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Let's See if I Can Talk You Down off the Ledge - Killer Angel

Posted: Sep 11th, 2020 - 2:43 pm In Reply to: Am I the only one not having a love affair with Fluency? - sm

I worked on what eventually became Fluency from about 2004 when the first iteration came out until I left MModal in 2018. For the most part, I loved it and wish my current company used it. To be fair, about the time I left, the platform seemed to be going through a period of instability. I hope that's fixed, plus I'm unaware of what they may have added to it in the past 2 years.

Fluency, like Word, is a feature-rich program. That's good because there are a lot of productivity enhancers; it's also bad because if can be overwhelming at first, and you may never need all of the features (in which case their presence just adds to your anxiety).

First, I would carefully study and keep handy any training materials your employer provides. When actually in the program, check out the Help key. Print anything there your employer has not already provided to you and keep it handy. If your employer gives you training files to work on, take your time on these and just explore the program with your training materials in front of you.

Like Word, there are usually at least 2 ways of doing the same thing. Look for the features that you are required to use (for example, filling out demographics) and become comfortable with those using the method with which you are most comfortable (for example, using the mouse versus using a keyboard command).

Look for the features that you know are productivity enhancers for you. For me it was things like the word expansion program, doctor/dictator lookup, punctuation cycling and the like. Again, if there is more than one way to perform a function, pick ONE and stick with it. Don't sweat the other(s) until you're more comfortable with the whole program, then expand your repertoire. You know what features you liked and used heavily in Escription, so look for how Fluency does the same thing. If you don't see it, then ask your trainer!

Your trainer should also know (and emphasize) any really useful features that Fluency has but Escription didn't. If you have a list of "gee, I wish Escription could do X", look to see if you can find that feature in Fluency. If you can't, ask your trainer!

If there are features that you are not required to use or where you don't see the point, ignore them at first. Once you're more comfortable with the program in general, you can do more exploring and add to your repertoire if you think it worthwhile. For example, I have never had to produce a document in newspaper column format. I know there is a way to do that in Word, but until/unless I actually have to do it, I couldn't care less.

Like any program, there is a learning curve. You WILL be slower at first than you were on Escription. You WILL be face down in your training materials until you get used to new ways. Everybody else will be, too! Don't beat yourself up. The more you can accept it and celebrate the small discoveries and evidence of progress, the easier it will be for you.

Lastly, if you've been an MT for any length of time, I bet deep down you knew all this already. I'm just here to confirm it for you (she smiles).

Best of luck with Fluency! I really do think you'll come to like it a lot.

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