This release (v4.9.2) comes with a cleaned and updated look for your account. See more of your Dialawg content at a glance, attached files take up less visual space while remaining highly visible, and you can now easily attach files from other Dialawgs.

We've also removed our "file list" view in favor a "File Actions" menu option that displays a listing of all of the files in your account. You can create custom ZIP downloads, compare documents, and request signatures on documents from this view.

API Additions/Updates

For developers using our API, we have a few improvements to note:

• Update.IsEditable:
  The Update entity now lets you know whether or not your user has marked each individual update in a Dialawg read or not.
• Dialawg.SelfDestructLocal: 
  The self-destruct date of a Dialawg has been available in UTC, now you also get the time in the user's local time zone
• Dialawg.IsOnDemandDestructReserved:
  True if the creator of the Dialawg has reserved the right to self-destruct this Dialawg at any time without notice. 
• Add (operation update):
  The "Add" operation now allows you to forward specific revisions from other Dialawgs and optionally supply them with new file names.
• GetFileListing (new operation):
  This new operation allows you to retrieve a listing of all of the files in your user's account.

Visit our API here.

With our New Year's Eve parties behind us, now is a good time to reflect on the past year! 2011 was a year of major system improvements for Dialawg as well as the release of several fantastic features.

The biggest refinement this year was the breakthrough concept of starting a Dialawg, which made our platform easier to use and much more powerful. Before this update, users could had to share messages and files separately—but afterward, users could simply start a Dialawg—allowing you to add participants, messages, and files, start a real-time chat, all in a unified conversation!

It's also hard to believe Front Desk is only a year old--it's such a nice feature that it's hard to imagine living without it. When you enable your Front Desk, you get a public link through which anyone can send messages and large files to you privately. You can even host custom forms to collect specific information. We further simplified the platform by discontinuing our D-Drive feature so we could focus on more widely useful features such as bulk downloading of files as a ZIP file, real-time chatting, and the ability to start a conference call with any of your Dialawg participants.

This year we also introduced electronic signatures for all files within Dialawg. In addition to tracking these signatures, our refined authenticity reports also shore up the details of each signature. Another important new feature found within the platform is our drag-and-drop form designer, which allows you to design a form to collect structured data more securely. Since our platform infrastructure also addresses HIPAA standards, the the impact of this feature is far-reaching. 

Our audit reports have been upgraded and renamed "Authenticity Reports," and are truly at the heart of what Dialawg is all about: providing your professional conversations with a detailed history of who said what, and when. Each report comes with a tamper-detection link so you can check the legitimacy of the copy you’re viewing.  With free basic accounts, there's no reason not to receive this kind of protection for your professional correspondence!

In addition to these exciting new features, we also continue to make improvements to our infrastructure to keep it resilient and robust for all of our users. We also have some amazing new improvements coming your way soon, so please stay tuned.  Here's wishing everyone a great 2012!

With version 4.9 of Dialawg, we are introducing a major enhancement to the audit tracking capabilities enjoyed by our users. At anytime you can generate and download a PDF "Authenticity Report" for any of your Dialawgs. These reports contain detailed tracking information such as when a message was added, when a file was uploaded, when participants read each update, and more.

With this information in hand, you have a third-party record of what transpired for any professional conversation. Additionally, each report comes with an authenticity verification link (and a scannable QR code for savvy smartphone owners). This link takes you to our site where we display information on your report that we can verify. Upload your copy of the report and we will run tamper-detection to help identify if your copy is legitimate or a fake. 

Authenticity Reports come with all account types, including our free plan. 

Just as there are marketing firms that cater to law firms with an explicit understanding of the ethical concerns of lawyers, there are likely to be cloud based system providers that understand the ethical duties of lawyers.

We couldn't agree more.

• When sending to folks without Dialawg accounts, we present a much simpler notice allowing you to apply an optional password to their access
• Adding messages and files have had some light tweaks to make them a bit more intuitive
• The Internet Explorer "black screen of death" has been fixed: people with their security settings ratcheted to the highest setting were unable to view some dialog windows

The following new API operations have been added:

• HasAccount: provides a way to check (in bulk) if email addresses have a Dialawg account
• Exists: provides a quick way to check (in bulk) a list of Dialawg IDs to see if they still exist for your user
• Delete: has been extended to allow the deleting of individual updates and files as well as entire Dialawgs

View our API here.

The latest feature from Dialawg (v4.8) is an interactive designer for creating custom forms. 

We've also simplified how you can add these surveys to Front Desk™, which is your public-facing link where anyone can send you sensitive information. You can create public links for any of your questionnaires--for instance, to collect client information--all behind our bank-grade security.

With XML knowledge you can inject custom behavior into your forms like performing validation against your own database and even changing the layout of the form as the user enters information. Our designer has advanced Import/Export tools that make working with the XML easy.

Here's a video walkthrough of creating a form from scratch in 3 minutes:

This view is subtle so as not to distract you and is perfect for finding files when your Dialawg gets quite large.

View a screenshot of this in action: https://www.dialawg.com/info/features.aspx

...while email, text messaging and cellphones offer speed, efficiency and convenience that are hard to resist, they can have downsides. One is the fact that electronic communications never really go out of existence. And as two recent ABA ethics opinions point out, that can raise important confidentiality issues for lawyers when they communicate with clients.

http://www.abajournal.com/mobile/comments/read_all_over_two_new_opinions_describe_need_to_keep_email_from_wrong_hands

Another article on the 11-459 opinion issued by the ABA commenting on the risks of using email for client communication. This is an issue Dialawg takes head on.

Our service allows you to maintain the speed, efficiency, and convenience offered by digital communication, while not exposing your data to the kinds of risks presented by unencrypted email. Not only that, but we provide verification features such as PDF audit reports letting you know exactly who said what and when for all of your conversations.

Learn more about Dialawg security here.