Connect New Outlook to the Smokeball Desktop App

Learn how to connect Outlook to the Smokeball Desktop App, allowing you to save emails to your matter.

Before you begin

By connecting New Outlook to the Smokeball Desktop App, please be aware of the following:

• Your Classic Outlook add-in will not function while you are signed into the New Outlook add-in. If you wish to return to Classic Outlook, simply log out of the New Outlook add-in.
• In New Outlook, Smokeball will track time spent drafting and composing emails. Please note that reading emails or viewing attachments is not tracked.
• All other Smokeball users in your firm must also use the New Outlook add-in.

Connecting to New Outlook

1. Open Outlook in the web browser or the Outlook (new) app from your PC. 
2. Select the Apps icon on the left panel and then select Add apps.
   
3. Search for Smokeball in the search bar and click on "Smokeball for Outlook".
   
4. Select Add.
   
5. Once the app has been successfully added, navigate back to your Outlook inbox. 
6. Select an email and click on the Apps icon on the right-hand corner of the email.
   
7. Select Smokeball for Outlook. The Smokeball toolbar will appear from the right-hand side of the screen.
   
8. Confirm your Country and click on Connect to Smokeball.
   
9. A new window will open in your browser. Follow the prompts to log in. You may also be asked to log in to Microsoft to authorize the connection.
   
10. Once you have logged in successfully, the Smokeball for Outlook toolbar will appear on the right-hand side. This is where your most recently worked on matters in Smokeball will appear.
    
11. For your convenience, select the Pin icon to keep the toolbar in view every time you use Outlook.
    
    If you accidentally close the toolbar, you can access it again by selecting the Apps icon in the email as seen in Step 6.

Assigning an email to a matter

1. To save an email to a matter, click on the Assign to matter section and select Assign under a relevant matter.
   

2. If the client linked to the matter has other matters with your firm, they may show up as Smart Matched Matters for you to save time assigning them.

   

3. Once assigned, the email will then appear in the Emails tab of the matter, as an .eml file.
   

Saving email attachments to a matter

Once you have assigned an email to a matter, you can choose which attachments you wish to save to Smokeball. Select the Attachments section to view a list of all attachments. Then, tick the ones to save and select Save Attachments to Matter.

Note: When attachments are selected and saved to a matter, they are successfully stored. However, upon re-checking, the UI may display them as not attached. This is a Microsoft limitation.

Composing an email from Smokeball

With the New Outlook Add-in, composing a new email from Smokeball will trigger New Outlook to open, and the email will automatically save back to the matter in the Smokeball Desktop App upon sending.

To send an email from Smokeball:

1. From your matter, navigate to the Emails tab and select the Email icon.
   
2. Add the recipients to the email by selecting the Add button. You can also add CCs and BCCs. Then, select Next.
   
3. New Outlook will open a New Draft Email window. Select the pencil icon on the top-right corner of the email in order to compose your email.
   • Note: You may have to log in to Outlook again if it's the first time you are composing an email after installing the New Outlook integration.
     
4. Select Apps from the toolbar, then select Smokeball for Outlook again to display the Smokeball toolbar. This is where you can view the matter that this email will save to, and also attach any files from the matter to your email.
   
5. Compose your email in the main window. To save time, you can select a Rapid Reply or Draft with Archie from the Smokeball toolbar. These tools are only available if you have the Archie add-on.

   • Rapid Reply displays some AI-generated responses you can quickly insert into the email.

     

   • Use Draft with Archie to enter a prompt for Archie AI to work with when generating a draft email.

     

     

6. Once you are done composing your email, select Send. 
   • Note: You will be redirected to the New Draft Email window after sending. This is expected behavior and it is safe to close that window at this point. If you don't close the window, it will automatically close after a few seconds.
     Disregard the "[Draft] This message hasn't been sent." messaging. 
     
7. Your sent email will appear on the matter.
    

Creating a task from an email

The Tasks section in the Smokeball toolbar shows the top six upcoming tasks related to the matter. From this screen, you can also add a new task:

1. Click on Add Task.

   

2. Enter the details of the task. The Subject field is mandatory, while all other fields are optional.

   

3. Select Save Task.

Notes:

• It may take a few minutes for tasks created via New Outlook to appear in Smokeball.

• In the Assignee view, clicking anywhere within the add-in will close it as expected. However, if the Assignee view is open and the user clicks outside the add-in (anywhere else on the screen), it will not close.