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Lesson #112

Setup – Lists function

Lists in RB allow users to choose an entry from a set of available values — saving time and reducing errors that result from keying in entries. RB includes initial values and defaults for lists used throughout the system, and you can run your business using these defaults. You can also edit, hide, merge, or delete most of these entries. You cannot create new lists, but you can add your own entries to most RB lists.

Managing lists

When setting up your RB system, take some time to customize its default lists to better match your company. You can revise a list at any time you have new options to add or unused options you’d like to remove/hide.

You can set each list’s default entry which will appear in any field tied to that list. Default entries cannot be deleted. If you want to delete a default-designated entry, you must set a different entry in the list as the default. Then you can delete the other entry if it is not required by RB.

If you no longer need a particular entry — but want to keep its historical data — you can merge it into an existing entry of the same data type.

If you don’t want to delete an entry or merge it into another entry— but you also don’t want it to appear as a list option in RB — you can de-activate it. It will still exist in the database but it will be hidden.

You can export any list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

Lists can be customized for:

• Accounting: Although RB is not an accounting system, it does track many financial aspects of your business. Its data can be used with QuickBooks, and it replaces separate billing software.
  Set up categories for types of accounts, financial transactions, payments, payment terms, and units of service items (e.g., pages, miles, or hours).
  Also set up billing and pay rate groups: parent structures for related billing or pay rates. (You could have 100s of billing and pay rates, which can quickly become overwhelming without some sort of organizing capability.) You will assign each billing rate table, firm, contact, and party to a case to a billing rate group — and assign each pay rate table and resource to a pay rate group.
• Cases: RB is a case-based system. Case attributes will be automatically applied to jobs tied to a case.
  Set up categories for types of cases, sides represented in a suit, notes, and case statuses — such as in progress or settled.
• Connect: RB Connect is the RB9 plug-in that gives your clients and resources direct access to your office via the internet.
  Set up designations for RB Connect support ticket ratings, support ticket status (e.g., Awaiting Response or Closed), and resource time-off request status (e.g., Pending or Approved).
• Contacts: Contacts are people who work at firms that schedule jobs with you.
  Set up categories for types of contacts, notes, work turnaround preferences, credit ratings, and tags to organize contacts. Also set up gender classifications, work titles, and salutations.
• Firms: Firms are companies you do business with: They schedule depositions with you, e.g., a law firm, or they are a third party that pays you, e.g., an insurance company.
  Set up categories for types of firms, notes, credit ratings, collection actions, and tags to organize firms. Also set up designations for account status, class (the quality or ranking of a firm), and client sources (how clients heard of you).
• Invoice: Set up categories (Groups) for invoice headers and messages so you can find what you want when invoicing without having to scroll through all of your invoice headers or messages. Also set up categories for invoice types and notes types to use as search filters.
• Jobs: Set up categories for types of expert witnesses, client referrals, jobs, notes, job status, tasks, and task status.
• Locations: Set up categories for types of locations, notes, and tags to organize job locations.
  Not all job locations should be entered in the location database so they would not need categories here. Examples would be law firms or other businesses in your Firms database, resources — such as other court reporting firms, your own conference rooms or business units, one-off locations you won’t use again, and virtual locations — such as Zoom meetings.
• Other: Set up categories for types of events to acknowledge — such as client birthdays and anniversaries, how notes in Notes Logs were received (e.g., System, Email, or call), and award point redemption like gift cards or cash.
• Production: Set up designations for how products are delivered to clients, e.g. USPS, courier, or FedEx.
• Repository: Set up designations for types of files that you will store in the central repository.
• Resources: Resources are people or things that provide your business with services — such as reporters, other court reporting agencies you work with, and your conference rooms.
  Set up categories for types of resources, notes, and tags to organize resources. Also set up categories of time periods you pay resources, certifications, specialties, priority levels (e.g., staff or overflow), salutations, and reasons for resources’ time-off periods (e.g., vacation or personal time).
• Tracking: Tracking is a stand-alone function in RB9 used to monitor where production items are in your production cycle and physical space.
  Set up categories for archival status, types of service items (such as DVD, Editing, Exhibit, Scanning, Synching, and Transcript), and priority of tracked items. Also set up media classifications (e.g., Confidential or Under Protective Order) and media formats.
• Users: Users are people on your staff who directly access RB — as opposed to contacts and resources who access your office through RB Connect.
  Set up categories for departments in your company and position titles.
• Witnesses: Set up categories for notes types to use as search filters.

TL;DR: Many lists in RB can be customized by adding/editing options to better fit your company.

RB concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services.

Billing Rate Groups: Umbrella structures aimed at categorizing your billing rates. Instead of one long list of billing rates, Billing Rate Groups create a series of shorter lists to search through when invoicing clients.

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

Firm: Companies you do business with.

Header Group: Parent structure that contains related invoice headers as its children.

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

Location: Place where jobs occur — such as court rooms, hospitals, schools, doctors’ offices, or private residences.

Message Group: Parent structure that contains related invoice messages as its children.

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

Pay Groups: Categories of time periods your company uses to pay resources, e.g., Monthly, Weekly, On Demand. Group resources according to their pay period (frequency) to reduce errors when running payroll.

Pay Rate Groups:  Umbrella structures aimed at categorizing the rates you pay resources, such as by experience levels, percentage paid on services, or affiliates. Instead of one long list of pay rates, Pay Rate Groups create a series of shorter lists to search through when invoicing clients.

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 >

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.

Tracking: System for keeping track of where production items are in your production cycle and physically in your office.

Users: You and your staff who directly access RB.

Lesson #108

Entities – Resources function

Resources provide your business with a service or support. For example reporters, videographers, interpreters, transcriptionists, scopists, and account executives (sales reps) are resources. Basically any independent contractors you hire are resources in RB.

Resources do not have to be individuals. They can also be other reporting agencies that cover jobs for your firm or your conference rooms. You add your conference rooms to RB as resources so that you can schedule them like you do reporters and other resources.

Maintain a deep database of all of these assets in RB in the Resource function. If there is something you want to remember about a resource — whether it’s contact info, financial history, professional details, availability, or anything else — chances are there is a slot for it in their RB profile.

