Tag Archives: email second round

Lesson #17

Calendar – Send Overdue Tasks Report function

In addition to monitoring the tasks resources are working on with the Tasks in Progress function, you can give each resource their own prioritized To-Do list of outstanding tasks with the Send Overdue Tasks Report. This static report lists the tasks for which each resource has missed their deadlines in chronological order — and you can email any resource their list of overdue tasks directly from this function.

Get an overview of overdue tasks

Generate a list of all resources with outstanding jobs with one click then email everyone their To-Do lists with a couple of clicks more. Or use the search filters to narrow the list to a single resource’s workload, jobs outstanding on a case, or other criteria. Search criteria include:

• Resource
• Job Type
• Task
• Case
• Task Due Date range
• Business Units

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order but when you exit the function, RB9 will revert back to the default order. Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

You can view and update any resource’s details from the list and preview their overdue tasks report. RB9 generates the resource’s report in chronological order, oldest task first.

Hide tasks that don’t need turning in

Some parts to a job that require separate resources — such as a conference room or catering — don’t need a turn-in deadline. If you designate these kinds of tasks as “No Turn-in” when setting them up, they will not appear in your Tasks in Progress or Send Overdue Tasks Report results.

Email reports to whomever needs a reminder

You can email Overdue Task Reports to all resources, a single resource, or select a set of resources manually from the list of resources with overdue work product.

Before sending the reports to resources use System Preferences to create one or more email templates for attaching the PDF reports to. Customize subject lines and messages, include any text you wish in the templates, embed contextual RB9 data fields such as the resource’s name and number of overdue tasks, add images, and style the text with fonts, text treatments, sizes, and colors. If you create more than one template, designate one as the default. You can select a different template,  edit the email, and attach additional files on the fly when you send the report.

RB9 automatically logs the date, time, and number of tasks in the resource’s Notes Log. It also records the email sent in the Email Log function in Tools (RB9 Standard only), so you can refer back to it later.

TL;DR:  Email your resources their own prioritized To-Do list of outstanding tasks.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): Your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

Job Type: Categories of jobs requested by clients such as Deposition or Real-Time.

Notes Logs: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB9 appear in chronological logs in the database record where they occurred such as a case, job, invoice, or entity.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service — such as reporters, videographers, interpreters, scopists, account executives, other agencies that cover jobs for you, or a conference room.

Task: Service requested with a job — such as reporting, interpreting, or video, that require a separate resource (person, company, thing) to accomplish. More >

Lesson #16

Calendar – Tasks in Progress function

The interactive Tasks in Progress report lists the backlog of tasks resources are working on, in chronological order with the oldest first. You can see all resources with outstanding tasks with one click or you can use the search filters to view a single resource’s workload, tasks outstanding on a case, or other criteria.

Search criteria include:

• Ordered date and due date ranges
• Job type (all, some, or one)
• Task type (all, some, or one)
• Single resource
• Single firm
• Single contact
• Single case
• Outstanding only or include completed tasks
• Business Units (all, some, or one)

The resulting report includes all of those criteria as column heads, plus the job number and date, the status of the job and task, turned in date, how many days old, estimated and delivery dates, and witness so you can see task information without having to click into a job.

Customize how you view tasks in progress

Tasks are grouped by resource with each resource’s tasks’ average days old and total estimated pages listed in the footer of their outstanding tasks list. You can add additional grouping categories to the results, remove any grouping category, and re-arrange the grouping order.

For example if you add grouping by case to grouping by resource, tasks will be grouped by resource and subdivided under each resource into tasks related to cases they are assigned to. If you switch the order, tasks will be grouped by case and subdivided by each resource working on the case.

You can also:

• Re-arrange the columns so the most important information is most prominent
• Stick up to 10 columns to the left side of the grid so they do not scroll when you have a results grid wider than your screen.
• Stretch/shrink columns to fit the results.
• Hide columns you don’t need to see.
• Choose which column(s) to sort results by.
• If you select more than one column, choose in what column order to sort the list.
• Choose whether to sort info by ascending or descending order in each selected column.
• Save your custom grid as your default.

You can save your personal grouping parameters and custom grid as your default. Your customizations do not affect other users, and you can restore the original RB grid layout anytime.

