For full release notes see here.

Release 16.3.4.0 delivers 9 bug fixes and 1 user story across OneOffice. There are no changes to Financial Director.

Crime fixes address a Youth Court Stage Reached validation gap that risked incorrect billing, two CDS6 billing issues (duplicate UFN checks and apostrophe encoding in SPOC files causing submission rejections), and a restriction to the Ethnic Origin field to prevent free-typed values from causing bill rejections.

Civil Billing corrects an issue where the Details field on time recording entries saved without text became permanently uneditable.

Application-wide changes update outdated support portal URLs across error dialogs and help links, rename the "Digital Assistant" menu option to "Customer Portal" with the correct portal URL, and fix the Workflow tab search panel which was not defaulting to the correct search mode.

When a fee earner saved a time recording entry from the Class Area, only the free-text "Details" field was written to File History. Structured information captured during the time recording — such as time units, disbursements, diary notes, and totals — was not included, meaning File History gave an incomplete picture of the attendance note.

With this change, the complete rendered attendance note is now saved to File History when a time recording is saved from the Time Recording screen. Fee earners and supervisors can now view the full attendance note content directly from File History, giving a complete and auditable record of all time recording activity against the matter.

Affected area: Crime > Proceedings > Stage Reached

Summary: The Stage Reached validation for Youth Court Proceedings classes has been brought in line with the behaviour already in place for standard Proceedings classes, ensuring consistency across all billing types.

Root cause: The Stage Reached validation introduced for standard Proceedings classes had not yet been extended to cover Youth Court cases under the December 2024 fee rules.

Fix: Stage Reached validation now applies consistently across all Proceedings class types, including Youth Court cases with a Representation Order date on or after 6 December 2024. When a cost change causes the fee type to change, the Stage Reached field is automatically cleared, prompting the user to select the correct code for the new fee type — exactly as it does for standard Proceedings classes.

Affected area: File Screen > Workflow Tab > Search

Summary: The Workflow tab search experience has been improved so that the search panel is ready to use immediately when the tab is opened, without requiring any additional steps from the user.

Root cause: The "Search in Workflow" option was not being pre-selected when the Workflow tab opened, requiring users to manually activate it before searching.

Fix: The Workflow tab search panel now correctly defaults to "Search in Workflow" when opened, making the search function immediately available without any additional steps.

Affected area: Application-wide > Error Dialogs & Help Links

Summary: Error messages and help links throughout the application have been updated to direct users to the current Access Group customer portal, making it easier to get support when needed.

Root cause: Following the migration to the new Access Group customer portal, the links referenced within the application had not yet been updated.

Fix: All support and help URLs across the application now point to the correct current Access Group portal, ensuring users are directed to the right place when seeking assistance.

Affected area: Help Menu > Customer Portal (formerly Digital Assistant)

Summary: The "Help > Digital Assistant" menu has been updated to provide a direct, clearly labelled route to the Access Group customer support portal, making it simpler for users to raise and track support requests.

Root cause: The previous "Digital Assistant" menu option was pointing to an older help channel that did not route support requests correctly.

Fix:The "Digital Assistant" option has been renamed to "Customer Portal" and now links directly to the Access Group support portal. Support requests raised through this route will be correctly received and actioned. The change applies to both OneOffice and the Outlook Add-in.

Affected area: Crime > Clients > Personal Tab > Ethnic Origin

Summary: Additional validation has been added to the Ethnic Origin field to assist users and billers in meeting SaBC system requirements, ensuring only approved LAA codes can be submitted.

Root cause: The Ethnic Origin field accepted free-text input, which could result in unrecognised values being submitted to the SaBC system and bills being rejected.

Fix: The Ethnic Origin field is now restricted to the approved list of LAA codes. This ensures valid values are always submitted to the SaBC system, reducing the risk of bill rejections on this basis.

Affected area: Crime > Billing > CDS6 > UFN Duplicate Check

Summary: Additional UFN validation has been introduced at the point of data entry to further assist users and billers, complementing the existing checks already in place at the billing stage.

Root cause: In specific circumstances involving Investigation classes and warrants of execution, the existing billing stage UFN check could not reliably distinguish a genuine duplicate from a legitimate warrant claim. Moving the check to the point of data entry closes this gap without affecting valid warrant claims.

Fix: A duplicate UFN check now runs when a UFN is saved on the matter, preventing duplicates from being entered before they can reach the billing stage. This check applies consistently whether the user saves using the Save button or closes the screen using the "x" button. The user is prompted but is given the option override this in certain circumstances and details of the duplicate matter are also shown.

Affected area: Crime > Billing > CDS6 > SPOC File Generation

Summary: CDS6 SPOC file generation has been improved to ensure special characters such as apostrophes in client names are handled correctly, preventing submission rejections by the SaBC system.

Root cause: SPOC files were being generated without an explicit character encoding declaration, which could cause certain characters to be misread by the receiving system.

Fix: SPOC files now include an explicit UTF-8 encoding declaration, ensuring all characters — including apostrophes and other special characters in client names — are correctly interpreted by the SaBC system on submission. The same improvement has been applied to the civil legal aid XML generation path.

Affected area: Civil Billing > Time Recording > Details Field

Summary: Time recording in Civil Billing has been improved so that the Details field can be freely edited and saved at any point, giving users greater flexibility when updating their records.

Root cause: Time recording entries initially saved without Details text could not subsequently have that field updated.

Fix: The Details field can now be edited and saved successfully on any time recording entry, regardless of whether it was populated when the record was first created. This applies to both new and existing records.

Affected area: OneOffice & Outlook Add-in; Time Recording > Time Information Screen > Save

Summary: The attendance note save process has been made more robust, significantly reducing the likelihood of intermittent errors when saving time records and improving the overall reliability of the Time Information screen.

Root cause: Transient errors during the document merge process used to generate attendance notes could cause the save to fail, and the error handling did not clearly distinguish between different failure scenarios.

Fix: The attendance note save process now includes automatic retry logic, resolving the vast majority of intermittent failures without any user intervention. Resource handling has also been improved to prevent application crashes following a failed save. Error messages have been refined to provide clearer, more actionable information in the rare cases where a genuine issue does occur.

How this version will be released

This update 16.3.4.0 should be downloaded by your trained DPS Supervisor\Developer who can apply it to your system. The update will be made available on our Customer Portal.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are a hosted client this will automatically be applied to your system by one of our technicians, if you are a non-hosted client and have an SLA, we will be in touch to arrange an update at a convenient time.

Additional Information

PLEASE NOTE: You will need to be running a minimum of SQL Server 2017 for the database update and software to work correctly.

This update requires that PCs have the latest Microsoft .net 4.8 or higher and Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013 installed. (https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=40784)

RELEASE NUMBERING:

A Note on Our Release Numbering

You may notice a change in how our release numbers are formatted going forward. Previously you may have seen releases numbered in the format 16.3.3.1 — from this release onwards you will see numbers such as 16.3.4.0, 16.3.5.0, and so on.

This reflects a change in how we are applying our versioning. Each number in the version has a specific meaning:

This means the version number you see will more accurately reflect what a release contains and where it sits in our release schedule. Nothing changes about how you receive or install updates — this is purely a change in how we label them.