Add resources to your database

You can enter resources from scratch in this function, import them from other applications, or add them on the fly during turn-in. If you have an existing database of resources in another application you can import the data into RB from an Excel spreadsheet in the Bulk Import function.

Before entering a resource into RB check to see if they are already there to avoid duplicate entries. RB does not prevent you from adding multiple instances of the same resource. If there are duplicate entries, you can merge them — however not all data will carry over from the resource that is being merged. The only information that will be saved from the merged entry is from the Notification Email, Tags, Specialties, Certifications, Repository, and Notes Log panes, plus their assignment availability.

Search for resources

To find resources in your RB database you can use the search criteria singly or in combination:

• Full Name, First Name, Last Name, or a/k/a (their preferred nickname or business name if they are independent contractors)
• City
• State (single, several, or all)
• Zip code
• Resource Type (single, several, or all)
• Specialty (single, several, or all)
• Priority Level (single, several, or all)
• Pay Rate Group (single, several, or all)
• Tag
• Active resources only or all resources
• Email address
• Resource number
• Mobile phone number

Each listing displayed in the results shows all of this info — except any specialties or tags — and includes the resource’s street address, zip code, main phone number, and any warnings about the resource.

Customize how you view resource listings

The grid in which you view resource listings 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 Resource results grid you can view and update any listed resource’s details, add new 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.

Basic resource information

Whether you are viewing an existing resource listing or adding a new resource, the detail window is broken up into a series of panes that contain related fields. The first pane, General, contains contact information, other basic information, and any warnings.

With 25 fields and options in the General information pane alone, it might seem overwhelming to enter resources into RB. However when entering a new resource, the only required information is their full name. We recommend when entering individuals’ names that instead of entering the name in the Full Name field, you enter names in the separate first and last name fields, then select which order you want the names (first name first, or last name, then first) to appear in the Full Name field. This way you can use the First Name/Last Name filters when searching for resources in the main Resources window.

You can save time entering resources’ full names by setting up Autofill in System Preferences. You select which name parts are included (first name, last name, salutation, middle initial) and in what order. RB will automatically fill out the Full Name field for you as you enter the individual name fields.

You can also enter resources’ nicknames or business names if they are independent contractors in the a/k/a field. This information will appear in parenthesis after the resources’ full names in fields and lists, and is searchable.

We recommend entering resources’ email addresses so you can email resources directly from within RB. And we recommend designating the Resource Type so when assigning tasks, you assign reporters to reporting tasks, interpreters to interpreting tasks, etc.

Other General information tips

After entering the resource’s street address or P.O. box number, skip the other fields and enter the zip code. RB will fill in the city, state, and country for you.

If a resource has a different business address from their home address you can include both addresses in their listing.

If you have entered resource addresses you can view maps and directions to those addresses in RB. You can also add your own directions to the resource’s listing. Any instructions entered here will appear in the Directions field of a job if the job will be at the resource’s location.

If you have information about a resource that users should know when scheduling jobs enter those notes in the Warning field. They will appear when assigning resources to assist the user in assigning the correct resource.

If a resource is no longer active you can deactivate their listing instead of deleting it so you retain all of your historical data about the resource but they will no longer appear as available for assignments anymore.

Additional information

In the Additional pane you can enter dates related to the resource — such as date of birth (only month and day are required) and date of employment — and credentials for RB Connect, ReporterBase Digital Signature Proxy (RB-DSP), and Certified Shorthand Reporters.

Your resources’ RB Connect login names and passwords are stored here. Resources can reset their password any time in RB Connect and you can also reset their login name and password here. This is also where you can unlock their account if they tried to log in too many times with the incorrect credentials and RB Connect locked them out.

If you use RB-DSP to apply reporters’ digital signatures to RB-PDF Transcripts this is where you store their reporterbase.com credentials so you can use their digital signatures.

If you store resources’ Certified Shorthand Reporter certification numbers here you can include their certification on RB-PDF Transcripts by customizing transcript templates to include this number in headers or footers.

Pay information

Important pay information to include are the resource’s:

• Priority Level which gives you an order of preference when assigning tasks, such as staff and overflow.
• Pay Group which designates how often the resource is paid, e.g., weekly, monthly, bi-weekly.

Other info to enter here includes:

• Pay rate — if you pay this resource the same rate for all jobs, select that here instead of having to do it every time you bill a job they worked on.
• Federal tax ID number if this is a resource that you will issue 1099s for. You can also indicate that you will print their 1099s from within RB9.
• Number of days until you pay this resource for originals and copies. These default to your system-wide preferences, but you can change them here for a resource that you pay differently.
• Commission rates if you pay this resource commissions. If the resource is a reporter with their own clients, you can set different commissions for their clients’ jobs they work and for their clients’ jobs that other reporters cover.
• Resource’s banking information if you do direct deposit from RB9.
• Any recurring payments or deductions (for example the resource is paying back an advance in installments).

You can set a resource as “do not pay” if they are a conference room or an owner of your business who does not receive a paycheck — so they won’t appear in your pay process.

Work schedule

Resources’ availability for assignments is generated by the system using the work schedule set up for each resource. When assigning resources to tasks only resources who are available during the scheduled time will appear in the list of resources.

You can customize individual resources’ work schedules from the default schedule of Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm to match their actual availability. Setting an individual’s schedule is simple: You click and drag the beginning and end marks on each day-of-the-week to change the resource’s default availability for that day.

You can override resources’ availabilities manually to handle exceptions in other functions — for example if you want to assign a resource to a job outside their normal work hours, or to give a resource additional time off for a vacation, doctor’s appointment, or other exception. (Tasks and Resource Availability)

But wait, there’s more

Once you save a resource in RB, you can:

• Enter more information.
• Update existing information.
• View the resource’s financial & job trends.
• Merge resources if you find duplicates using RB’s Merge To sub-function to save some of the resource’s historical data from the duplicate listing.

You don’t have to go into the Resources function to update a resource. Most RB functions that include a Resource field allow you to directly access that resource’s listing to view and edit.

Also if you have multiple resources that you need to update the same information for — such as their commission rates or original and copy terms — you can use Bulk Update to change them all at once.