From the report, you can:

• See complete job and task details for outstanding tasks.
• Update tasks with benchmark dates and other information — such as task and job status — as they progress and are completed.
• Turn in jobs.
• View completed tasks along with their completion date if the job has been turned in but not invoiced yet.
• Export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Integrated with other functions

Tasks in Progress is a function in the Calendar module but it is a good example of RB9’s interrelated functions and modules. Some Tasks in Progress examples:

• Before assigning a resource to a task you can check their workload without leaving the job window. The selected resource’s Tasks in Progress appear in a panel within the job and includes estimated pages for each task the resource has yet to turn in, so you can get a better idea of the resource’s workload before assigning them to a new task.
• The Send Overdue Tasks Report emails each resource their own To-Do list from Tasks in Progress to remind them of their overdue work product.
• If you have RB Connect (and RB Connect Mobile), resources can view their own Tasks in Progress online (or on their mobile devices) in chronological order from the oldest to today.
• When you create an invoice in Turn In RB gives you the option to check off job-related assignments as completed. This keeps your Tasks in Progress reports accurate. (You can also update your resources’s To-Do lists manually by entering the completed dates and times in the Tasks in Progress function.)

TL;DR: Monitor & manage how busy resources are. Begin turning in jobs. View completed tasks that have not been invoiced.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with — such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Firm: Business you provide services to — usually law firms but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Job Type: Categories of jobs requested by clients — such as Deposition or Real-Time.

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources including interactive transcripts, downloadable invoices and e-commerce for clients, and online turn-in, one-touch job acknowledgements, and downloadable pay statements for resources. More >

RB Connect Mobile: Clients and resources can access your RB Connect on their smart phones and tablets in an interface optimized for mobile devices. More >

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service — such as reporters, videographers, interpreters, scopists, account executives, other agencies that cover jobs for you, or a conference room.

Task: Service requested with a job — such as reporting, interpreting, or video, that require a separate resource (person, company, thing) to accomplish. More >

Lesson #15

Calendar – Job Analysis function

Job Analysis is a report that shows new and canceled jobs in the calendar by firm, broken down by contact, so you can see how many calendar settings you are getting from each client.

You can easily see who your best clients are by looking at the number of settings each contact generates. This is better for your marketing staff to know because total invoice amounts can be misleading: A lot of work is billed to third parties — such as insurance companies whom you don’t market to — and a lot of a law firm’s invoices might be copy orders on jobs they didn’t initiate.

Generate gift lists

In addition to learning which contacts at which firms are scheduling and canceling jobs, you can also use this report to come up with a meaningful holiday gift list. Generate the report sorted by the number of net jobs per firm and contact in descending order to see which clients are generating the most business for your firm and to whom you want to send gifts of appreciation.

Static or interactive reports

You can generate static Job Analysis reports that display the total amounts of scheduled, canceled, and net jobs by firm and each firm’s contacts for a specific date range. Static reports can be sorted alphabetically by firm or in descending order of net jobs.

Or generate an interactive report that displays the same information overall by firm but which you can drill down into by firm contacts and month-, quarter- and year-to-date totals.

Default reports list all clients who ordered any type of job in the past month in descending order of net jobs with grand totals of the scheduled, cancelled, and net number of jobs at the end of the report. The static report includes the net percentage of jobs too.

You can use additional search criteria to narrow your report:

• Job Date or Entered Date (as a date range or single date)
• One or more Job Types
• A single firm
• A single case
• One or more Business Units

You can export the static report in a variety of formats or print it from RB9. You can export the interactive report in Excel format to save, share, use in other applications, or print.

NOTE: This is an RB9 Standard-only function. It is not included in RB9 Lite.

TL;DR:  See who your best clients are based on the number of jobs they order from you instead of invoice amounts which can be inaccurate due to 3rd-party billing on a lot of jobs.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

Firm: Business you provide services to — usually law firms but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources such as realtime, videoconferencing, or read & sign. Jobs can be linked to cases, linked to other jobs, or stand alone. More >

Job Entered Date From/To: Date range of when a job was added to the calendar — not when the job is scheduled to occur.

Job Type: Categories of jobs requested by clients such as Deposition or Real-Time.

