LexisNexis® Publisher Resource Center
Customer Testimonial
Lynn Fogle
Manager of Library Services
Greenebaum Doll & McDonald PLLC
"For our recent portal rollout, we chose Publisher to deliver firm news to our front page and also for practice group and client pages. We found Publisher to be very reliable, easy to use and the quality of the databases are excellent. Publisher is a powerful product providing automated clipping but also allowing customized filtering."
About LexisNexis® Publisher
LexisNexis Publisher is an advanced content management tool. It contains all you need to identify reliable, relevant content from the LexisNexis® services and publish to your users via e-mail, your own intranet, or an external Web site. You control the information delivered to your users by creating the searches that retrieve the documents you need. You can then review the documents found by the searches, determine which ones you want to have as links in e-mail or on your intranet or external Web site, and then publish links to these sites, or you can allow the links to automatically publish. Content can be published to Ozmosys® for distribution, and it can also be pushed to your Web site, portal, internet, through e-mail, or BlackBerry®. It's that easy!
Recent LexisNexis® Publisher Enhancement Information
In February 2008, the following enhancements were released:
- Newsletters—The Newsletters feature, located under the Administration tab, lets you create a reusable newsletter template for each type of newsletter you want to distribute. Each template defines the default header and footer HTML that will frame it, the list of topics from which documents to include will be drawn, and its email distribution list.
- Handling Duplicate Documents—You can now select the desired method of checking for and the handling of duplicate documents as default settings on the Org Preferences page. These default settings will then automatically be applied as new topics are created. Existing duplicate document setting for a topic will not be overridden and you can still manually adjust them on a per-topic basis.
- Non-Business Article Filtering—A new option has been added to your search form that lets you “Exclude non-business articles” form your search. When this option is selected, additional terms will automatically be added to your search during processing. These terms will help exclude lifestyle and entertainment, birth and wedding announcements, obituaries, community events, sports, weather, and similar articles from your search.
- Report Page Changes—The layout of the Reports pages has been changed to provide a better on-screen presentation of the information being reported. And a column was added to the Topic report to identify if the “Exclude non-business articles” option has been selected for that topic.
- Document Ranking—You can enable the document ranking capability for each individual non-shared topic on its Topic Setting page. This capability lets your users rank the perceived value of each document they review and also see the current average score of all user rankings that have been submitted for that document. This capability could help many of your users locate the most-relevant information they need faster.
- People Indexing—A continuously-growing list of people index terms has been made available when you construct your searches. As with the other available index term categories, you can include one or more of these terms in your search to help retrieve the documents that will best meet your needs.
- External RSS Newsreader/Aggregator Support—Using RSS newsreaders and aggregators that were external to your organization’s site to access LexisNexis Publisher topics was denied because they could not pass the authentication security requirements set for those Intranet-only LexisNexis Publisher installations. You can now use the Tokens page, under the Administration tab, to generate special tokens that you can append to the RSS URL you issue. Then, providing a secured connection (HTTPS) is used, your subscribed users can use the RSS URLs with those newsreaders and aggregators to access the list of topic documents. They will then be prompted to sign into LexisNexis Publisher when they try to access a document.
- Schedule Search Edit Verification—Now when you edit a scheduled search and submit it, the Results page displays showing the new results from that modified search. This lets you easily judge the impact of the modifications you just made.
- Billing Changes—The standard “on-demand” billing classification for every scheduled search update run is being replaced with new classifications that identify the type of scheduled search update (Hourly, Daily, etc.) that was run. This helps you to better analyze the items on your organization’s invoice and may lead to scheduled search update charges that are more appropriate for the type of update that was performed.
More then fifteen LexisNexis Publisher enhancements released in March 2007. Based on customer feedback, this release introduces new functionality and ease of use enhancements of the product. Enhancements include:
- Ability to sort editor-created documents.
- Editor can change default results order for end-user searches.
- One click alphabetical sorting of topics for the end-user view.
- Editor-selected documents persist between tabs.
- Tracking of download/email/print of documents for possible monetization by account.
- Staged documents will remain for 7 days, up from 5 days.
- Better message if ID/PW required for access to the end-user view.