Additional panes in saved resource listings include:

Notification email

If a resource has more than one email address you can designate which one(s) should receive email notices from RB related to jobs they are involved with and which one(s) to use for payroll information.

Tags

If you use tags (keywords or phrases) to monitor and choose resources to bulk email or snail mail letters and packages you add tags to resource listings — either by keying in tags or selecting them from the tag list you made in Lists. Each resource can have an unlimited number of tags and you can delete tags from a resource when they no longer apply. (You can also use the Tag Manager to add or remove tags quickly from multiple resources at once.)

Specialties

If a resource has specific expertise add that specialty to their RB listing. Then when you have a task that requires that specialty, the resource will be included in the list of available resources so you can assign resources more accurately.

Certifications

If a resource has been certified for a particular skill/knowledge add that certification, when it was achieved, and if it is still active to their RB listing as reference for evaluating resources. You can also include certification expiration dates and set reminders so resources don’t let their certifications lapse.

Repository

Keep files related to a resource in their RB listing. When viewing the resource’s listing you can see information about uploaded files including their description in the Repository pane without having to click into each file’s details. You can upload, download, or delete files here, and update file information — such as which groups can access the file.

If you have RB Connect you can give resources access to specific files in their repository. You can also view the download history of each file in the repository — including when it was downloaded and by who.

Notes Log

The system enters some notes about resources automatically in their individual Notes Logs and you can also enter notes yourself about a resource in their Notes Log for internal purposes. An example of automatic Notes Log entries would be what changed when the resource’s information was updated using the Bulk Update tool.

When you add a note to the Notes Log you can include what type of note it is, how you communicated with the resource, details about what occurred, and if needed, designate who should follow up and set a date/time for a reminder to be sent to them via RB’s message system.

Export resource data for other uses

In these additional panes you can export the information as Excel spreadsheets or CSV(comma-separated values) files to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

View financial/job trends

In a resource’s Account Overview, highlights of their financial and job activity history, future projections, and trends are displayed visually. A table displays the resource’s total outstanding payables, upcoming tasks, and tasks not turned in yet. A line graph displays monthly earnings and a second line graph displays the resource’s assigned and canceled tasks.

The line graphs are interactive. Hovering over a point in a line on a graph displays that month’s total $ amount or number. The line graphs default to the resource’s trends over the last six months. You can also view the resource’s trends over a year or 2.

TL;DR: Maintain a deep database of your resources in RB including contact, pay, personal, and business/professional information, files related to the resource, notes about the resource, their work schedule, and more. View interactive graphs of their earnings and assignments.

RB concepts in this lesson

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition. More >

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

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

RB-PDF Transcript: Customizable PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features like hyperlinked exhibits, word lists/indexes, errata sheets, and headers/footers that automatically contain case and depo information from your RB database. More >

ReporterBase Digital Signature Proxy (RB-DSP): Free digital signatures for reporters and agencies that agencies apply to RB-PDF Transcripts. Reporters retain control of their signatures while agencies are able to apply the signatures through their normal production process. More >

Repository: Where you store files in RB for safekeeping and quick retrieval.

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

Lesson #107

Entities – Contacts function

Contacts are people who work for firms you do business with. Examples of contacts are attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Maintain a deep database of your contacts in RB in the Contacts function. If there is something you want to remember about a contact — whether it’s their contact info, standing orders, anniversaries, or anything else — store it in their RB profile. 

Add contacts to your database

You can:

• Enter contacts from scratch in this function.
• Copy an existing contact at a firm and update only the new contact info.
• Add them on the fly within a firm, case, job, or invoice.
• If you have an existing database of contacts in another application, you can import the data into RB from an Excel spreadsheet in the Bulk Import function.

Before entering a contact into RB, check to see if they are already there to avoid duplicate entries. RB does not prevent you from adding multiple instances of the same contact. If there are duplicate entries, you can merge them — however not all data will carry over from the contact that is being merged. The only information that will be saved from the merged entry is from the Notification Email, Tags, Preferred Services, Anniversaries, Award Points, Repository, and Notes Log panes.

Search for contacts

To find contacts in your RB database you can use the search criteria, singly or in combination:

• Full Name, First Name, or Last Name
• Firm — which you can search for by name, number, or the name or number of a contact at the firm
• Contact Type — single, several, or all
• Email address
• Client Of — which you can search for by first name, last name, full name, or number
• Sales Rep — which you can search for by first name, last name, full name, or number
• Tag
• Phone number
• Active contacts only or all
• Contact number

Each listing displayed in the results shows all of this info except any tags — and includes the main address of the contact’s firm, the type of firm, whether the firm is currently active, and any warnings about the contact and firm.

Customize how you view contact listings

The grid in which you view contact listings 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 Contacts results grid you can view and update any listed contact’s details, add new contacts, and export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

Contacts are tied to firms

When entering a contact in RB, the first, most important information is their firm. If you are entering a new contact without starting from their firm, RB will automatically open the firm panel so you can select the firm before entering other contact information. If the contact’s firm is not in your RB database, you can add it here on the fly.

Once you have designated which firm the contact belongs to, you can proceed to enter the contact’s information. Some fields will auto-fill with the firm’s information — such as phone numbers and billing information — which you can override in the contact listing. Until you save the contact you can change which firm the contact is tied to. After saving a new contact you can view maps of the firm’s location, get directions to the location, and view/update firm details from the contact’s detail screen.

Basic contact information

In addition to which firm the contact works for, the only other required information about a contact is their full name. When entering the contact’s name we recommend that instead of entering the name in the Full Name field, you enter names in the separate first and last name fields, then select which order you want the names (first name first or last name then first) to appear in the Full Name field. (You can also select options that include their preferred salutation and middle initial.) This way you can use the First Name/Last Name filters when searching for contacts in the main Contacts window.

You can save time entering contacts’ full names by setting up Autofill in System Preferences. You select which name parts are included — first name, last name, salutation, middle initial — and in what order. RB will automatically fill out the Full Name field for you as you enter the individual name fields.

In addition to the contact’s name the General pane of their listing contains their contact information, other basic information, and any warnings.