Lesson #14

Calendar – Job Printout function

Use Job Printout to view your job calendar as a report. It is a static report that lists all of the jobs scheduled for a specified date range and includes details about each job — such as the time, status, and location. Optionally it can include task details as well as scheduling, job confirmation, and assignment notification notes.

With this report, you can:

• Easily see your daily job calendar.
• Set it for a different date range (for example if you want a copy of your future calendar).
• Export it in a variety of formats and/or print a back-up of the job calendar for any date range.
• See who has been assigned to each job’s tasks.
• Search for a word or phrase in the onscreen job calendar. RB will highlight all instances of your searched word/phrase in the report and list them in a scroll box along with the page number where they occur.
• Use the printout to assign resources to tasks by writing them on the printout then refer to it to assign resources in RB9 fast using the Quick Assignments function (RB9 only).

Use the search criteria to narrow the results shown on the report:

• Job date range
• One or more Job Statuses
• One or more Job Types
• A single firm
• A single case
• One or more Business Units

You can also include or exclude some job information on the report:

• Tasks
• Scheduling Notes
• Confirmation Notes
• Resource Notification Notes

If you choose to show any of the optional notes, they will display with the same styling they have in the fields where they originated. For example if a job has scheduling notes that were formatted with specific fonts, text treatments, sizes, and/or colors, the text will appear on the Job Printout with those stylings.

The report’s footer will display which search criteria you used to generate the particular report with the exception of blank search fields or ALL list selections. If you select two or more items in a list, the report will display that as “(multiple values selected).”

Information about each job on the Job Printout is arranged to be easy to read:

• Essential job information such as date, time, job type, and ordering client are in the header of each job — which also makes it easier to distinguish between jobs on the page.
• You can choose to have tasks associated with each job listed within the job — along with any resources already assigned and their contact information.
• Information you need for assigning the right resources to job tasks — such as specialties required or services requested — appear on the report.
• If a job is a Zoom meeting, that information is included in the job’s location field.
• You can include different types of notes — scheduling, confirmation, and resource notification — for a more compete view of future jobs.
• If a job entry doesn’t fit at the end of a page the entire job entry is moved to the next page so there are no entries split between pages.

TL;DR: Job Printout is a report with several uses — including as your future calendar and as a worksheet for assigning resources.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.

Confirmation Notes: Remarks about a job that will appear in job confirmation emails to the client.

Firm: Business you provide services to — usually law firms.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Job Status: Stage a job is in, e.g., New or Cancelled. You can designate your own job statuses in RB.

Job Type: Categories of jobs requested by clients — such as Deposition or Real-Time.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service — such as reporters.

Resource Notification Notes: Any remarks about a job or instructions for the resource(s) assigned to the job.

Scheduling Notes: Remarks about a scheduled job that are for internal use only.

Task: Service requested with a job — such as reporting, interpreting, or video — that require a separate resource to accomplish. More >

Lesson #13

Calendar – Send Future Calendar function

If a client asks you for a calendar of all of the jobs they have scheduled with you through the end of the year on a particular case, you can quickly provide that information as a report with the Send Future Calendar function.

You can send the calendar to a designated contact at the firm that includes all jobs scheduled by the firm on that case — or send individual contacts calendars of only their jobs related to the case.

Send clients their calendar for any time period

Use the default settings to send calendars to all of your clients that list their jobs scheduled for the upcoming month. Or limit which calendars you send and what they include by using a combination of the function’s search criteria:

• Job date range
• One or more job statuses
• Single firm
• Single contact
• Single case
• One or more business units

The list of clients that matches your search criteria displays each firm’s name, address, and number of jobs scheduled in the date range searched. You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order — but when you exit the function RB9 will revert back to the default order. Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

You can preview the future calendar reports before emailing them — and look up details on the clients without leaving the function. For example the function will show you if any client is missing an email address so you can update that client’s information before attempting to send the report.