- MacIntosh Support for Firefox and Safari for Editors (end-users already supported).
- Add comments on documents and headlines at the same time.
- Create categories for topics.
- Enhancements to editor interface including display of search terms in results list.
- Hiding end-user edit search option from results, if search option is not shown.
- Improved detection of invalid or non-responsive email addresses.
In November 2006, the following enhancements were released:
- Editors can customize display of email alerts to conform to their firm’s branding with a web-based, newsletter-like format. New html format option allows editors to include header, footer, font, comments, etc.
- Print/download/email functionality for end users from the document (cite) list or the full text email.
- Editors can receive email notification of planned outage
- Editor sort options honored on the staged tab
In October 2006, the following enhancements were released:
- Global Indexing Functionality - LexisNexis Publisher now offers the same indexing capability found on nexis.com. Along with the improved Subject Index Hierarchy, editors will now be able to take full advantage of the rich, robust Company, Industry and Geography taxonomies provided for in the LexisNexis content.
- Headline Sort option - Editors will now have the ability to sort their staged or published documents by headline in order to make it easier for end users to scan for a particular story or group of stories.
- Print/Download Feature for End Users - End user can print or save specific documents that they may need to reference frequently. (The feature is only allowed if the LNP editor chooses to surface the Save and Print icons when setting up the display formats.)
Best Practice Tips while using LexisNexis® Publisher
Track Your Organization's LexisNexis Publisher Activity—LexisNexis Publisher provides powerful reports to help you track your organization's LexisNexis Publisher activity. You can generate:
- Usage reports which help you analyze your end users’ LexisNexis Publisher usage over the timeframe you specify (within the past 2 years). You can choose to generate usage reports by topic, by day, or by document headline. All reports contain both percentage values and actual counts.
- Subscription reports which give you a snapshot of the number of end users subscribed to your LexisNexis Publisher topics at the time the report is generated. You can choose to generate reports either by topic or by user. A subscription report generated by topic lists all your active topics and the users subscribed to them. It also displays the users’ email addresses, email schedules, and email view preferences.
- Topic reports which list the major properties associated with each of your organization's LexisNexis® Publisher topics. This helps you quickly determine what topics are being researched, the editor responsible for each topic, the searches being submitted, the LexisNexis index terms being used to target results, and any topics that have a particular client or project association.
See the LexisNexis Publisher User Guide beginning at page 66 for detailed instructions on how to generate these reports.
Have a specific question and need an answer right away
Call the direct customer support number: 877-810-5325
Create Your Own Document to display in your LexisNexis Publisher Results
Create a custom document, such as a company memo or marketing piece, for publication in your LN Publisher results. You can create the document by entering original text or by copying text from an existing document.
From the Results tab of the topic you want to publish to, select Create a Document from the "More Actions" drop-down list and click Go. A form appears in the Preview panel where you can enter a headline and body text for the document. Additional help is available on the form. Complete the form and then click the Create button to save the document and place it on the Results page. To publish the document to the site, move it to the Staged and Published pages as you would any other document.
Designing Searches –utilize SmartIndexing and relevancy scores, as well as segments and precision search commands when designing the searches. The global indexing look-up tool is accessible within Publisher. All index categories are now available, so you can easily integrate SmartIndexing terms to add precision searching for companies, industries, subjects and geographic areas (e.g., stories pertaining to Asia). These same terms have been coded in French and German, so if you are searching sources in these languages, you can use SmartIndexing terms to get pinpoint results without knowing a word of French or German. Choose to search index terms or view the available hierarchies. Terms can be added to the search box or searched alone; for example, you can easily create your own industry watches using this tool. In the company hierarchy, you can select the ultimate parent to see a company’s owner and choose the ultimate parent to search all subsidiaries, or you can select the subsidiaries individually. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact your Librarian Relations Consultant.
Verifying Search Results – create a Publisher account within your Lexis account, and run searches both in Publisher and the Lexis research system to compare the results. Verify that you are getting the results you expected and the results you want. If the results are not matching, consult your Librarian Relations Consultant to determine if sources are not properly selected, or a search is not constructed correctly.