Other General information tips

If you enter the contact’s primary email address in the General pane, you can email the contact directly from within their RB listing by clicking the button next to the email field.

If you have information about a contact that your staff should know when scheduling or invoicing jobs, enter those notes in the Warning field. This information appears in red under Contact Warning in ordering clients and parties in jobs, cases, and in the Invoice panel in Turn In.

If a contact is no longer scheduling jobs with you and you do not need to contact them anymore, you can deactivate their listing instead of deleting it so you retain all of your historical data about the contact but they will no longer appear in searches for active contacts anymore.

Additional information

Store the client’s preferences for receiving invoices and statements (email, print, don’t send) in the Additional pane. You can also enter their federal ID number if it’s different from their firm’s, and unlimited notes about the contact for your calendaring and production/billing departments. Style the text with different options — such as bold face, italic, text sizes, and colors — to enhance the readability of your notes.

If you have RB Connect, this is where you set up the contact’s login credentials. After saving the new contact this is also where you:

• Reset their password.
• Unlock their account if they tried to log in too many times with the incorrect credentials, and RB Connect locked them out.

Marketing

Use the Marketing pane to specify what type of contact the entity is for marketing and billing purposes plus enter personal information about the contact, including their home address. Some of the billing information will automatically populate from the contact’s firm listing — such as default billing rates — but you can change it for the contact.

You can also designate which resource receives commissions on this client’s jobs. If a reporter brought in this contact set them as the Client Of. If an account manager or sales representative got this client for you set them as the Sales Rep. This information will be used for allocating sales commissions and to generate Sales Commission Reports.

Use the Client Of feature in RB to attract and retain highly talented reporters who can bring attorney clients to your business. By designating resources responsible for clients you can track the amount of the business being generated from those attorneys — and pay incentive bonuses based on the new business generated, in addition to commissions on existing accounts.

After initial setup add more information

Once you save a contact in RB additional panes, fields, and functions become available. You can:

• Enter more information.
• Update existing information — including resetting the contact’s RB Connect password.
• View the contact’s financial & job trends.
• Copy the contact to create a new contact with the same firm information.
• Merge contacts if you find duplicates.

You don’t have to go into the Contacts function to update a contact. Most RB functions that include a Contact field allow you to directly access that contact’s listing to view and edit details.

Also if you have multiple contacts that you need to update the same information for — such as assigning a new sales rep or changing the billing rate — you can use Bulk Update to change them all at once.

If a contact moves to another firm you cannot change the firm in the contact’s listing. Instead you have to de-active the current listing and set up a new listing for the contact at their new firm. You can use RB’s Merge To sub-function to save some of the contact’s historical data from the original listing in the new contact listing.

Additional panes in saved contact listings include:

Notification Email

If a contact has more than one email address or has someone else on staff who should receive their emails, you can designate which one(s) to use for:

• Job confirmations and cancellations for jobs they schedule.
• Invoices and statements (if the contact’s firm does not request consolidated statements).
• Repository file upload alerts.

If you entered an email address in the General pane it will automatically populate each of these notification email slots. You can change, delete, and add email addresses for any of these email types.

Tags

If you use tags (keywords or phrases) to monitor and market to contacts, you add tags to contact listings, either by keying in tags or selecting them from the tag list you made in Lists. Each contact can have an unlimited number of tags, and you can delete tags from a contact when they no longer apply. (You can also use the Tag Manager to add or remove tags quickly from multiple contacts at once.) Label entities with tags (keywords or phrases) to mark them as part of specific groups, which you can use for different purposes, such as monitoring or marketing.

Grant Access To

In RB, jobs and invoices are tied to the Ordering Contact (attorney). So by default if you have RB Connect, related information is accessible by that contact only. But in real life the attorney isn’t the one who will be accessing RB Connect and scheduling jobs, paying invoices, or downloading the repository files. Instead it is paralegals or secretaries that take care of that work on behalf of the Ordering Contact.

In Grant Access To you select contacts at the same firm who can access this contact’s information on RB Connect. In addition to giving access to paralegals and secretaries who work for this contact and to the attorney’s senior(s) at the firm, you can also grant access to contacts at other firms.

Have Access To

Similar to Grant Access To use Have Access To to grant this contact access to other contacts’ RB Connect — including contacts at other firms. Use Have Access To when you want to give one contact access to multiple other contacts’ RB Connect accounts instead of going into each of the other contacts’ listings and granting access one by one.

Any contact that you give access to this contact’s RB Connect will automatically list the contact in their Have Access To pane.

Preferred Services

Add your clients’ standing orders to their contact profiles. Then you can use Prefill Services on a case, job, or invoice to easily select all of the service items a client expects.

When listing which service items are included in a contact’s standing orders you can also include relevant details — such as how many units of an item they usually order, how many business days the order is due in (RB will calculate the due date for a specific job excluding weekends and holidays), the delivery method, their preference on rush deliveries, and any additional instructions for the service item. Any information entered here will appear as the default for jobs ordered by the contact and can be overridden in individual jobs.

Anniversaries

Add important personal dates to contact profiles and set reminders so you never forget those dates. Important anniversaries could be birthdays or the anniversary of when they became your client. When setting reminders you determine how many days and at what time of day to send an alert and which staff member(s) the alert should be sent to.

You can use Anniversary Inquiry to print labels for cards to send to clients celebrating upcoming anniversaries based on these saved dates.

Preferred Resources

If a contact has resources they prefer assigned to their jobs, you can keep a list of those resources in the contact’s listing. When assigning resources to tasks on jobs the contact scheduled or ordered, preferred resources will appear at the top of the list.

Blocked Resources

If there are resources a contact does not want assigned to their jobs, you can keep a list of those resources in the contact’s listing. When assigning resources to tasks on jobs the contact scheduled or ordered RB will alert you and not allow the assignment.

Award Points

Award Points are used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services. If you have RB Connect you can allow contacts to request point redemptions online. You set up your own rewards —such as cash or gift certificates — plus designate what services earn points.

If your state does not allow reward programs, use points to track your clients’ order history and see who your best customers are by which contact’s calls generate the most revenue instead of by firm only.