Future calendars are sent as PDF attachments to an email. They are not customizable and include details about each job including:

• Ordering client’s contact details
• Ordering and scheduling contacts
• Job number
• Job date & time
• Job location (if it’s a Zoom meeting, that is indicated here)
• Case name & number
• Witness name
• Services to provide
• Any additional remarks

Before sending future calendars use System Preferences to create one or more email templates to accompany the reports. Customize subject lines and messages. You can include any text you wish in the templates, embed contextual RB9 data fields such as the job date and time, add images, and style the text with fonts, text treatments, sizes, and colors.

When sending future calendars, you can use the default template, select a different template, and edit the email’s contents before sending. RB9 records the email sent in the Email Log function in Tools, so you can refer back to it later.

NOTE: This is an RB9 Standard-only function. It is not included in RB9 Lite.

TL;DR: Easily send clients their calendars of upcoming jobs they have scheduled with your agency.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with — such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Firm: Business you provide services to — usually law firms but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Job Status: Stage a job is in, e.g., New or Cancelled. You can designate your own job statuses in RB.

Lesson #12

Calendar – Daily Calendar Audit function

Quickly see how many jobs been scheduled or canceled today, or for any date range. You can also use RB’s Daily Calendar Audit to review new entries for typos and other mistakes. View canceled jobs to look for trends and see if you can reduce cancellations.

View today’s scheduling activity or look up other results

The default view is all jobs scheduled today. You can also quickly check which jobs were canceled today instead.

For either scheduled or canceled jobs, you can search by different dates/date ranges and refine your calendar audit list to one or more:

• Job types
• Referrals for the jobs
• Business Units

In your search results you can view the details of any of the jobs listed and update them if needed.

Customize how you view your scheduling activity

The grid in which you view your daily calendar is customizable to your individual preference:

• Re-arrange the columns so the most important information is most prominent
• Stick up to 10 columns to the left side of the grid so they do not scroll when you have a results grid wider than your screen.
• Stretch/shrink columns to fit the results.
• Hide columns you don’t need to see.
• Choose which column(s) to sort results by.
• If you select more than one column, choose in what column order to sort the list.
• Choose whether to sort info by ascending or descending order in each selected column.
• Save your custom grid as your default.

You can save your custom grid as your default. Your customizations do not affect other users, and you can restore the original RB grid layout anytime.

From the results grid you can view and update any listed job’s details and export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

TL;DR:  See how many jobs were set or canceled today, and review your calendar for typos, errors, and trends.

RB concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Job Type: Categories of jobs requested by clients — such as Deposition or Real-Time.

Lesson #11

Calendar – Send Assignment Notifications/Cancellations function

Instead of notifying resources of assignments as soon as you enter them in RB9, do a day’s worth all at the same time. This will save your time if you have a lot of notices to send on a daily basis. Or maybe you prefer to wait to notify resources until after setting all assignments.

You can also notify resources of cancellations the same way but most likely you will do those individually as they occur to let your resources know ASAP that their jobs have been canceled.

Notifications are sent via email or text — or both. You can also print out notifications to hand out or fax.

Custom emails with automatic attachments

Assignment notification emails automatically include the reporter worksheet for the task. You can customize the default worksheet — for example you can add the scheduling client’s email address merge field — and create additional ones in Form Templates.

Before sending assignment notifications use System Preferences to create one or more email templates for sending worksheets to resources. Customize subject lines and messages — and whether the worksheet is included in the body of the email, as a PDF attachment, or both. You can include any text you wish in the templates, embed contextual RB9 data fields such as the job location and witness name, add images, and style the text with fonts, text treatments, sizes, and colors.

Emailed assignment notifications can automatically include other attachments such as the relevant job notice or a shared word list. You can also attach files individually as you are sending an email (but RB9 will not send files over 20MB). In addition to setting up which file types will be attached (in System Preferences) you can also designate which types of tasks will receive these automatic attachments (in Lists). For example you probably don’t need to send word lists to resources handling your conference room.

You can also automatically include an iCalendar file with emailed assignment notifications that the resource can import into their own calendar. You can customize its subject line and description.

If you want to send text message notifications instead of or in addition to the emails. you can create SMS templates in which you can customize the subject line and message with your own text and contextual data fields.

You can create customized email and SMS templates for assignment cancellations also. When sending assignment notifications or cancellations, you can use the default template, select a different template, and edit the contents of the email/text message before sending.

