General Q&A

Im noticing issues when using the new outlook with attachments, body of text and .pdfIf you want to add text in the body from a word template, it copies the formulas, not the results, making it frustrating to add body.  To work around you must copy plain text.  Are the options to add attachments or body of text coming back in the new outlook? I have also not figured out how to add as body of text OR pdf.  Attachment choice is word only, so you need to create a pdf first.Simply emails with no attachments works fine without attachments.Reauthenticating multiple times is frustrating. I have not rolled back yet… 

We had a client overpay an invoice on a particular matter. No biggie, we created a credit note and eventually invoiced the matter again, applying the credit to the outstanding balance of that new invoice. However, there still remains a balance on the credit note ( >$1k) and we wont be issuing any further invoices on this matter as that matter is now complete.  Can we transfer the balance of the credit note to another matter under the same client?  If so - how? 

Hi I have just started using the new Smokeball Add-in for the new Outlook. The matter naming convention that Smokeball uses makes it difficult to assign emails to matters because you cannot actually see the name of the matter. All you can see is the matter number and client name. I have a number of clients for whom I have a large number of matters so I need to be able to see the matter description in order to know which matter to assign the email to. I understand that the lengthy matter naming convention used by Smokeball has been raised as an issue on numerous occasions. Is this going to be addressed? I am unsure why the longer matter naming convention is required when there is a unique matter number.

Folks:Smokeball is meant to be the central repository for client information, and we happily record addresses and telephone numbers and the like into Smokeball for that reason.But my firm uses MS Teams for our voice telephone service.  It shares a contact list with Outlook.Smokeball does not share contact information with Teams or Outlook, as best I know.  And this is a problem because, among other reasons, Teams and Outlook can’t tell me who is calling me.  Also, if a client phone number changes, I have to change it in several places.Does anyone know any way around this?Can I reiterate my begging of Smokeball to incorporate this?  I know that Clio and Practice Panther and Time Matters all fully synchronize with Outlook so that changes in one program are updated in the other.  I’d REALLY love to have that for Smokeball as well!Thanks!MicahP.S.  If this email looks familiar, its because I’ve whined abou

The figures show the EM being subtracted from seller net, whereas EM is going to title, how do I fix this?

Hello.  We are new to Smokeball and I have been reading some of the Q&A’s here.  Like a few of you here, we have clients who have multiple matters and I am not seeing/finding a convenient way to do a couple of things.  For example, let’s say our client, Company ABC, has 100 matters.  Company ABC has a main client contact for most of the matters and then there’s a billing contact and a contact we need to cc on billings.  Company ABC also has a couple of confidential matters where our company contact and billing contact are different and need to be separate from the other bills.  So 98 matters have statements that need to go to the same 3 people and 2 matters where statements go to 2 different people.  Here are my issues/questions:Do I have to go in to all 98 matters and add the main company contact?  It appears that even if I do that, their name doesn’t even pull onto the invoices anyway.  So now I have to go into each of the 98 matters and override the invoi

SInce the most recent update, I have Smokeball opening any emails from a client’s file in the SB Preview email window, and when I send an email it opens in the SB Draft email window.This is really annoying, because it means I lose a lot of functionality that I am used to in Outlook.Is there a way to stop SB from doing this, and force it to go back to using Outlook directly?

When I am sending an email from Smokeball through the New Outlook, my email signature is not auto populating. I have to manually add my saved signature to the email every time. Is there a way to make it always populate when sending emails from Smokeball?

SB support tells me I can’t move time entries in bulk to another matter - has anyone else had this issue.  I have to go into every entry and change the matter number.   I have $15k of time to move.  😥

Why does the new upgrade not allow me to select contacts associated with the matter to send email

Is there a way to send a file to opposing counsel via a link without requiring them to use client portal?

Hi thereIn QLD we have to provide a trust account statement for all clients as at 30 June. Is there an easy way to send these all at once?

Billing is not opening. When I go into the billing portion of smokeball the matters will open but no time keeping or invoicing opens. Just wondering if anyone else is having these issues. There appears to be no outages

I am attempting to create a work in progrees report and I can’t get to the right side of the screen to fill in the requisite selection info. Also, the Start a Timer drop down offers a very limited view 

In the calendar view, we can assign a Label to an event by right clicking and choosing a particular label and it changes the colour of the event entry to which ever label you choose Can you change and/or add to the pre-existing titles and customize to your firm?  If so how?  If not, can it be submitted to the products team

I’m looking for a solution to answer calls, do intake, maybe ai or chat bot for website leads, that integrates well with Smokeball. I’m thinking Smith AI, Answering Legal or Lex Reception. Anyone have any experience/thoughts on those, or any other recommended solutions, they care to share? Thanks!

HELP … In My Case, I could easily send an e-mail through the program asking for a retainer and there was a link in that message.  HOW do I send an internal request for a retainer payment.

I have a PA who often gets cc’d into emails, and we both save the email/any attachments into SB. We then send the documents to the client, and they are often saved again into the file. Is there any way to prevent documents/alerts that I can set to notify me if the document appears duplicated?

Good evening, Sometimes at the end of the day or week, I check my email box and make sure emails are properly assigned to a matter.  There may be several emails in my box that need to be assigned, or outgoing mails sent in a hurry or from my phone will also need to be assigned.  So I will tkae a few minutes at the end of the day to assign emails.  I am not reading them, I am only right clicking on the emails in outlook so I can assign them.  It seems like this creates a billable event and I do not want that.  I would consider this matter management and not bill for it.  Does anyone else have the same concern? 

I only practice one area of law and have one client. Because of the unique situation, I created a matter template years ago when I first got Smokeball. Today, I have tried creating a new matter using the matter template as I always do and I am getting an error box “There was a problem creating a matter from this template. There was an error generating the XML document.” Has anyone else experienced this and have an easy fix? I can use a pre-set template from Smokeball but I’d prefer not to have to re-create the whole folder set I regularly use each time I have to create a new matter. 

We are trying to get our whole firm utilising the “tasks” function as a “to-do” list, to delegate work and act as “bring ups”.Many of my colleagues have used emails for these functions for 5, 10, 15+ years. So there have been some grievances raised with transitioning to Smokeball Tasks for these specific things. ​​Primarily issues relate to:Alerts/notifications for new tasks only showing in Smokeball (so can be missed if you do not have smokeball open on screen); and Needing to individually clear each notification for a new task/event in the “Notifications & Reminders” section (i.e., a “clear all” option would be helpful for when there is a back log).Other than updated Smokeball features, does anyone have any tips to overcome these grievances?

Is there a best practice for managing containers and templates? Specifically, is it recommended to create separate letterhead container for each use case (for example, new event with subrogation, demand requests to opposing counsel, etc.) using the same container or to create a container by use?  We currently use one letterhead container, but the coding has become fairly complex, so I’m wondering what approach is considered best practice.

Good morning - we recently signed up for Smokeball and are trying to locate the Florida probate standardized court forms within Smokeball.  Are they available somewhere?  Thank you.

Has anyone suggested the idea or has Smokeball started working on setting up a function to customize different Message Templates for Intake Forms? Perhaps based on each user or a template that can be saved for a specific matter type(s)?.