If you reward contacts with points, you can monitor a contact’s points in the Award Points pane plus view their points history — which includes which services earned how many points on which invoices, current status of those points, how they were redeemed, and any notes about the points.

You can also designate which contact(s) within a firm will receive points earned by this contact — and allow the contact to view and redeem their points online via RB Connect.

You can boost a contact’s points-earning ability by automatically multiplying their points. For example if this is one of your best clients, you might want to award them double-points for every point-eligible service you offer. Or award extra points for special promotions that are limited in time then revert back to the original point scheme afterwards.

Repository

Keep files related to a contact — such as signed contracts — in their RB listing. When viewing the contact’s listing you can see information about uploaded files — including their description — in the Repository pane without having to click into each file’s details. You can upload, download, or delete files here, and update file information — such as which groups can access the file.

If you have RB Connect you can give contacts access to specific files in their repository. You can also view the download history of each file in the repository — including when it was downloaded and by which contact at the firm.

Notes Log

The system enters some notes about contacts automatically in their individual Notes Logs, and you can also enter notes yourself about a contact in their Notes Log for internal purposes. Some examples of automatic Notes Log entries are notes recording when a sales rep has been assigned, when statements are sent to the client, and if the client information was updated using the Bulk Update tool.

When you add a note to the Notes Log you can include what type of note it is, how you communicated with the contact, details about what occurred — and if needed, designate who should follow up and set a date and time for a reminder to be sent to them via RB’s message system.

Export contact data for other uses

In these additional panes you can export the information as Excel spreadsheets or CSV(comma-separated values) files to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

View financial/job trends

In a contact’s Account Overview, highlights of their financial and job activity history, future projections, and trends are displayed visually. A table displays the contact’s total receivables since they became your client and upcoming scheduled jobs. One line graph displays revenue generated, a second line graph displays jobs scheduled/canceled, and a third line graph displays jobs that have occurred.

The line graphs are interactive. Hovering over a point in a line on a graph displays that month’s total $ amount or number. The line graphs default to the contact’s trends over the last six months. You can also view the contact’s trends over a year or 2 years.

TL;DR: Maintain a deep database of your contacts in RB, including contact, billing, and personal information, files related to the contact, notes about the contact, and more. View interactive graphs of their financial and job activity trends.

RB concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services.

Client Of: Resource that receives a commission for jobs their clients scheduled or that are part of a case the resource was designated as the Client Of resource. You can also give reporters right of first refusal on their clients/cases’ jobs by displaying unassigned jobs from their clients/cases in Resource-side online calendars in RB Connect.

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

Ordering Contact: Contact at the firm that is responsible for a job with your company. Can be different from the contact who scheduled the job.

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

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

Lesson #106

Entities – Firms function

Firms are businesses that schedule or pay for services — such as law firms or insurance agencies. If a client has multiple locations/branches, you can designate the company’s headquarters as a parent firm for the other branches so they are connected in your RB database.

Maintain a deep database of these client companies in RB in the Firms function. If there is something you want to remember about a firm — whether it’s contact info, their employees, financial history (including collections), or anything else — store it in their RB profile. 

Add firms to your database

You can enter firms from scratch in this function, import them from other applications, or add them on the fly within a case, job, or new contact (someone who works at the firm). If you have an existing database of firms in another application, you can import the data into RB from an Excel spreadsheet in the Bulk Import function.

Before entering a firm into RB check to see if they are already there to avoid duplicate entries. RB does not prevent you from adding multiple instances of the same firm. If there are duplicate entries, you can merge them — however not all data will carry over from the firm that is being merged. The only information that will be saved from the merged entry is from their jobs and contacts, and the Tags, Collection Notes, Repository, and Notes Log panes.

Search for firms

To find firms in your RB database you can use the search criteria singly or in combination:

• Firm Name or a/k/a (Also Known As)
• City
• State (one, several, or all)
• Firm Type (one, several, or all)
• Parent Firm (which you can search for by name, number, or the name or number of a contact at the firm)
• Client Of (which you can search for by first name, last name, full name, or number)
• Sales Rep (which you can search for by first name, last name, full name, or number)
• Tag
• Active firms only or all firms in your database
• Firm number

Each listing displayed in the results shows all of this info except any tags — and includes the firm’s main street address, zip code, and any warnings about the firm. With so much information displayed in the results you might find exactly what you need without having to drill down further.

Customize how you view firm listings

The grid in which you view firm listings 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 Firms results grid you can view and update any listed firm’s details by clicking its hyperlink in the grid, add new firms, and export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Basic firm information

Whether you are viewing an existing firm listing in your RB database or adding a new firm, the firm’s detail window is broken up into a series of panes that contain related fields. The first pane, General, contains the firm’s contact information, other basic information, and any warnings.

With 20 fields and options in the General information pane alone, it might seem overwhelming to enter firms into RB. However when entering a new firm, the only required information is the firm name. (If creating a new firm within a case, you will also be required to enter at least one contact for the firm.)

Other General information tips

If you commonly refer to the firm by another name or an abbreviation, include that alias in the a/k/a (Also Known As) field. When looking up the firm, you can search by the alias instead of the firm name. In search results, the alias will appear in parentheses after the firm name.

If you are entering the firm’s street address or P.O. box number, skip the other fields and enter the zip code. RB will fill in the city, state, and country for you.

You can enter a second address for billing purposes if the firm wants invoices and statements sent to a different address.

If you have entered firm addresses, you can view maps and directions to those addresses in RB. You can also add your own directions to the firm’s listing. Any instructions entered here will appear in the Directions field of a job if the job will be at the firm’s office.

If you have information about a firm that users should know when scheduling or invoicing jobs, enter those notes in the Warning field. This information appears in red under Firm Warning in ordering clients and parties in jobs, cases, and in the Invoice panel in Turn In.

If a firm is no longer scheduling jobs with you and you do not need to contact them anymore, you can deactivate their listing instead of deleting it so you retain all of your historical data about the firm but they will no longer appear in searches for active firms anymore. You can also deactivate all their contacts at the same time, if desired.

