General Q&A

Ultimately, upon talking to someone from Smokeball, they advised us that in order to view a document without it automatically billing is to hit the red ‘x’ in the top right hand corner. However, upon trying that out, it generated an auto-billing that was emailed to me, when I was just viewing a document. How can we look at a document without it auto-billing? 

When assigning individual messages to Smokeball matters, one has to click in the Smokeball field (at the bottom of said message) and then select the matter.  Has anyone ever figured out a way to do this without using the mouse?  If so, would you please share what utility/script you are using to do so? 

I had smokeball set to group automatic time entries. I now realise it has negated the individual activites making up the group entry from appearing: is there a way to get them to show up?

I am interested to know what calendar scheduling tools Smokeball firms are using to book in meetings with their clients and other third parties.

When tracking income allocation for flat fee Matters, the canned allocation report will attribute the income for a flat fee based on the timekeeper recorded with the flat fee entry.Is there a known way to track fee income using the (non-billable) time entries for each timekeeper working on the flat fee Matter?Our goal is to have a report to assess flat fee estate planning Matter profitability. Any help is great!

I have a client that is listed as Mother and he is the Father.  I go into the details and it will not allow me to change it.  Help.  

I have a task to add State/Federal holidays to our calendar..  Is there a short cut to do this?

When we use LawPay in Smokeball why do we only have two options for clients to pay their invoice?Only Creditcard and Echeck. Outside of Smokeball, When I provide the Lawpay link to our clients, they have a third option to pay “PayLater”. That is an option with Affirm Financing if client is not able to pay with credit card or echeck.

Hello and Happy New Year,My firm works on several cases where the opposing counsel will have multiple attorneys assigned. I’ve created the contact for the firm and added handling attorneys as “staff members” with “add another person”.The issue I am having is that when I would like to email all of the opposing attorneys, only the first email address pops up. What is the best way to work around this so I can select from all listed emails? 

is there any way of saving an excel workbook so as to make it availabe in every new matter?

Is there a way for a deposition that is created in the “Discovery” section to automatically post to the matter and the calendar as an event so that I don’t have to enter it twice? Also, is there a way to connect a document (like the depo notice) to an event? 

I have to download and reinstall Smokeball on my computer and lost alll the settings for setting up scansnap. The current instructions appear to be for a newer version of the scanner. I know mine is a home version bought in 2019 and I cannot figure out the path as I have no file called smokeball scan.exe. There used to be instructions for setting up my scanner in support files, but it is no longer there. Anyone who can help is appreciated. Thank you. 

The ability to duplicate tasks (instead of an entire workflow) is a suggestion I have considered for a while. Our firm utilizes Smokeball for our “in-office” matters as well as client matters, and at times we need to duplicate weekly/monthly/yearly tasks. Having this option for reoccurring tasks or a button to duplicate a specific task (for multiple employees etc.) would be great!  I hope this can be an added feature in the future.😊 Thoughts from other users on this; is this something that would be beneficial to your firm too?

 Hi I’m Liz 👋 It’s my role here to make Smokeball the best tool for running your firm, as it possibly can be.One thing we’ve noticed is that there’s a huge opportunity to speed up and streamline the Intake process. We’re at the stage where we’ve built a new way to collect information about a matter from your client and automatically sync everything to your matter in one click.   A prototype for Victorian conveyancers is ready to go, now we need your help to test it out.   What’s involved? 30 minutes of your time to take a look at what we’ve built so far, then take it for a spin!  What’s in it for me?If you participate in the test and would like to keep using the feature then you can keep them on for your firm!   What are you waiting for?  If you’re interested in participating or have questions just reply to th

When viewing the calendar can I view the calendar in columns for each person?  The office calendar is color coded but all the appointments are scrambled up not in columns which makes it difficult to view multiple people at 1 time.

Hi Everyone,My name is Aurora, and I am looking for a law clerk who can help me for a few hours every fortnight in dealing with my trust. If you know anyone, please let me know.

We have multiple office addresses and the automation will list the assigned attorney’s name, but then the firm name and primary address. I can’t figure out how to have it fill in the address in the pleadings captions to the specific address being used by THAT attorney…  help?Is that an option? If not, can it be…?

Hello everyone, I am trying to set up a new phone system. I currently have a virtual line. My question is what phone system do users in Australia currently have and does it complement their smokeball system. I have been told that Ring syncronises with smokeball, can record, convert to text and also bills automatically. Is anyone using this service, are they happy with it. All pointers inclusive of fees would be greatly appreciated.

Is there a way to generate a report or dashboard to view matters by jurisdiction/county? 

I am transferring all our files over.. i have them in folders on my computer. When i select, copy and paste to the various clients matters, all the folders are uploading but only some of the contents within them are coming accross. What am I doing wrong!?

Hi all,I have a file clerk who scans in all papers through the scansnap scanner, which directly scans into smokeball.  Her time is not being logged and accordingly billed even though she is in the smokeball environment.  She creates a lot of pdfs and she is tagged as a creator, but despite working a full day today, she logged only 0.2h (because she opened two documents).How can I ensure she is being tracked appropriately on AutoTime?

How do I set up “billing codes” (not sure if that is the correct terminology). For some clients we charge a flat fee- EXAMPLE:  Send a letter $50. What I do now is draft the letter, go to the matter, go to time and expenses, go to SUBJECT and type “Draft letter to JOHN DOE”. I then change duration to FIXED and under rate put in $50.I would like to be able to type in ACTIVITY - LTR and under SUBJECT “Draft letter to ….” comes up and $50 is automatically put in as the amount.   Is there a way to accomplish this?Thank you.

I am in the process of entering our client’s medical providers and their charges and balances. I have several providers that have balances for our client. However, when I go into the liens and balances screen, all the providers are listed as having a 0 balance. Why is the balance not pulling over to the second screen? What am I doing wrong? I’ve submitted two tickets this morning and have received no response. In reviewing the support hub, it appears that I am supposed to manually enter these balances again into the lien and balances screen. What is the point of entering these balances on the medical provider’s screen if they do not carry over? This is a complete waste of my time. 

Does anyone use a Remote Desktop program to allow contract staff to access Smokeball on your office computer? If so, which one(s) worked the best? I’m having a difficult time finding a contract paralegal with a computer that meets Smokeball’s minimum requirements, so I would like to try using a Remote Desktop so I can get some help with legal work. 

The largest file size that I have been able to send through communicate was 3.99 gig. I was unable to attach an attachment that was larger than 4.0 gig. I hope this will help someone out there. Kind regardsGeorge