Smokeball Q&A and Feedback

We are new to smokeball and want to know if we have a client with multiple matters, is there a way to create the “master” client and then the various matters branch off of the same client?  Hope this makes sense.  Thank you!

When I send an esignature request, it’s going out under someone else within the firm’s name using my email address. Other people in the firm who use it get emails addressed to themselves. How is it deciding what name to use?  

We use a contracted bookkeeper who, in turn, uses Quickbooks Desktop.  We are not sold on migrating to QB Online, having heard many horror stories and having a desktop file with over ten years of data.  Does Smokeball have a limited access feature whereby our bookeeper can run and download reports to track income and expenses and import the data into Quickbooks?  She has no need to access any other features.  Thanks.  

Since I receive messages about this topic sporadically, I just wanted to add some updates to the original post.Smokeball does work on an M (ARM) based Mac.  I do not know whether this is because Microsoft have improved Windows 11’s X86 emulator, whether Parallels has made improvements in the latest version, or whether Smokeball has revised its code over the last few iterations.  It is probably a combination of all three.  In any case, it does work.  Smokeball cannot run as a “native” app on M (ARM) based Macs because Apple does not support Boot Camp, which allows for dual booting a Mac into Windows.  Apple has not given any indication that they intend to continue supporting Boot Camp. For now, all you need is a copy of virtualization software such as Parallels or VMWare Fusion.  You can create a Windows virtual machine, and install Smokeball as you would on a normal Windows-based computer. Smokeball’s web-based app has been substantially revamped which means you have access to more fea

We are moving from an onsite server to the cloud, using SmokeBall for the cloud.  Are others using SB to store their office administration files, e.g., administration, practice management, civic and social service, professional service (e.g.for state bar or local bar), client development, professional education, hiring and training staff)?  In our old system, we have separate non-billing “Y” numbers we assigned to each of those categories and filed our pdfs into subfolders for each.  A “Y” number or “matter” was a non-billable category.  In SB, the only matter types available (since we can’t create our own) are Administration and under that a sub folder titled Administration again another sub folder titled General.  Do others then created subfolders under each of those areas?  

I would like to use Archie to pull information from a file and fill in claim forms 

Has anyone experienced Smokeball closing on its own.  For example, working in a matter and then the program will just shut down? This has happened on two of our users multiple times and not sure why it would be doing this or how to fix/prevent it.

Hello, I am wondering if substantial amount of work was completed for a MetLife Real Estate matter, and that transaction cancelled, can the Attorney still bill MetLife for that work?  

Does anyone else experience issues with reply emails coming back and not showing tagging in Outlook? So, for example, email a client from Outlook, email is sent with SB tagging (meaning, i put the matter info in the box at bottom of the email). But, sometimes, often but not all the time, the email i receive back from the client has no info in the SB box in outlook. Drives me crazy as i spend a lot of time re-tagging email threads.Curious if this happens to anyone else?

Is there a way to put a matter on hold because a client isn’t paying their bill? 

I reviewed the Beta Release Notes for Version 9.19 but I don’t see anything in there related to the latest Messages update so I am curious if anyone else is experiencing similar issues or have similar feedback. While the latest update includes some great new features, such as marking messages unread and liking messages, it seems to have amplified issues experienced prior to the update and added a few more. Support tickets have been opened previously to review some of these issues but there seem to be no long term fixes. Issues and feedback include:-Intermittent delay in receiving messages making real time direct and immediate communications impossible.-Message notifications lingering after a new message has been read.-Message notifications dismissing after reading a new message but then pop back up on the same message moments later.-Sent messages not appearing in the chat until the chat, sometimes the entire matter window, is refreshed.-I can see someone liked my message, but not who.

Is there anyone using Odella here with Smokeball?  Would love to learn about some use cases.

I noticed that in two separate matters overdue tasks are not appearing in my daily digest.  Overdue tasks from other matters are listed.  Has anyone else encountered this problem? Any solution?

New to Smokeball (yesterday!) so pulling my hair out a bit here. Long time DocuSign user and keeping that account while we try out InfoTrack. How do I delete a draft envelope? So simple in DocuSign and doesn’t appear to be an option but it must be . . . help!

Hi SB communityI have just transitioned to Smokeball today. I have set up the activity fee and attached the hourly rates for each staff member. When i go to cost my time in time and fees, i am required to toggle between hours, fixed or units. Is there a way to set this option to ‘unit’ without having to change each time.  Thank you  Aarti

I would like to apply a different workflow to each individual matter stage. Is this possible? For instance, Intake stage would get an intake workflow, when moved to next stage, next stage would get the next stage’s workflow.

I would like to download all of my template forms and intake forms in one place. Is there a way to do that?

I work with many professionals in their professional capacity and also in their individual capacity. They have professional and personal emails.I do not see a way to add 2 different emails for the same contact and choose 1 as the primary to populate the email dialogue window.What am I missing?

I have a bunch of questions and will set up a Billing Q&A, but I thought that here I might be able to get a change for more suggestions, perhaps from someone who has a good workaround.I am a sole business transactional attorney. Many of my clients will have multiple matters running at the same time (eg: 2 trademarks; 3 major contracts; 1 re-draft of their in-house NDA). They do NOT want to get 6 invoices this month.I’ve been using “combined pdf with cover letter” which is a great start. But, my understanding is, that cannot be emailed from within Smokeball billing. Question 1: Can I email the combined pdf with cover letter invoices from within smokeball?What I’m doing so far is to download that Cover letter with the invoices to my desktop outside of Smokeball. I’ve created an Outlook email cover letter, and I sent that out. BUT… what I didn’t anticipate was, the client still has to click on each invoice to pay.Question 2: Am I correct that the client then has to pay for each matter

Hi folks, I had a great question from @Wendy Marroquin who’s new to running her firm with Smokeball. Welcome Wendy!I thought I would share her question with the community so that others can read the answer and benefit from it too. Here’s the question:“I am having trouble with the medical records requests and doctor's information. How do I add their names and faxes so it is automated?I can create the letter no problem, but adding all those details takes time.”P.s If you are in the Personal Injury space and have any tips for Wendy and her firm as they get started please do share with her.  

Does SmokeBall have a function to notify solicitors who are tagged on a matter when a document is saved to it? Or some other function that might help notify them when documents dropped or posted to the office have been scanned to the matter? Occasionally our filing clerks overlook messaging the solicitor when a document has arrived - potentially catastrophic if time senstive.

I am having a look at New Outlook.  We have a number of shared mailboxes.  The Smokeball integration doesn’t appear to work with them.  Is there a way we can assign emails in shared mailboxes to matters? 

We have determined that it would be beneficial if we knew the time when clients called on our phone messages, especially for clients who call multiple times during the day. Is there currently a way that SB could generate a timestamp on a phone message or does anyone have any suggestions other than having staff manually put in the time within the message?

Hi!  Does anyone else have this issue?When a client pays a Smokeball invoice using the payment link in the invoice email, the LawPay receipt shows a UUID instead of the Smokeball invoice number.The UUID isn't searchable in Smokeball, so it's useless for finding the invoice or matter and makes reconciliation more difficult as sometimes it is a spouse or someone other than the client paying the bill and isn’t always obvious what matter the payment goes to. Smokeball's developers are currently reviewing this, but I'm curious whether this is affecting other firms.Does your LawPay receipt show the invoice number or a UUID? Have you found a workaround?Thanks!