Additional information

Store detailed billing information (including payment terms, fees/charges/rates, C.O.D status, and tax info), the client’s preferences for invoices (list services or not) and statements (consolidated or not and sending method) in the Additional pane. You can set defaults for some of this information to save time when entering new firms. Then change the settings for individual firms as needed. (When you change a firm’s Late Charge Rate or Finance Charge Rate, RB automatically records the change in the firm’s Notes Log so you have a paper trail.)

You can also enter unlimited notes about the firm here for your calendaring and production/billing departments. Style the text with different options — such as bold face, italic, text sizes, and colors — to enhance the readability of your notes. If this firm is a branch or subsidiary of another firm in your database, you can select that firm here as the parent firm/headquarters.

Marketing

Use the Marketing pane to specify what type of firm the entity is for marketing and billing purposes — including selecting default billing rates. You can also designate which resource is the sales representative/receives commissions (Client Of) on this client’s jobs.

Use the Client Of feature to attract and retain highly talented reporters who can bring clients to your business. By designating resources responsible for clients, you can track the amount of business being generated from those attorneys — and pay incentive bonuses based on the new business generated in addition to commissions on existing accounts.

Collections

When setting up a new firm, you can assign one of your resources to be responsible for your collections efforts with the client — and designate the firm’s credit status with your company, e.g., In Collection or COD (Cash on Delivery).

After initial setup, add more information

Once you save a firm in RB additional panes, fields, and functions become available. You can:

• Enter more information, including employees at the firm you have contact with.
• Update existing information.
• View the firm’s financial & job trends.
• Merge firms if you find duplicates.

You don’t have to go into the Firms function to update a firm. Most RB functions that include a Firm field allow you to directly access that firm’s listing which you can view and edit.

Also if you have multiple firms that you need to update the same information for — such as assigning a new sales rep or changing the billing rate — you can use Bulk Update to change them all at once.

Additional panes in saved firm listings include:

Notification Email

If a firm has more than one email address you can designate which one(s) to use for:

• Email notices from RB related to jobs they schedule
• Invoices and other accounting information

Tags

If you use tags (keywords or phrases) to monitor and market to firms you add tags to firm listings — either by keying in tags or selecting them from the tag list you made in Lists. Each firm can have an unlimited number of tags and you can delete tags from a firm when they no longer apply. (You can also use the Tag Manager to add or remove tags quickly from multiple firms at once.)

Preferred Services

Add your clients’ standing orders to their firm profiles. Then you can use Prefill Services on a case, job, or invoice to easily select all of the service items a client expects.

When listing which service items are included in a firm’s standing orders, you can also include relevant details like how many units of an item they usually order, how many business days the order is due in (RB will calculate the due date for a specific job excluding weekends and holidays), the delivery method, their preference on rush deliveries, and any additional instructions for the service item.

Task Due Days

For clients who have their own turnaround deadlines for specific services provided by your resources — such as reporting or back orders — you can enter the number of days for each of those tasks in their firm profile. Then when scheduling jobs for contacts at the firm if they order a task that has a firm-defined turnaround, RB will automatically calculate the deadline for that task using the firm’s requirement. Otherwise if there is no firm-defined turnaround requirement, RB will use your assigned business unit’s turnaround specs.

Preferred Resources

If a firm has resources they prefer assigned to their jobs you can keep a list of those resources in the firm’s listing. When assigning resources to tasks on jobs they scheduled or ordered, preferred resources will appear at the top of the list.

Blocked Resources

If there are resources a firm does not want assigned to their jobs, you can keep a list of those resources in the firm’s listing. When assigning resources to tasks on jobs the firm scheduled or ordered, RB will alert you and not allow the assignment.

Collections

(After saving a new firm its Collections pane expands to allow you to enter more information.)

If a client is in arrears you can record your collection efforts here — including when you made an effort, what type of effort (such as Call Made — you can create your own set of collection actions in Lists), and results or other notes about the effort. If you want to be reminded on a certain date to follow up on the progress of your efforts, you can set a date and time — plus the staff member to be reminded. (This information is used in Collection Follow-up.)

If a client pays you an upfront deposit — i.e., a retainer — you can enter and track it in the Collections pane. You can view when retainers were entered in the system along with other details about the retainers — such as any notes made about a retainer and when retainers were applied to which invoices.

Repository

Keep files related to a firm in their RB listing. When viewing the firm’s listing you can see information about uploaded files including their description in the Repository pane without having to click into each file’s details. You can upload, download, or delete files here, and update file information — such as which groups can access the file (office staff only, office and contacts, or office and resources).

If you have RB Connect, you can give contacts who work at the firm access to specific files in their repository. You can also view the download history of each file in the repository — including when it was downloaded and by which contact at the firm.

Notes Log

The system enters some notes about firms automatically in their individual Notes Logs and you can also enter notes yourself about a firm in their Notes Log for internal purposes. Some examples of automatic Notes Log entries are notes recording when a sales rep has been assigned, when statements are sent to the client, and if the client information was updated using the Bulk Update tool.

When you add a note to the Notes Log you can include what type of note it is, how you communicated with the firm, details about what occurred, and if needed designate who should follow up and set a date and time for a reminder to be sent to them via RB’s message system.

Export firm data for other uses

In these additional panes and the Collections pane, you can export the information as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV(comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

View financial/job trends

In a firm’s Account Overview, highlights of their financial and job activity history, future projections, and trends are displayed visually. A table displays the firm’s total receivables since they became your client and upcoming scheduled jobs. One line graph displays revenue generated, a second line graph displays jobs scheduled/canceled, and a third line graph displays jobs that have occurred.

The line graphs are interactive. Hovering over a point in a line on a graph displays that month’s total $ amount or number. The line graphs default to the firm’s trends over the last six months. You can also view the firm’s trends over a year or 2 years.

Manage firm’s contacts

From the firm’s profile you can view the contacts who work for the firm (including inactive contacts if desired), update any contact’s details, add new contacts, and add or delete notification email addresses for individual contacts at the firm.

TL;DR: Maintain a deep database of client companies in RB including contact, billing, and marketing information, collections history, files related to the firm, notes about the firm, and more. View interactive graphs of their financial and job activity 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.

