At Smokeball we understand that the business problems your firm faces can change, and we want to provide you with a product that delivers exactly what your firm needs. If you find that you no longer need many of the features exclusive to our desktop app, Smokeball provides an alternative tier in our web application - Smokeball Boost - that will still help you successfully manage your firm.
This article will explain some of the main considerations you need to make before downgrading from Grow/Prosper+ to Boost. It will also explain how to downgrade and offer some guidance on what you will need to do after the process is complete.
Important Note
You can only downgrade during your renewal window.
Features Lost
Smokeball Boost includes core functions that you are used to: Tasks, Messages, Events, Time & Fees, Expenses, Invoices, Transactions, and more. However, the Smokeball desktop app includes many special features which are exclusive to Grow/Prosper+ users. Before downgrading, consider whether your firm relies on any of the following:
- Automation
- Activity
- Area of Law specific matter details (e.g., medical settlement details, real estate closing details).
- AutoTime
- Call Log Created
- The Smokeball desktop app
- Firm Insights
- Forms & Templates Library
- LeadPro*
- Matter Insights
- MatterFlow
- Matter Stages
- Matter Tags
- Matter Timeline
- Mobile Log In
- Note Created
- Outlook Integration
- PDF - OCR, Bates
- Practice Area Templates and Calculators
- Reminder Created
- Staff Activity Reporting
- Time Finder
- Microsoft Word Integration
- Workflows
*You can still retain access to LeadPro if you purchase the LeadPro addon with a Boost subscription.
If your firm relies extensively on any of the aforementioned features, we recommend discussing your situation with an Account Manager before downgrading.
Initiate a downgrade
If you believe that changing to Smokeball Boost is in your firm's best interests, reach out to your Account Manager. Your Account Manager will walk you through the necessary steps to downgrade.
Recommended practices after downgrading
Tracking activity without AutoTime
Activity Codes are the best way to manually account for activities previously tracked by AutoTime. At a minimum, we recommend creating codes for phone calls, Court Hearing Attended on, Consultation Meeting, Document Prepared, Document Drafted, Email Reviewed, Email Sent, Records Ordered, "Action" related to completion, and any related Memo activities. You should also use the timer function to accurately track your hours.
To best keep track of events that occurred, we also recommend looking at your Outlook calendar on a weekly basis and comparing it to the Time and Expenses Entries report to ensure all those events are entered.
Accounting for court rule sets without Workflows
We recommend exporting your Workflows and writing them down as a set of procedures. In addition, we recommend noting which documents were associated with each task.
Alternatively, you can use your Outlook calendar to add in all needed deadlines or use Tasks to keep track of them.
Managing Intake without LeadPro or MatterFlow
For matter intake, you can print out completed forms and put them in a Word form to send to your clients via email or the client portal.
For lead intake, you have the option of keeping LeadPro as a paid add-on to your Boost subscription.
If you do not choose to pay for LeadPro as an add-on, you should ask your website designer to restore your website's code to your old Contact Us page. Any links on the Contact Us page should also go to the destinations they used before incorporating Smokeball code.
You can also set cases as pending or open to delineate between cases that have a client agreement and those that do not distinguish active cases from potential new clients. Alternatively, you can use matter tags to make this distinction.
Replacing Matter Stages
The best workaround for matter stages would be to use a combination of tasks and memos to depict what has been completed and what is still pending.
Automating Documents
You will need to save all your automated templates from the forms and templates library to your hard drive. You can also locate and retrieve necessary forms from your local judicial website.
Replacing Matter Tags
The best alternative to matter tags is the Memos feature. You can use memos to write a detailed description of your case, and memos are searchable.
Replacing Staff Tags
If you relied on staff tags to account for additional paralegals/attorneys assigned to a case, the best workaround is to assign tasks to the additional staff. The task alerts will notify them of their assignment to the matter.
You can also run the Matter - Full List report to view which staff members were previously assigned to a case.
Replacing detailed contact/matter info
To make up for the loss of contact tags and matter information such as Other Side Attorney, Other Parties, etc., you should utilize the Memos feature. You can write a detailed description of the case in memos, and memos are searchable.
Alternatively, you can record this information in a separate Word document.
Integrations available to Boost users
Many key third party integrations are restricted to the Grow and Prosper+ tier. However, some effective integrations are available on the Boost tier, such as Zapier.
We recommend visiting the Smokeball Marketplace and applying the Boost filter to see the full list of integrations that will be available to you after downgrading.
Roles and Representation
Matter roles available to you in Smokeball desktop will not be available on Boost: children, third party defendants, etc.
To account for this data, we recommend creating a file cover sheet that includes all relevant details and fields for each matter.
Outlook Integration
This integration is not enabled for Boost users. If you wish to still save emails to the documents section of your matter, you will need to first save them to your hard drive and then import them to Smokeball.
Learn how to download your Outlook emails to your hard drive.
Running reports on Boost
At a minimum, we recommend running the Matter Referral List, Client Birthday list, Statute of Limitations, Case Management Report, and Global Document Request List in Smokeball desktop before downgrading. The best practice, however, would be to run every single report in Smokeball desktop one final time. Most Smokeball reports in Smokeball desktop will not be available to you in Boost; the only exceptions are the Matter Full List report and Client Full List report.