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Updates to Native Desktop App 

 

Back in August, we made some changes to the Smokeball native desktop app to boost performance.  Based on user feedback, we’ve implemented additional improvements and introduced new features. 

 

What’s changed 

 

Matter list and contact list pagination:  Users can now choose to view 50, 100, or 200 matters in a matter list before pagination occurs. This change benefits firms that prefer to scroll through more matters per page. The feature will be gradually rolled out to users over the coming weeks.
 

  1. Improvements to search logic:  We’ve enhanced the search logic to allow partial matches for internal matter reference numbers, making it easier to find relevant matters. 
     

  1. Automated signatures and firm logos:  Users can now upload their firm’s logo or staff signatures to be used as automation fields within Word or PDF document templates, making it easier to create templates without the use of ‘if-then’ statements. 
     

     

     

  1. Workflow trigger: Automatically trigger a workflow when transitioning a matter from one stage to another.  A new checkbox in stage set configuration allows workflows to be automatically displayed when a stage transition occurs. This eliminates the need to manually trigger workflow prompts and enables users to create stage-specific workflows. 
     

  1. Task priorities:  Tasks can now be categorized by priority, including: Urgent, High, Medium, Low, No Priority.  These priorities will appear next to the task name wherever tasks are displayed, including the task list, tasks tab in a matter, daily digest email, and widget. 
     

  1. New file browsing experience:  Instead of viewing files in the document pane of Smokeball there’s now a pop out button (see below)

     which triggers a new window to pop out, allowing users to manage their folders and files easier in a larger full screen. 

     
     

     

  1. Kanban board widget: This new widget helps users visualize their matters grouped by matter stage. Additional filters include staff member tags or roles, giving a clearer overview of team progress. 

 

  1. Assigned Matters widget:  This widget helps users see how many matters a staff member is involved in. It offers two views: a numbers view that shows how many matters and leads are assigned to a staff member, and a list view with a clickable list of matters. 

 

  1. Improved online publishing feature:  Users can now upload files directly from a matter to frequently visited websites (such as court form submission sites) quickly and easily. This feature removes the need to save files locally before uploading them. It supports uploading both single and multiple files at once. 

 

Why does it matter? 

These enhancements are designed to streamline your team's Smokeball workflow, helping you complete daily tasks more efficiently. 
 

Who gets it? 

These updates are available to users of Smokeball's native desktop app version 9.3 or higher. Be sure to update to access these new features. 

  1. I don’t need the ability to select how many matters are shown, but I do want to hide the feature so I can see more of my list. The current option takes up valuable screen space at the bottom of my list.
  2. I no longer have the ability to use the View by Stage option (that included a heading like “pre-Decree” and then all of the Pre-Decree matters listed below). That allowed me to focus on the cases in litigation as a group. I realize I can sort by any column, but the prior version I was using that feature to track litigation vs. non-litigation files. Can we bring that back? 

Is there a way that can prevent the same (exact) file from being in a matter multiple times under the same file name? With multiple users, this can become a major problem and constant file audits to verify that everything in that matter is a unique file is very time consuming. This seems like a pretty standard file name/storage limitation that isn’t available in Smokeball.

I agree with @Funkytown!

  1. I didn’t previously have a problem with my matter list loading slowly, and I strongly dislike the fact that the list no longer automatically loads on a single screen that I can scroll through. I understand that I can change the selection to up to 200 cases, which currently allows me to see the whole list at once, but could Smokeball please make that selection Sticky? At present, I have to re-select that option every time I reopen the program.
  2. I really miss the ability to group matters by Type within the matter list. This was a very helpful feature. The new KanBan Board re Stages doesn’t duplicate that functionality.

Thank you!

I agree with Susan re:

“I understand that I can change the selection to up to 200 cases, which currently allows me to see the whole list at once, but could Smokeball please make that selection Sticky?” It’s a pain to have to choose that every time you use Smokeball.

At Smokeball, we really appreciate all of the feedback and look to comments like these to help us prioritise what to tackle next. 

 

I just wanted to let you know that we are working on improving the user experience around setting and remembering user preferences when it comes to showing # of items per page so that you dont need to re-select it as you navigate around Smokeball. 

We are also looking in to how we can address some of these “group by” requests in this comments section. 

 

Thank you,
Andrew
(Product Manager @ Smokeball)

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