Client Of: Resource that receives a commission for jobs their clients scheduled or that are part of a case the resource was designated as the Client Of resource. You can also give reporters right of first refusal on their clients/cases’ jobs by displaying unassigned jobs from their clients/cases in Resource-side online calendars in RB Connect.

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

Job: Usually the reporting of a deposition. More >

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

Parent Firm: Headquarters of a multi-branch corporation.

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 >

Resource: Person or thing that provides your business with a service.

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients.

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

Lesson #102

Tools – Email Log function

RB9 automatically maintains a log of most emails sent through the system. You can view lists of emails sent and look up details about each email sent in this function. The email logs are your paper trail of correspondence sent from RB9 and cannot be edited.

Emails that are automatically logged:

• Assignment Cancellation
• Assignment Notification
• Collection Letter
• Future Calendar
• Invoice
• Job Cancellation
• Job Confirmation
• Letter to Contact
• Letter to Witness
• Letter to Other
• Overdue Tasks Report
• Repository Notification
• Resource Pay Statement
• Statement
• Transcript Package Notification

You can search for emails in each of these different categories by recipient email address, sent date or date range, job number, and/or invoice number.

RB9 lists all of the log entries that match the search criteria, along with their:

• Type
• Sent date
• Sender
• Recipient
• Subject line
• Remarks
• Any cc’s

You can sort your results 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 any email’s details by clicking its hyperlinked Log No.

NOTE: Not all emails are logged by the system

Since RB9 does not log all types of emails sent from the system, you can Cc or Bcc your email address on any email to save a copy of it. If you want to keep copies of all emails that you send from within RB9, set your user preference to “Always Bcc me,” so RB9 will send a copy of every email to your email inbox.

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

TL;DR: RB9 keeps a log of automatic emails sent from the program so you can monitor and review correspondence you sent to contacts and resources.

RB concepts in this lesson

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys.

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

Lesson #101

Tools – Download Backup File function

Download backup files of your RB9 database from up to 7 days in the past.

There is no need for your own backups for recovery purposes because RB9 and RB Lite are on Microsoft Azure’s cloud platform which includes a better-than-backup process that requires no effort on your part to maintain. However, if you need or want backups to comply with your company security policies, you can use this function to download a copy of your RB9 database backup to store on your premises.

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

TL;DR: Back up your RB9 database to your desktop.

Lesson #100

Tools – Repository Download Log function

In addition to complying with general security rules for business applications, tracking repository access is useful to see which clients and resources are using your RB Connect, and which files they are downloading. You can also give contacts the ability to track their own download activity in RB Connect.

You can set up RB9 to record repository activity by your staff, contacts, and/or resources. (For example, if you do not have RB Connect, you can set it to track staff use only.) After setting up RB9 to record repository activity, it will track all file download activities performed by individuals in your selected categories.

Then in the Repository Download Log, you can search for download activity:

• By all persons within one of those categories, or by a single person.
• For a single date or date range.
• For a specific file or files with similar names.
• For one, several, or all file types.

RB9 lists all download activity that matches your criteria by who accessed a file; when they accessed it; which repository the file is in; the file name, type, and description; and when the file was uploaded to the system. If someone downloads a file multiple times, each download is listed.

You can sort the log 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 log as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

From the log, you can view/update details about any person or file by clicking the person’s or file’s hyperlink.

Clients can check their download activity too

If you set Repository Logging to include contact downloading activity, your contacts can also see their download activity in RB Connect’s Repository. Similar to RB9’s Repository Download Log, a Reviewed column will be included in their Repository results grid, and any file they download will record the date and time in that column so your clients can see at a glance if they have downloaded a file or not.

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

TL;DR: If RB9 is set up to track download activity, this report lists all activity by contacts, resources, or staff for a specific time period.

RB concepts in this lesson

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with — such as attorneys, paralegals, and secretaries.

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

Repository: RB has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval. When you store files in a case, they are in RB’s Case Repository; when you store files in a job, they are in RB’s Job Repository; etc. If you have RB Connect, you can give clients and/or resources access to specific repository files.

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

Lesson #99

Tools – Notes Finder function

With 10 different sets of Notes Logs, it can be difficult to remember exactly where a particular note was entered in RB9. Use Notes Finder to search for log notes entered manually by users and automatically by the system.

With this tool, you can search for notes made in:

• Case listings
• Contact listings
• Firm listings
• Firms’ collections histories
• Invoice listings
• Job listings
• Location listings
• Resource listings
• Tracking listings
• Witness listings

Search each Notes Log category for notes by:

• Date or date range
• All (system generated and entered by staff) or a single person who entered the note(s)
• Word or phrase
• Notes type — such as marketing — or action type for collections — such as call made. You can search all types, a single type, or several types at once.

You can include all notes in your search or exclude cancelled notes from your search.

View search results

RB9 displays the notes that meet your search criteria with the most recent notes listed first. You can see at a glance:

• Each note’s contents.
• Where the note is stored.
• Who entered it and when — or if added by the system automatically, who triggered the entry.
• Type of note.
• How it was communicated or what action was taken.
• If you include cancelled notes, when they were cancelled and by whom.

You can sort the notes listed 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.

Drill down in any note to see more information associated with the note — such as the contact listing associated with a contact note. From there you can edit/update the listing, upload/download repository files, and add more notes to its Notes Log.

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

TL;DR: Use the Notes Finder tool to find notes quickly anywhere in RB9.

RB concepts in this lesson

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with, such as attorneys.

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 >

Location: Place where jobs occur.

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

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

Tracking: System for keeping track of where production items are in your production cycle and physically in your office.

Lesson #98

Tools – Label Templates function

In the Production module’s Envelopes and Labels function you can print addresses on a variety of labels for parties, contacts, firms, locations, and resources using information from RB9’s database.

Before printing labels out of RB9, set up label templates that will automatically include the recipient mailing address, plus your company logo and other information if desired. Then store them in the Label Templates function for everyone on your staff to use. With DYMO label software and RB9’s Label Templates function you can modify label templates, create new ones, and manage all of your company’s label templates.

