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Backing Up all of Smokeball

  • 7 February 2024
  • 7 replies
  • 135 views
M

Has anyone learned how to backup your smokeball documents/data to a local server?

 

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Best answer by JKibler 8 February 2024, 00:00

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J
Userlevel 6
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Access Smokeball Settings – Smokeball Support Hub states:

Data Back Up: Your Smokeball matters, client info, and documents are securely stored and backed up. If you want to create a local copy of your data, you can do so by selecting Create Data Backup.

Depending on how much data you have in Smokeball, creating a local copy may take a long time and use considerable computer resources. The data back up will not create copies of emails, documents, and other files in Smokeball. If you choose to end your Smokeball subscription, then Smokeball will provide you with a link to access your files. Reach out to your account manager if you have any questions.
 

Note: There is currently no fee for requesting a backup of your documents.


Smokeball Settings > Data Backup states:


The statements about fees for backup of Documents are inconsistent. I suggest you contact your rep. or Smokeball technical support to inquire further. 

M

Thank you. I’ll have to, since when I go to settings I don’t see the backup option described at https://support.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/5855417161751-Access-Smokeball-Settings I wonder if they’ve removed that option and not updated documentation. Even if I did find it, the “data backup” doesn’t include emails or documents, which is all we’re interested in.

Jess Santos
Rank
Userlevel 2

Hey @MikePf, welcome to Smokeball Community. Glad to have you here!

To answer your question, we provide two ways to backup data:

  • Client-initiated Data Backup
  • Support-generated Data Backup

The difference between the two lies in the type of data included in the backup.

Data Backup Types What data is included? How is this data backup generated?

Client-initiated Data Backup:
“Matter & Client Data”
  1. Matter Data: Client/s, Other side, etc.
  2. Client Data: Only clients, not all contacts.
 Only Firm Owners can grab this via Smokeball Settings > Data Backup > Create Data Backup. This will allow you to download the backup files to your local server.
Support-generated Data Backup:
“Documents Data”
 
  1. Documents
  2. Emails
  3. PDFs
  4. Notes
  5. Memos
  6. Communicate messages
 Only Firm Owners or CSMs can send this request to our Support Team which can take up to 5 business days. Once the backup is complete, you'll receive an email with a link to download the backup files.

Support Teams:
US: support@smokeball.com
AU: support@smokeball.com.au

*Support-generated data backups do not contain Matter details or Client data.

If you request this information, please be advise to use the:

  • Client initiated data backup feature (from Smokeball Settings)

  • Export feature for Contacts, Tasks, Activities, etc.

  • Reports for more specific information

In summary, to backup your Smokeball documents/data to a local server, you can use the Client-initiated Data Backup feature or request a Support-generated Data Backup. The choice between the two depends on the type of data you want to include in the backup.

L

How much is the “fee”?  It definitely didn’t always say this.  

Jess Santos
Rank
Userlevel 2

Hi @lreynolds80202,
There is currently no costs involved for these data backup requests, and clients are able to request these at any time. However, if a firm requests this more than twice a year, we will be flagging this with their CSM, as there should be no need for firms to request this so frequently (generally spoken).

J
Userlevel 4
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@Jess Santos 

Thank you for helping clarify the process. Two follow-up questions:

  1. For the ‘Support-generated Data Backup: Documents Data’ you listed 6 items, which implies that perhaps something is excluded from the backup.  Is there anything excluded?
  2. Also, is the backup provided in a format in recognizable to us laypeople, in a Windows file explorer folder logic?

Thank you.

Jess Santos
Rank
Userlevel 2

Hi @JG3 ,

To answer your follow-up questions:

  1. For the ‘Support-generated Data Backup: Documents Data’ you listed 6 items, which implies that perhaps something is excluded from the backup.  Is there anything excluded?

    When we refer to 'Documents,' we mean all of the files listed under the matter. It all depends on the files you add to your matters in Smokeball.
     
  2. Also, is the backup provided in a format in recognizable to us laypeople, in a Windows file explorer folder logic?

    Yes, the data backup is sent in the form of links to download zipped folders. For each matter, there is a dedicated folder that contains the same sub-folders as the matter document list. Additionally, there are separate folders for Notes, Memos and Communicate messages.

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