to multiple systems (if you have access to more than one Actionstep system).

API Permissions

External programs can access and update data in Actionstep through the Actionstep API. If you use a third-party system that accesses Actionstep through your login to this system, it will be displayed and set here.

Abbreviations

Create abbreviations to be used in your time records, disbursements, files notes, and scratch pads. To add a new abbreviation, click the 'Add row' button and enter the abbreviation and what text it will show when entered into Actionstep.

To edit a record, simply click on it and make changes. You can remove an abbreviation by clicking the X to the right of it.

Landing Pages

Set which page will open when you are navigating through Actionstep like when you first sign in or when first opening a matter.

Term	Explanation
Always show launchpad	The Launch Pad is a landing page for users who have access to more than one Actionstep system. The Launchpad will show all systems available, and a user clicks on the box that represents an Actionstep system to access that system. If a user only has access to one Actionstep system, we would recommend switching this to "off".
Home screen	The screen that you as a user see when you first log in to Actionstep.
Matter details	The screen that you as a user see when you first open a matter. For example, trust accountants might want to go straight to the trust accounting screen, users who spend most of their time managing documents through Actionstep can go straight to the matters documents screen.

Microsoft OneDrive

This is where you can connect your Microsoft OneDrive. 

Application Settings

Set general preferences for sounds, how many rows are in a view, and if links will open in new tabs.

Term	Explanation
Alert sound	Alerts can appear in Actionstep based on reminders from your appointments, tasks, and your matter. You can choose to have a sound play when an alert does appear on the screen to make sure you are aware of it.
List-view rows per page	Actionstep displays lists of matters, tasks, contacts, invoices, and other items. Using this field, you can choose how many records will appear on one screen in a list. If more records exist than the number you set here, then you will be able to move to the next page of records. Pages with list views load minutely slower if there is a larger number set.
Open links in a new tab	When set to off, Actionstep will open a link that you click on, on a page within the same tab of your browser. If it is set to on, Actionstep will open that link in a new tab on your browser. This will reduce the number of links that open in new tabs but some links will continue to open in a new tab. A link will be a button or item you click on within a page that is not part of a menu.
Open menus in a new tab	When set to off, Actionstep will open any option in a menu that you click on a page within the same tab of your browser. If it is set to on, Actionstep will open that link in a new tab on your browser. Examples of menu items are the options in the navigation bar at the top of Actionstep or on your matter (matters, contacts, etc).

Heads Up

Heads up rules are rules that create emails, designed to send you information or summaries of data contained within a list view. In this section of the My Profile page, you can access and manage the rules you have created. See Using Heads Up for more details on how to create new Heads Up rules.

Any Heads up rules that you have created will be listed. Clicking on the rules title or description will open that rule.

You can click the 'Manage heads-up rules' button to be able to see a list of Heads up rules with further functionality like testing the rules.

The 'Aggregate rules' into one email option will take any Heads up rules that you have set up to be sent on the same day and time and combine them into one. Switching this off will mean that each Heads up rule will send a separate email. This option will not appear if you only have one or fewer Heads up rules in place.

Outbound email

This section sets preferences for how emails that are composed and sent from Actionstep will be treated.

Term	Explanation
My "From" name	When a person receives an email, the sender is normally displayed in that email. The My "From" name field will set what name will appear on emails that you send from Actionstep. By default, this will be your display name in your system.
Default text style	Default text style You can set the default font, color, and text size that will be used for the text in your emails. You can still choose to apply other styles to the text in the email. These options will set the default.
Custom signature	Actionstep does have a setting where an administrator can set the signature for all users. If you would like to use your own custom signature, added automatically to your outgoing emails you can switch this on. Once switched on you can enter the signature in the box below. The standard Actionstep email formatting will be available in the toolbar above the field.

Inbound Email

Emails can enter Actionstep through a dedicated built-in mailbox or through an external mailbox configured to your system (see Email Admin to learn more). This section controls how emails that arrive through those means get treated.

Note that these settings will not be applied to any emails that are placed into Actionstep through Actionstep's Outlook Plugin or Actionstep's Google Gadget.

The 'Alerts' switch controls if you are alerted to new emails. the alerts are presented to the user in the "Email" option in the alert bar that appears at the bottom of the screen. If this is switched to "off" then the Email option from the alert bar is removed.

If an email arrives in Actionstep and is assigned to your inbox you can have that email forwarded, automatically, to your own email account. The email address that it will be forwarded to will be the one loaded against your contact record.

Users use this option to ensure that they do not have to check emails in Actionstep and their personal mailbox. Because emails in Actionstep are forwarded to their email address they only have to monitor one location. Set 'Forwarding' to 'on' to allow this.

When you set 'Forwarding' to 'On' you are also offered to have the email marked as read in Actionstep once it has been forwarded.