Smokeball Q&A

If our firm decides to opt in on surcharges, that only applies to credit cards.  No fee for debit cards and echecks correct.

I would love to be able to search within a single folder (i.e. the Discovery/Disclosure folder) rather than the entire matter.  I can do that in other programs, but not in SB.Thanks.

I have bookmarked many pdf files and SB does not retain the bookmarks. Is there a trick or does SB simply not allow full function of Adobe’s features? When combining 2 or more pdfs outside of SB, I am forced to first save the combined pdf somewhere before saving it to SB. Is there a trick or does SB simply not allow full function of Adobe’s features? Combining pdfs will auto-bookmark each pdf, but the bookmarks are deleted when the combined pdf is saved in SB. Is there a trick or does SB simply not allow full function of Adobe’s features?

I need tips to create a Matter/Client list for all Estate Planning clients 2024-present listing:All Estate Planning Clients3 matter tags attached and also those that have no tagsMatter status - open/closed

I used Archie to draft a simple motion.  (Thanks, Archie!)  I then asked it to create the motion (which Smokeball oddly refers to as a “form”) from the Archie draft.  He was happy to do so!  Great.  But he did so using letterhead rather than pleading paper.How can I tell Archie that he is using the wrong format for litigation pleadings?Micah

Does anyone have experience with using Lawmatics, HubSpot, Intaker, or another tool alongside Smokeball for lead follow-up and engagement? I’m looking for a solution to help automate lead outreach, and I would appreciate hearing about what others are using, what works well, and what to avoid.Thank you in advance!

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? 

We use Teams for telephone calling.  All of the telephone numbers we use are stored in Smokeball.  But Smokeball doesn’t exchange contact data with Teams or with Outlook.  And that is a big problem for us.If we could originate calls in Smokeball, that would solve the problem.  But no.If Smokeball would synchronize with Outlook, that would solve the problem.  But no.Does anyone have any idea how we can make sure that our telephone numbers in Smokeball are available to our phone app?Micah

I can’t get the date to line up on Quickbooks checks that I print on Smokeball. I tried what Smokeball recommends with not using fit to and changing percentages but it makes it worse. I have a Canon printer. Can anyone help me? I’ve reached out to Smokeball on this issue a week ago and nobody responds to me, other than to tell me what I already tried and didn’t work. 

How do I add multiple PDFs to add bates label all at once?

HiI have produced LPA drafts through Smokeball which are in pdf format.  I would like to add a ‘DRAFT’ watermark to the drafts - similar to word documents - does anyone know how to do this?TIA 

How can I run a report showing open litigation files for an assigned attorney?

Techy question- I am trying to get dialed in on best practices for inbox management after  an email is linked to a matter… I have been deleting these messages but this causes some of the the emails, though apparently not all, to be under a deleted email tab in smokeball rather than the received tab. Is it better to start using the archive feature? If it matters I am on classic outlook still due to an issue in installing the add-in but plan to switch to new outlook when that is resolved.   

Hi, Does anyone know how to change a matter from a person/individual to an organization/firm in a real estate matter? The matter is currently being changed from a Real Estate Buy matter to a Real Estate Sell matter, and I am trying to update the client entity accordingly.

I’d like to find a report showing the complete history of days in each stage to identify bottle necks. I want to see the beginning and ending dates for every stage for matters. Is this possible?

Has anyone started using the New Outlook and been able to link e-mails to matters to Smokeball?

We utilize contingency fee billing in the employment and civil rights matter types.  we need to be able to keep track of the number of cases that we lose our investment in case expenses.  Is there a way to code a case as lost (no settlement) so that I can then pull the expenses into a report? (We would use a dashboard) 

Good afternoon all.I work with a criminal law firm. Just redoing our precedent letters, and I’ve become stuck on something. Two issues around the same thing. Firstly, in an outcome letter, I am wanting to enter charge details (charge name and date), and an outcome for each. I have a table in the document, with 2 columns, Charge and Outcome.What would be ideal would be for SB to insert each entry from the charge list on a separate row...is there any way to do this?I have been using a workaround, all the charges are inserted in the top cell, and I then cut/paste each into a separate row.Secondly, many our our client’s have multiple groups of charges, so we end up with Charge Details having multiple subentries (ie. Charge Details 1, Charge Details 2, etc). As above, the details I need to enter are, at least, Charge Name and Date. When they have a single group of charges this isn’t an issue, and I just used <<Charge Details/Charges List - Date Act Section Charge Names» which is perfe

Hello Friends! I am starting to create workflows for my personal injury practice. The standard ones that Smokeball already has didn’t function well for me. Wondering what processes you all have set up workflows for and how they’re functioning to help improve efficiencies and systems in your practice.  Looking forward to connecting and hearing from you! Faith

The only thing I can find in help is how to email a Trust receipt, but I want to email clients a receipt for when they have paid their invoice.

Hi thereWe have an issue where smokeball is being blocked by our Compliance policy which is configured to block non compliant devices, we can see in the logs that the device is blocked because the browser that smokeball users doesn't seem to be passing the device ID, or the location it is launching from to do the authentication is in the cloud(more likely)this is the error the end user receives when trying to connect their calendarthis is our compliance policy have tried to add Smokeball as an application exclusion - no gothis is the failure logand where the device info is not being passed  

Hello.  We are newer to Smokeball and I’m running into issues.  In our old system we tracked our various revenue streams (ex. city, county, state, etc.).  We had dashboards every month that would show us how much revenue was coming from each client type.  Categorizing them by Smokeball’s pre-configured matter types will not work for us because many of our client types don’t fall into those categories.  Does anyone else track their different revenue streams and if so, how do you do it in Smokeball?  It’s been a bit frustrating for us.

I can’t find information on whether we can delete messages from Outlook after they are tagged in  a matter.  Does that tag create a link to the email and therefore, we should not delete the original message? Thank you.  

In wrongful death PI cases, who are we putting as the “client”?  I’ve been using Smokeball since 2017 and I haven’t really settled on the best way to handle this yet.