Emailing notifications

In Send Assignment Notifications/Cancellations you can email assignments by day scheduled or job date (if you assign jobs the day before they should occur). Cancellation confirmations are selected and sent by cancelled date. If desired you can refine your notification list to:

• A specific date or date range (maximum range is 30 days)
• A single job number
• One or more job types
• One or more tasks
• One or more resource types
• One or more business units

The notification list displays each job’s:

• Number
• Date
• Task
• Start time
• Status
• Witness
• Resource
• Notified date
• Acknowledged date
• Ordering client
• Business unit
• Type
• Location (if it’s a Zoom meeting, that is indicated here)

Canceled assignments results also list the date each job was canceled.

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function RB9 will revert back to the default order). Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

When sending notifications you have the option to attach additional files from either your desktop or RB9’s Job-level Repository.

RB9 records emails sent in the Email Log function in Tools (RB9 Standard only), so you can refer back to them later.

TL;DR: Instead of notifying resources one at a time, save time by emailing or texting a day’s worth of notifications at once.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Job Status: Stage a job is in, e.g., New or Cancelled.

Job Type: Categories of jobs requested by clients — such as Deposition or Real-Time.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service — such as reporters, videographers, interpreters, scopists, account executives, other agencies that cover jobs for you, or a conference room.

Resource Type: Profession — such as Scopist, Proofreader, or Interpreter — and other categories of resources.

Task: Service requested with a job — such as reporting, interpreting, or video — that require a separate resource (person, company, thing) to accomplish. More >

Lesson #9

Calendar – Quick Assignments function

If there are too many jobs or too many changes in a day to assign tasks one at a time within each job, save time by printing out your upcoming calendar, writing your resources on your calendar, then using Quick Assignments to:

• Apply your assignments to your job calendar in RB9.
• Send resources notifications of their assignments.

Even if you don’t have so many assignments but just prefer to assign all of a day’s resources at one time, use Quick Assignments after confirming tomorrow’s jobs to drag and drop resources to related tasks — or select someone from a list of resources that have previously worked on jobs for the same case.

You can also use Quick Assignments to easily enter assignments made on past jobs that you didn’t get a chance to enter into RB9 before the job occurred.

Assign then notify in one function

Quick Assignments defaults to tomorrow’s tasks when you open the function so you can immediately start assigning resources and checking who has already been assigned. You can change the date to view, narrow the list to one or more tasks and/or business unit (BU), and assign resources to a different date.

In addition to dragging and dropping resources, there are 2 shortcut methods: Previous resources and preferred resources.

As the name implies, previous resources are any resources that were assigned to tasks in jobs on the same case. You can assign a resource from a list of previous resources with a click instead of searching for a resource to drag and drop.

If you maintain preferred/blocked resources lists for firms and contacts you can view those lists in Quick Assignments, so you can:

• Avoid assigning a blocked resource.
• Assign an ordering firm’s or ordering contact’s preferred resource to a task with a click.

Whether you select a previous resource/preferred resource from a list or drag and drop a resource to a task RB9 records it in the related job’s Notes Log and asks if you want to notify the resource. (If you try to assign a blocked resource to a task, RB9 will alert you and not allow the assignment.) You can send the notification by either email or text message or both without leaving the function — or you can wait to send all of the day’s notifications in a batch using the Send Assignment Notifications/Cancellations function.

Notifications can be sent via text or email or both. Notification emails automatically include the reporter worksheet for the task. You can customize both the message and whether the worksheet is included in the body of the email, as an attachment, or both. You can include other attachments as you are sending the email. You can also send an iCalendar file that the resource can import into their own calendar.

Tasks listed in Quick Assignments include information such as:

• Job number
• Job type
• Job status
• Job date
• Job time
• Job location (if it’s a Zoom meeting, that is indicated here)
• Task times (if different from job times)
• Assigned resource
• Client
• Witness
• BU
• Any notes you’ve made about the task

If you use the Notation field in jobs for your own custom codes to describe jobs (such as “RT” for Real Time), these codes appear here too to help you choose appropriate resources.

Tasks are color coded by job status so if any job hasn’t been confirmed yet it’s easy to see and follow up with the client. And the list makes it easy to see all unassigned tasks at a glance so you won’t overlook any when applying resources to assignments.

