Release 16.4.0.0 is a maintenance release addressing bugs raised across OneOffice, resolving a recent regression, and introducing administrator-facing improvements to the SQL Config Tool, alongside AGFS Fee Scheme 17 changes ahead of the 28 July 2026 go-live.

Several document-sharing issues have been resolved: converting a Word document to PDF via the Share function no longer shifts text and layout out of place, and no longer produces PDFs many times larger than expected. Conflict checks can now be searched by postcode for all contact types, not just clients, and a matter's charging rate is no longer silently overridden by a fee earner's personal grade when editing an existing time entry.

Attendance note reliability has also improved: an intermittent error that could close the application while saving an attendance note has been fixed, and Civil Legal Aid attendance notes now correctly include Advocacy time in the printed Grand Total. On the FAS screen, entering an overly long Reason on a Bolt-On Payment no longer creates an error and an orphaned, undeletable file history entry. Crime proceedings classes now correctly require a MAAT ID before closing, in line with current LAA rules across all relevant stage-reached codes.

A regression affecting the SQL Config Tool's Crown Court Defence (CCCD) rate table download has also been fixed, restoring administrators' ability to refresh rate data via Update Data.

This release also includes AGFS Fee Scheme 17 changes: an increase to the additional preparation fixed fee, extended eligibility for guilty plea and discontinuance claims, and a reduced trial-days threshold for wasted preparation time - all effective from 28 July 2026.

Summary: When sharing a Word document as an email attachment and choosing to convert it to PDF, some documents had their layout shift - text, headings, and page content moving from their original position - along with visible differences in text styling compared to the original Word document.

Fix: The conversion process has been corrected so PDFs generated via Share now retain the same layout and styling as the source Word document.

Summary: Using the Share function to email a Word document as a PDF attachment could produce a file many times larger than expected - a simple two-page document could grow from kilobytes to several megabytes, compared to using Word's own PDF export. This added unnecessary load to email, Citrix, and server storage.

Fix: PDF attachments generated via Share are now produced at a comparable size to Word's native PDF export, rather than inflating unnecessarily.

Summary: Running a conflict search by postcode only returned results for Client-type contacts. All other contact types, such as general contacts, returned zero results even when a postcode was present on the record, making conflict checks unreliable for anyone other than clients.

Fix: Postcode is now correctly saved and searchable for all contact types, so conflict checks by postcode return accurate results regardless of contact type.

Summary: When a matter had a custom charging rate grade set at file level, editing an existing time entry could cause it to silently revert to the fee earner's personal grade rate instead of the matter's rate, with no charging rate visible on the entry until this happened.

Fix: Editing a time entry now correctly retains the matter's charging rate rather than reverting to the fee earner's personal grade.

Summary: Saving an attendance note could occasionally fail with an "Unable to create the attendance note" error, after which the application closed unexpectedly. Re-entering the same information after reopening the application would then save successfully, but users had to redo the entry each time this occurred.

Fix: The attendance note save process has been made more reliable, so this error and the associated application closure should no longer occur.

Summary: For Civil Legal Aid certificated matters, time recorded against Advocacy wasn't shown on the printed attendance note and wasn't included in the note's Grand Total, so the printed total didn't match the figure shown on the Time Record screen.

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Fix: Advocacy time is now included in the attendance note's Grand Total, so the printed total matches the Time Record screen.

Summary: Entering a long piece of text into the "Reason" field on the Bolt-On Payments section of the FAS screen triggered an error. Once triggered, the entry was still added to file history but without a time value, and this orphaned entry couldn't be deleted through the normal FAS screen, only via direct database intervention.

Fix: The Reason field now stops input at the maximum allowed length, preventing the error and the resulting orphaned file history entries.

Summary: Some Crime proceedings classes could be closed without a MAAT ID recorded, even though the Legal Aid Agency requires one for these stages. This could later cause the SaBC online submission or a billing run to fail, without warning users at the point the class was closed.

Fix: The MAAT ID check now covers all the relevant stage-reached codes, so a class cannot be closed without a MAAT ID where one is required, with a message prompting the user to populate it first.

Summary: The SQL Config Tool's "Update Data" option for downloading Crown Court Defence (CCCD) rate tables stopped working on recent versions, failing immediately with an error - a regression that had also affected another DPS application previously. This blocked administrators from refreshing CCCD rate data.

Fix: The configuration has been corrected so CCCD rate table downloads work correctly again in the SQL Config Tool.

To reduce the risk of accidental or unauthorised removal of user accounts, the Delete button on the Users and Groups configuration screen is now hidden for all users, regardless of role or permissions. Administrators can still use Add, Edit, and Show Leavers as before; permanent user deletion is no longer available through this screen.

From 28 July 2026, the fixed fee for additional preparation on AGFS claims submitted via CCCD increases from £62 to £81, for claims where the representation order is dated on or after that date. Firms are paid the updated fee automatically without needing to correct submissions manually. Claims with an earlier representation order date continue to use the previous £62 rate, and claims already submitted and paid are not affected retrospectively.

The additional preparation fee can now also be claimed on guilty plea cases, and on discontinuances where the prosecution had served its evidence, for representation orders dated on or after 28 July 2026. On qualifying discontinuances, the fee is payable in addition to the guilty plea fee. Discontinuances where evidence was not served continue to be claimed as before, remaining eligible for 50% of the basic guilty plea fee only.

The number of trial days a matter needs to qualify for wasted preparation time to be included in the Fixed Fee Total has been reduced from 5 to 2, for claims with a representation order dated on or after 28 July 2026. This means more matters with recorded wasted preparation time will now have that time correctly reflected in the Fixed Fee Total, without needing manual adjustment.

How this version will be released

This update 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.

PLEASE NOTE: this release includes a database upgrade. The OneOffice and ALCM databases are kept in sync, and a number of fixes delivered on the ALCM side required a database update. The OneOffice version number has therefore moved to 16.4.0.0 to reflect that shared database upgrade. This has no functional impact on OneOffice itself - all changes described above are the OneOffice - specific items included in this release.

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.