Smokeball Q&A and Feedback

I have a matter with two expense checks to be cut.  However, the clients have already deposited the funds in Trust, so I want to print the checks from Trust rather than operating, which seems to be the default.

Hello,I switched to the new Outlook for a hot second and switched right back. But now when I am in a Smokeball matter and want to draft an email, it goes into a weird and very limited version of Outlook (maybe web version?) where i can’t even attach any files from the matter. How do i change this back?  

Our Firm has a designated list of styles we use when drafting documents so that everything we produce is uniform and identifiable. We have been trying to make use of the TemplateLab by uploading documents that have already been drafted and incorporates our most up-to-date styles, legal provisions, and design features. However, when opening each template, our styles in Microsoft Word are not applied and it messes up the spacing, formatting, and pagination of the document making this process more laborious and frustrating. Has anyone experienced this issue and found a way to retain any styles so as to keep the formatting in tact? We want to use our Firm’s styles and document formatting while being able to draft directly in Smokeball rather than importing a copy of the document to the platform.  

Is anyone using Levitate?  How does it compare to Campaign Monitor?

How do I add or edit the 4 options under the matter status? Currently there is “open”, “closed”, “pending”, and “cancelled”… I’d like to add “HOLD” or change “pending” to “HOLD”. The goal is to run a report of only “HOLD” matters for tracking purposes. 

SB support tells me I can’t move time entries in bulk to another matter - has anyone else had this issue.  I have to go into every entry and change the matter number.   I have $15k of time to move.  😥

I am entering trust checks for refunds and marking them as “print later” so the onsite office can print and mail.  When I do this, the user who needs to print them is not able to as they are greyed out.  Any ideas as to what the issue could be?

I would like to be able to allocate fees for fixed fee matters to multiple fee earners so that my staff get accurate credit for bonuses Is this possible?

Im noticing issues when using the new outlook with attachments, body of text and .pdfIf you want to add text in the body from a word template, it copies the formulas, not the results, making it frustrating to add body.  To work around you must copy plain text.  Are the options to add attachments or body of text coming back in the new outlook? I have also not figured out how to add as body of text OR pdf.  Attachment choice is word only, so you need to create a pdf first.Simply emails with no attachments works fine without attachments.Reauthenticating multiple times is frustrating. I have not rolled back yet… 

SInce the most recent update, I have Smokeball opening any emails from a client’s file in the SB Preview email window, and when I send an email it opens in the SB Draft email window.This is really annoying, because it means I lose a lot of functionality that I am used to in Outlook.Is there a way to stop SB from doing this, and force it to go back to using Outlook directly?

The figures show the EM being subtracted from seller net, whereas EM is going to title, how do I fix this?

We had a client overpay an invoice on a particular matter. No biggie, we created a credit note and eventually invoiced the matter again, applying the credit to the outstanding balance of that new invoice. However, there still remains a balance on the credit note ( >$1k) and we wont be issuing any further invoices on this matter as that matter is now complete.  Can we transfer the balance of the credit note to another matter under the same client?  If so - how? 

Hi I have just started using the new Smokeball Add-in for the new Outlook. The matter naming convention that Smokeball uses makes it difficult to assign emails to matters because you cannot actually see the name of the matter. All you can see is the matter number and client name. I have a number of clients for whom I have a large number of matters so I need to be able to see the matter description in order to know which matter to assign the email to. I understand that the lengthy matter naming convention used by Smokeball has been raised as an issue on numerous occasions. Is this going to be addressed? I am unsure why the longer matter naming convention is required when there is a unique matter number.

Folks:Smokeball is meant to be the central repository for client information, and we happily record addresses and telephone numbers and the like into Smokeball for that reason.But my firm uses MS Teams for our voice telephone service.  It shares a contact list with Outlook.Smokeball does not share contact information with Teams or Outlook, as best I know.  And this is a problem because, among other reasons, Teams and Outlook can’t tell me who is calling me.  Also, if a client phone number changes, I have to change it in several places.Does anyone know any way around this?Can I reiterate my begging of Smokeball to incorporate this?  I know that Clio and Practice Panther and Time Matters all fully synchronize with Outlook so that changes in one program are updated in the other.  I’d REALLY love to have that for Smokeball as well!Thanks!MicahP.S.  If this email looks familiar, its because I’ve whined about this problem before . . . but I’d hoped that the new Outlook synchronization would

Hello.  We are new to Smokeball and I have been reading some of the Q&A’s here.  Like a few of you here, we have clients who have multiple matters and I am not seeing/finding a convenient way to do a couple of things.  For example, let’s say our client, Company ABC, has 100 matters.  Company ABC has a main client contact for most of the matters and then there’s a billing contact and a contact we need to cc on billings.  Company ABC also has a couple of confidential matters where our company contact and billing contact are different and need to be separate from the other bills.  So 98 matters have statements that need to go to the same 3 people and 2 matters where statements go to 2 different people.  Here are my issues/questions:Do I have to go in to all 98 matters and add the main company contact?  It appears that even if I do that, their name doesn’t even pull onto the invoices anyway.  So now I have to go into each of the 98 matters and override the invoice address to get their

When I am sending an email from Smokeball through the New Outlook, my email signature is not auto populating. I have to manually add my saved signature to the email every time. Is there a way to make it always populate when sending emails from Smokeball?

Why does the new upgrade not allow me to select contacts associated with the matter to send email

Is there a way to send a file to opposing counsel via a link without requiring them to use client portal?

Hi thereIn QLD we have to provide a trust account statement for all clients as at 30 June. Is there an easy way to send these all at once?

Billing is not opening. When I go into the billing portion of smokeball the matters will open but no time keeping or invoicing opens. Just wondering if anyone else is having these issues. There appears to be no outages

I am attempting to create a work in progrees report and I can’t get to the right side of the screen to fill in the requisite selection info. Also, the Start a Timer drop down offers a very limited view 

In the calendar view, we can assign a Label to an event by right clicking and choosing a particular label and it changes the colour of the event entry to which ever label you choose Can you change and/or add to the pre-existing titles and customize to your firm?  If so how?  If not, can it be submitted to the products team

I’m looking for a solution to answer calls, do intake, maybe ai or chat bot for website leads, that integrates well with Smokeball. I’m thinking Smith AI, Answering Legal or Lex Reception. Anyone have any experience/thoughts on those, or any other recommended solutions, they care to share? Thanks!

HELP … In My Case, I could easily send an e-mail through the program asking for a retainer and there was a link in that message.  HOW do I send an internal request for a retainer payment.

I have a PA who often gets cc’d into emails, and we both save the email/any attachments into SB. We then send the documents to the client, and they are often saved again into the file. Is there any way to prevent documents/alerts that I can set to notify me if the document appears duplicated?