Customize default labels & create your own

RB9 comes with a default set that you can use as is or customize to better match your company. You can also create an unlimited amount of new label templates to meet all of your company’s labeling needs. RB9 works with DYMO label printers only.

Use DYMO software to set up labels. Whether editing existing templates or creating label templates from scratch, you can add/delete:

• Text
• Address field (which RB9 uses for mail merge)
• Graphics like your company logo

Label template management made easy

After creating/editing label templates, upload them to RB9’s Label Templates function — which stores all of your company’s label templates together in the database. This way everyone has access to the same label templates when printing labels from RB9 — and you won’t lose your label templates when transferring to new computer because they are stored in the cloud not locally.

The Label Templates window lists all label templates in your RB9 database. By default labels are sorted by type, then name, but you can sort your results in the grid by one or both 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 or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

You can download any existing template to modify. Afterwards upload the modified template with a new name to add as a new template in RB9 or with the same name to replace the existing template in RB9.

You can add as many new templates as you want by uploading .dymo files from your computer. And when you no longer need a template or want to replace it with a modified version, you can delete it from the Label Templates list.

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

TL;DR: Modify default label templates and create new ones for your office to use when printing addresses on labels for parties, contacts, firms, locations, or resources using information from RB9’s database.

RB concepts in this lesson

Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.

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

Location: Place where jobs occur.

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

Lesson #97

Tools – Form Templates function

Some RB emails are form letters or include attachments that automatically contain RB information. You can customize the content of these forms — even add new forms — in Form Templates.

Form Templates is a word processor with mail merge, so you don’t need Microsoft Word to manage forms, letters, and other documents that use RB data. It’s a simpler word processor than Word but includes data merge fields and is designed to work with RB functions.

Complete set of forms included

RB comes with a starter set of form templates to cover a variety of needs — such as job confirmations, letters to witnesses, and collections letters. You can use the included templates as is, edit them to match your business better, import forms from other applications, create templates from scratch, and copy templates to create additional templates.

You can create form templates in RB for:

• Job confirmations & cancellations
• Assignment confirmations (AKA resource worksheets) & cancellations
• Letters to contacts, witnesses, & others related to a job
• Payment receipts
• RB-PDF Transcript cover pages & errata sheets
• Collections letters

Customize & create your own

Use RB’s Form Templates to create your own company-branded letters, notices, transcript cover pages, and errata sheets. You can include your own content, formatting, company logo, and merge data fields. When creating or editing a template, RB automatically saves your work every minute so you don’t lose anything you did.

When editing templates or creating new ones, you can:

• Enter your own content, including images and simple graphics.
• Insert headers, footers, and tables.
• Add RB data fields.
• Format everything to match your needs and corporate culture.

Any edits you make to an existing form are saved system-wide in the form. And when you create a new form, it is saved on the RB server and is available to other RB registered users in your company.

RB’s Form Templates is easy to navigate and use, but powerful and full of options. All existing forms in your system are grouped by the functions they are used in, so you can find forms easily. You can also create your own subgroups to further organize your forms when the main groups are not enough. You can sort form lists by one or more columns in ascending or descending order to help you locate the form you want to edit/copy/delete (but when you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order).

Full styling toolkit

The many tools in Form Templates are grouped into major categories on tabs, with each tab displaying all of its tools organized in subgroups so you minimize searching for a particular tool. And some tool groups have a popup option so you can change multiple related options at once.

This full-featured word processor with mail merge contains many controls and options in all aspects of form creation:

Text

Tools for styling your forms include most common text controls present in word processor applications, such as font types, sizes, colors, weights, and styling. You can style bulleted or numbered lists, and set text alignment, indents, tabs, borders, and backgrounds on paragraphs. You can choose different pagination options for multi-page forms, such as widow and orphan control, and set up re-usable character and paragraph styles.

Inserts

You can insert headers, footers, page numbers, images, graphics, blank pages, page breaks, tables, special symbols, hyperlinks, and text frames into forms. At a minimum, you can customize all of your forms by inserting your company logo. You can further customize the appearance of your logo or other graphics by setting text wrap options, positioning (including on the z axis), and size.

Tables

If you have a table in your form, you can customize it by adding or deleting rows/columns, and setting the properties of frame lines in the table, such as line colors, line widths, and cell background colors, or not having frame lines at all. You can also add custom formulas to your forms, such as sum totals.

Layout

Customize the layout of your template’s pages by setting margins, orientation, paper size, columns, content breaks, background color and borders, and paragraph spacing.

View

Form Templates has typical word processor View controls, so you can zoom in/out, or select a set view percentage. You can toggle rulers, status bar, table gridlines, control characters, and other guides on and off.

Lots of merge field options

Along with tools for styling your forms and adding boilerplate content, Form Templates includes several types of merge data fields:

• Contextual data fields – Only relevant RB data fields appear as options when inserting a merge data field in the form you are editing/creating, instead of listing every available RB data field for you to scroll through. When you insert a merge data field, RB only displays fields related to the category of form you are updating, logically grouped into sets, so you can quickly find a specific merge field.
• List data fields – You create tables of related merge fields that you select. You can re-arrange the order that the fields appear as columns in the table, or have the information display in paragraph format. For example, you can easily add a list of parties scheduled to appear to a Job Worksheet, that includes each party’s firm name, the party’s email address, party type, and services requested.
• Special fields – You customize their formatting, such as a Date field where you can select the order and appearance of day/month/year, and even include time stamps.

Merge fields are important because, when inserted into a form, real data from the job/client/resource/location you’re sending the form for will automatically merge into the place of the field, so you don’t have to manually re-key any of the information.

If you want a copy of a form template outside RB, you can print or export the form in a variety of formats, such as PDF, Word, HTML, or text.

TL;DR: Some RB functions include email-able/printable forms that automatically include RB information. These forms can be used as is or modified if needed in the Form Templates function. You can also import forms from other applications, and create your own forms.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

Location: Place where jobs occur such as court rooms, hospitals, schools, doctors’ offices, or private residences.

RB-PDF Transcript: PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features like hyperlinked exhibits, word lists/indexes, errata sheets, and enhanced headers/footers containing case and depo information.

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