Customize how you view assignment lists

The grid in which you view assignment lists is customizable to your individual preference:

• Re-arrange the columns so the most important information is most prominent
• Stick up to 10 columns to the left side of the grid so they do not scroll when you have a results grid wider than your screen.
• Stretch/shrink columns to fit the results.
• Hide columns you don’t need to see.
• Choose which column(s) to sort results by.
• If you select more than one column choose in what column order to sort the list.
• Choose whether to sort info by ascending or descending order in each selected column.
• Save your custom grid as your default.

You can save your custom grid as your default. Your customizations do not affect other users and you can restore the original RB9 grid layout anytime.

In addition to assigning tasks you can view and update any listed job’s details, remove assigned resources, and export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

NOTE: This is an RB9 Standard-only function. It is not included in RB9 Lite.

TL;DR: In Quick Assignments you can quickly assign resources to tomorrow’s jobs and see if any of those jobs are not confirmed yet so you can follow up with the client.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately — such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.

Blocked Resource: Resource that a particular firm or contact does not want assigned to tasks on jobs they schedule or order from you.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Job Status: Stage a job is in, e.g., New or Cancelled.

Notation: Short codes (up to 24 characters) you create yourself to give key information about a job (such as “V” for video, “RT” for realtime, “1 of 2,” or “Daily”) in a results grid so you don’t have to click into a job’s detail window.

Notes Logs: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB9 appear in chronological logs in the database record where they occurred — such as a case, job, invoice, or entity. More >

Preferred Resource: Resource that a particular firm or contact wants you to assign to tasks on jobs they schedule or order from you.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service — such as reporters, videographers, interpreters, scopists, account executives, other agencies that cover jobs for you, or a conference room.

Task: Service requested with a job — such as reporting, interpreting, or video — that require a separate resource (person, company, thing) to accomplish. More >

Lesson #8

Calendar – Resource Availability function

When a resource wants to take a vacation or a personal day — or if they want to pick up extra hours of work outside their normal schedule — use Resource Availability to view their schedule, then quickly add or remove time for specific days.

The default view in Resource Availability is all resources’ work schedules for today. (Resources’ regular work schedules are set up in their individual listings.) Work schedules are color coded so you can track resources’ schedules in a glance by assigned periods, available/unavailable times, and time off.

Search for a resource

Use any of the search criteria to narrow your search to find a particular resource/resources:

• Date range
• A resource’s name
• One or more Priority Levels
• One or more Resource Types
• One or more Specialties
• Text in time-off notes/comments

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order but when you exit the function RB will revert back to the default order. Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

Include notes about time off

When granting time off you can include reasons for it and any notes or comments about it for your records. Resource Availability will display this information in the search results.

Quickly change a resource’s schedule

Use the Change Availability option to add time to resources’ schedules when they are willing to work extra hours for a month — or quickly block out time off for a resource if you do not need to keep track of the reason.

During a resource’s scheduled time off — whether it’s their regularly scheduled time off or time off added here — the resource’s name will not appear in the list of available resources when assigning tasks. If you try to assign a resource in Quick Assignments who is not available, it will alert you so you can pick a different resource or override the resource’s time off.

TL;DR: Set up resources’ regular work schedules in their individual records in RB, then use Resource Availability for one-off changes — such as vacations or availability outside of their normal working hours.

RB concepts in this lesson

Priority Level: Order of selection preference for resources. For example resources on staff vs. affiliates.

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service — such as reporters, videographers, interpreters, scopists, account executives, other agencies that cover jobs for you, or a conference room.

Resource Type: Professions and other categories of resources.

Specialty: Skill or specific expertise required for some jobs. — such as medical reporting, Spanish, or realtime.

Task: Service requested with a job — such as reporting, interpreting, or video, that requires a separate resource (person, company, thing) to accomplish. More >

Concept #2

Task

Tasks in RB9 are services requested with a job — such as reporting, interpreting, or video — that require a separate resource (person, company, thing) to accomplish. Work performed in-house — such as creating condensed transcripts or shipping out finished products — is usually not considered a task in RB9. RB9 includes a set of tasks which you can customize to your business by adding, editing, and deleting tasks from the set.

