Each version contains many enhancements, tech updates and big fixes. See below for an overview of major changes.
Context
When you have emails that require manual matter allocation, it is mostly because it has been initiated by a third party and the subject line (eventual document name) will be whatever the third party has entered. In these cases, you often end up having to rename these emails to be able to understand the content of the email at a glance when it is saved back into your Smokeball matter.
Getting the email assigned and renamed has not been a simple process:
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View email in Outlook
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Browse and select a matter to assign
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Click on “View matter” or locate matter in Smokeball directly
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Locate the email that has been assigned
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Right-click Client > Left click Rename
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Enter new name
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Save
Solution
Provide the ability to rename emails from within Outlook: when you assign an email to a matter in Smokeball, you will now have the ability to rename the email during this process.
Feature Details
Renaming the email from within Outlook can be achieved via three different workflows:
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The “Browse Matters” window
We have included a “name” field in this window to allow you to easily rename the email while selecting your matter.
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The Toolbar
You can now rename any assigned email by selecting “Rename” from the toolbar.
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Auto-Prompt
You can now change your settings to ensure you are prompted to rename an email for everything that is manually assigned from Outlook.
Simply go to your “Outlook and Notifications” settings in Smokeball and opt to turn on the setting “Prompt to rename emails when allocated to a matter”.
Please note:
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The rename will only apply to the current email - the name will not carry through to the continued chain
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If there are attachments on an email and you have the prompt settings turned on, you will be presented with 2 pop-ups at this stage (these will be combined in a future version)
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The rename is no different from renaming directly from the document list and will group in AI accordingly
Context
We want to make sure you have the right tools to be as productive as possible and are able to quickly get your day started without needing to check all corners of the application to get a full picture. At the moment, when you open Smokeball you are presented with a stagnant list of matters that gives you very little information on which of these matters need action.
Additionally, there are a number of longer-term problems that we intend to solve using this implementation:
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Navigation: Ensuring you have a central place that gives you everything you need to remain productive
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Dashboard customisation: Create your own dashboard to best suit your individual needs. This includes choosing what widgets and where they are positioned.
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Widget customisation: Build your own widgets so they can surface any data from Smokeball that you need
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Deadline management: Surfacing matter-critical dates so there is no longer a need to create a task or event just to have them visible to you
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Performance: Improving login and start-up performance by only initially loading what you need at first open
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Staff and business management: Providing widgets that help the firm owner get a full picture of the business KPIs or staff productivity
Solution
When you next open Smokeball, instead of seeing your matter list you will be taken to a Dashboard that centralises all of the current tools you already have access to in various places throughout the app. This includes:
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Recent Matters
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Recent Activity
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Daily Digest
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Activity timeline
Surfacing these four tools in one view will mean that you can immediately see what you have on for the day and gain quick access to your recent work.
Feature Details
The Dashboard tab is accessible from the left-hand panel and will be the default view that you are presented with upon opening Smokeball. The Dashboard contains 4 widgets designed to surface the key information that you need to navigate the software.
Daily Digest
The Daily Digest widget is designed to give you a complete picture of any work that needs to be completed in the day including your events, tasks and phone messages. This widget is a replica of the original that is located on the matter list however, we have implemented some new or updated functionality.
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Date: View your daily digest for any date you wish. This functionality allows you to check back on previous days and ensure they completed everything OR look forward to a future date to see what capacity they have.
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Staff selector: View any of your colleagues’ daily digests. This allows you to review the capacity of a team member, cover a team member if they are not in the office or simply review their upcoming work from a management perspective.
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Print or Email: The Daily Digest widget can be printed or emailed from the top right corner.
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Show past events: We have included a “Show past events” option in the events widget. This allows you to either have events drop off the to-do list once it is over or keep them in so you continue to see the full picture of the day.
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Add new or View more: On each section within the Daily digest, we have included a quick add option so you can add more to the list and an option to view the full list.
My Recently Viewed
This widget is a quick access point to all of your recently opened matters and leads. Having this list front and centre for you means that you can easily navigate back to a matter that you have been working in.
My Recent Activity
This widget is a running list of all the activities that Smokeball has tracked on your behalf. Surfacing this information means that you will have quick access to a recent activity that you need to return to and additionally will allow you to see AI in action. If you are still manually time recording, it works as a reminder list for things you may have forgotten to note down.
Activity Timeline
The Activity timeline allows you to have a visual representation of all the work you have completed for the day. Additionally, this widget can be manipulated to review activity for a specific day, for a full week, or month, and allow you to see your colleagues' progress as well.
Please note:
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If you wish to set a different tab as default, you can do so from right clicking on any tab and “Set as default”
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This will mark the new tab as the default when opening (for this computer only)
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If your resolution is too small to display everything, the Activity timeline will drop out of view. This is to ensure that the content in the widgets is not too squishy.
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Daily Digest widget logic is exactly the same as the existing matter list one so the items listed will not differ between them
i.e. Tasks will continue to show max 100 with a show all link below if there are more -
Recently viewed widget will show up to 50 matters/leads
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Recent activity will the 15 most items (regardless of date)
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Recent activity and viewed widgets auto-update every 5 mins
Refinements
Permissions Indicator on Matter
Context
If your firm uses permissions, you currently have no way of knowing that permissions are set unless you:
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Open matter
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Go to settings
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Navigate to the permissions tab
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Confirm that you do in fact have permissions set
This can be very time-consuming as when matters contain sensitive information you want to be sure that you have definitely locked out the relevant users.
Solution
A visual indicator from within the matter header.
Feature Details
For matters that have permissions set up, a new “lock” icon will appear in the matter header.
We have also provided a shortcut to permissions settings that can be accessed by clicking anywhere in that row on the matter header.
Context
The Smokeball settings menu is becoming very crowded as we continue to introduce new functionality into the app. This makes it difficult to navigate to what exactly you are looking for.
Solution
We will be progressively redesigning/regrouping areas within the settings to give you higher-level category and list the inclusions within. This change has now been applied to Integrations.
Feature Details
You will now be able to access all desktop integrations from within the “Integrations” tab in settings. As well as this we have included a visual indicator (the “Tick”) to show which of these integrations are enabled at a top-level.
Additionally, we had numerous performance upgrades and bug fixes in this version that everyone will benefit from.