Ease of use tip - Do not use the “BACK” button on the browser toolbar! Use the links within Publisher to move around to various areas. Using the “BACK” button may cause work to be lost. To be sure all of your work is recognized by the system, use only the links within Publisher to navigate. If you have any questions, please contact your Librarian Relations Consultant.
Currentness of results - If you are frustrated by receiving results that are older than two weeks, even though you have set date parameters, here is a suggestion that will help. Occasionally Lexis will receive data reloads from sources, this is what causes the old results to reappear. Instead of having the date parameter read “date aft 2007” change it to “date aft %currdate-15%”. This will keep the result set to items dated within the current 15 day framework. If you would like assistance with restructuring your searches, please contact your Librarian Relations Consultant.
Have you ever been frustrated tracking the Applicable Federal Rate (AFR)? Here’s how one librarian solved that problem using Publisher! For years, individuals in our estate-planning group went online each month to retrieve the new Applicable Federal Rate (AFR). Specifically they went to the Internal Revenue Bulletin for the Revenue Ruling announcing the AFR change. Our reference team tried monthly alerts. Which was an OK solution, but the alert message didn’t show the new AFR, only a link to the site that provided it. Finally, with LexisNexis Publisher, we created a monthly monitoring service that distributes only when the new rates come out. And it displays the new AFR. Plus, using the editing features of LexisNexis Publisher, we’ve included a link to the historical AFRs on the IRS Web site. Contact your Librarian Relations Consultant if you would like to set up a similar service.
Portal Components - Portal components are customizable plug-in modules that enhance your portal environment by providing access to LexisNexis content. The LN Publisher portal component brings you additional flexibility in configuring Publisher news to display on your portal, for instance, you can configure certain topics to only be viewable by certain users, or customize news based upon practice or client pages and more. Portal components are also available for other LexisNexis products, including lexis.com searches, CourtLink, Company Dossier and more. You can get additional information about portal components, including the user guide here.
Scheduling the search to occur - to schedule the frequency of the searches, at the Topics page, click on Actions next to the particular topic you want to schedule, and click on Edit Topic or Search. Scroll down to Current Searches at the bottom of the screen. Click on Edit Alert. The default is to publish Manually Only, which requires the editor to initiate the search to get results. Choose Automatically to the Results tab to run the search regularly and deliver documents to the Results tab for your review. Choose Automatically to the Staged tab to review or edit the results, or choose Automatically to the Published tab to automatically push results out to subscribers. Once you’ve chosen where you want the results sent, click to schedule the frequency (Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly.) Contact your Librarian Relations Consultant if you have any questions about these steps.
Accessing Publisher – if you are accessing LexisNexis Publisher routinely to edit searches and create topics, consider creating a shortcut on your desktop for easy access. Additionally saving it to your Favorites or using any other bookmark tool. As a backup, you can always access it from this page, the Publisher Resource Page on InfoPro. In the box on the right hand side, the first link is “SIGN ON TO PUBLISHER NOW!”
View some Web sites powered by LexisNexis Publisher
Available Literature and links
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the benefit of Publisher?
The benefit is that you can easily share news information throughout the organization via the intranet or through e-mail. You construct your own search, and can change it as often as you would like. In addition, you can include the organization's own data, even pictures, with the Publisher results.
Can users access Publisher for the Intranet from any PC, or only from their organization's network?
Since Publisher uses IP authentication, users can access the Publisher results on the organization's intranet only through their organization's network. If users can access their organization's network from remote locations, then they can access Publisher intranet results after signing on to their intranet. Users can access Publisher results for the Public Web site anywhere that they have access to the organization's Public Web site.
Are there different sources for Publisher for the Intranet and Publisher for External Websites?
Yes. Our licensors must agree to allow their publications to appear on Public Web sites. Four thousand of our licensors have agreed to allow information from their publications to be published to Public Web sites, and additional licensors agree to external publication all the time. Publisher results for the intranet are pulled from our NEWS; ALLNEWS source and, optionally, Factiva.
How long are Publisher results archived?
You, the administrator, may choose to archive for 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days for Publisher for the Intranet, and may renew the archive for 90 days (for a total archive of 180 days). Publisher for External Websites may only be archived for 90 days.
Sign on to Publisher