Task examples

• Reporting
• Videotaping
• Interpreting
• Conference Room-Inhouse
• Conference Room-Outside
• Catering

Non-task examples

• Creating condensed transcripts
• Shipping out finished product
• Doing other production work
• Compiling invoices
• Billing clients
• Following up on outstanding amounts due

All jobs include a default task which you define in Setup > Lists. You can change the task in a job if the job does not require the default task but all jobs must have at least one task included. A job can have an unlimited number of tasks. You can enter tasks in a job when scheduling the job or at any time later.

Tasks simplify & speed up job scheduling while reducing errors:

• When assigning a resource to a task, only those resources who are available during the task’s scheduled time will be listed for you to select from so you don’t assign a task to someone who cannot appear. The scheduling client’s preferred resources will appear at the top of the list so you can easily select them. You can further refine who appears in the list by selecting their priority level (e.g., staff or overflow), specific resource types (such as reporter or scopist), or specialities needed (such as RealTime or Medical). You can also override the system selection to show resources who are listed as unavailable for that time slot. If you attempt to assign a resource that the scheduling client has on their Blocked Resources list, RB9 will alert you and will not allow the assignment.
• You select tasks from a list to assign to resources so if you have multiple tasks on a job you want to assign to the same resource, you can select the tasks and assign them all at the same time to the one resource.
• If the job is canceled, all of the tasks are canceled too. When changing a time, date, or location for a job, all related tasks are updated.
• If a job includes multiple tasks and the client cancels one aspect — for example, they no longer need interpreting, but the rest of the job is a go — you cancel only the one task; it doesn’t affect the rest of the job.
• Canceling a task adds the assigned resource back to your available resources list for new assignments. And automatically prompts you to send an Assignment Cancellation notice to the resource.
• RB9 keeps track of when tasks were canceled. This is helpful in situations where there is a cost incurred in late cancellations — such as a hotel’s conference room — you will have a paper trail to back up any cancellation fees charged to your client.
• Designating Back Order as a task instead of a job status helps with job management because back orders will have their own order date, due date, notified date, acknowledged date, and cancelled date like other tasks.
• As resources are assigned to or removed from tasks, the related job’s Notes Logs automatically records that information including the staff responsible so you refer back to that history.
• Job files that resources need access to can be added to the job’s task repository so you can easily email those files to resources when sending them assignment notifications and resources can download the files from RB Connect instead of having access to all of the job’s files.

Task information includes:

• Type of task
• Order date and due date
• Resource assigned
• When resource was notified of the task and when they acknowledged the assignment
• If task was canceled, when it was canceled
• If the task required the resource to be somewhere, when they checked in at the location (resources can check in using RB Connect or RB Connect Mobile, or you can manually enter check-in date and time in RB9)
• Estimated page count and delivery date
• Actual completed date and time
• Notes about the task
• Task-related files

Tasks or linked jobs?

For services you will bill separately — such as video done by a third party of a depo — set up a linked job instead of a task. Linked jobs are separate jobs on the calendar, but because they are tied together you will be notified when a depo is canceled that there is a linked video job so you can cancel the video job too and notify the videographer.

TL;DR: A task is a service requested by a client that requires a separate resource to accomplish. A job in RB9 can include one or more tasks, and canceling one task does not affect the rest if the job. You define tasks based on your company’s services.

Related RB9 concepts

Blocked Resource: Resource that a particular firm or contact does not want assigned to tasks on jobs they schedule or order from you.

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition but can also be any kind of service you provide with your reporters or other resources. More >

Linked Jobs: Separate jobs on the calendar that connect to each other. When one is confirmed or canceled, RB9 notifies you that there is a linked job, so you can confirm/cancel the linked job too.

Notes Logs: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB9 appear in chronological logs in the database record where they occurred.

Preferred Resource: Resource that a particular firm or contact wants you to assign to tasks on jobs they schedule or order from you.

RB Connect: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients and resources. More >

RB Connect Mobile: Clients and resources can access your RB Connect on their smartphones and tablets in an interface optimized for mobile devices. More >

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service — such as reporters, videographers, interpreters, scopists, account executives, other agencies that cover jobs for you, or a conference room.