Smokeball Q&A and Feedback

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?

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.

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!

Hi, first time poster.I am looking for a report that will provide, per Attorney, how much money has been billed (invoiced), and the payment received.I’m looking to run this over a custom reporting period.The closest report I can find is ‘Ledger Export’ (appears as Accounts Ledger) but this can only be per matter or contact.I would like this to run per Attorney.Any thoughts how to achieve this? Thanks in advance.

A combined pdf outside of SB cannot be saved in SB without first saving it outside of SB. Why? Or is there a SB trick to accomplishing this elementary task?

Hello.Is there a way to default all folders on my desktop app only, to automatically order the files from most recent on top?

Is there a hotkey for QuickSearch that can be used from anywhere in SB?Is there a hotkey for Save As?Is there a way to “Save as New Version” of a document when a document is received outside of SB?

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? 

Has anyone used Zapier to integrate Smokeball and MailChimp? How has it worked for you? I am trying to use MailChimp to follow up with leads that haven’t engaged us *yet*. I would love to have different stages of our leads workflow trigger different email automations, but it doesn’t look like Smokeball supports those as triggers yet. Any idea on if/when we could anticipate that being added?

When will Smokeball update the PEXA fee (VIC) in conveyancing matters? It is now $146.30

Folks:Does anyone know if there is a widget or something that would let me quickly view a contact’s phone number (and maybe address)?  If I want to call a client and I have that client’s Matter open, I can get their phone number but double-clicking on their name.  Their contact info appears and I can see the number.  But it is annoying because I always expect that if I just select it (i.e., click once), it will show the relevant info.  Oops, no, need to double-click.  So I double-click.  Wait a second or two--which is actually rather a long time--and then I see a screen full of information.Ideally, clicking once on the contact name (Client, opposing counsel, etc.) would show a static version of their data in the File Preview area of the screen, or as a pop-up box, but even better would be for key contact information for a Matter to always appear on the Matter form.  Is that something we could do (if this kind of function does not already exist)?Micah

I have to send out an invoice every month for one specific matter and I want to use the “reminder” feature to do so. Is there any way to set a recurring reminder every month without setting up an entire workflow for this specific task? 

Hi all, I’m still struggling to use the client portal in certain situations.  I may have a mental block and I worry some of the people on the other side of the client portal may have a similar issue.  This may be a result of my own inexperience, but here is the issue:It took some time to send clients documents through the message tab in the case, but I can do it and I feel explain reasonably well to people how they access it.  However, I have rarely sent non-clients (opposing counsel, opposing pro se people, collateral contacts within a case) documents securely using the message tab within the specific case.  When I have it typically courtesy copies of publicly accessible documents, but I always feel weird about that message essentially welcoming them to the “client portal” when they are not a client.  Once I had a pro se opposing party say they could not access their document because they were not a “client” even though I had specifically included her in a group message with other non

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

HI there,  I’ve been reviewing the page about how to close files. https://support.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/5887459057687-Close-and-archive-a-matterI just want to make sure I understand the difference between closing a file and archiving a file.When you close a file the closed date is the date you close it? “Archive” is selected if physical files are off-site and you need to enter a box number or the like?  Within archive you can select a “destroy date” which would be the date any physical file at said off-site location is destroyed.  But if, let’s say, you are entirely digital then “archive” has no purpose?The default destroy (for the physical file only) date is 7 years out from the archive date?Matters in smokeball can never be destroyed no matter what.  (really?) Thanks!   

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

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?

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 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

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.