Tag Archives: email second round

Lesson #141

Connect – Fulfill Points Redemption Orders function

If you reward clients with points for booking depos with you and you have RB Connect, you can let them access their points online and send you requests to redeem points.

In RB9, award points are used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services. Similar to frequent flyer programs, the RB9 reward points system is an optional service you can enable.

Before setting up reward points in RB9, check what your local laws and regulations allow and what you must provide participants with, such as terms and conditions and any legal agreements you must obtain before you enroll a client in your reward program. Some states do not allow these programs for court reporting firms, and OMTI makes no guarantees or assurances about these programs.

When setting up your reward points program, you choose:

• Which services earn points.
• What points can be redeemed for (such as cash or gift cards).
• Who on your staff manages the program (and gets alerted when a request is made).
• Which clients receive points.
• Which clients can access their points through RB Connect and RB Connect Mobile (RBCM).

View requests & redeem points

Use the Fulfill Points Redemption Orders function to grant requests clients make through RB Connect/RBCM for award point redemptions, plus look up previously redeemed point requests.

Fulfill Points Redemption Orders lists all outstanding redemption requests by default. Each request displays:

• Date and time a redemption was requested.
• Firm and contact making the request.
• Type of redemption requested.
• Number of points to redeem.
• Where the prize should be sent (office, home, or an address entered manually).
• Any additional instructions or remarks the client included.

You can sort the list 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 also view a single contact or a single firm’s outstanding requests.

When you fulfill a request, you can add your own notes about the redemption. When you complete the fulfillment acknowledgement, the request disappears from the list — and your client’s RB Connect/RBCM display their request as completed so they know they can expect a delivery. RB9 also updates the current points available and the spent points balances in the contact’s listing.

View the point redemption histories

You can view previous point redemption activity for a range of dates for all clients or a single firm or contact. The default lists all redemption requests fulfilled today and includes the same information as the outstanding requests list, plus any notes you made about the redemption, the date and time the request was fulfilled, and who on your staff handled the request. Like the outstanding requests list, you can export the list to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

You can also view the list for a different date range, by the date requests were submitted instead of when they were fulfilled, and narrow the results listed to a single firm or contact.

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

TL;DR: Grant requests clients make through RB Connect/RB Connect Mobile for award point redemptions, plus look up previously redeemed point requests.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

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

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

Firm: Company you do business with.

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 >

Lesson #140

Connect – Publish COD Invoices function

If you allow clients to make payments via RB Connect and RB Connect Mobile (RBCM), your COD clients can also use them to pay invoices before downloading transcripts online and on smartphones and other mobile devices.

CODs are handled differently

COD (Cash on Delivery) clients are handled differently from other clients. Traditionally COD invoices require the client to pay the invoice when presented — typically along with the items listed on the invoice. Often agencies have difficulty getting paid by COD clients because they are not regular clients. By offering COD clients the option to pay online or via mobile you guarantee you get paid before they can access the transcript — and they can get their transcripts as soon as the transcripts are ready.

Because RB does not regard COD invoices as sales they are not posted. (CODs are handled differently than sales to avoid overstating revenue and to minimize the number of voids that would occur to clear uncollectible CODs from your accounts receivable.) Since COD invoices are not posted, as a default they do not appear in RB Connect/RBCM. Use the Publish COD Invoices function to allow clients to pay for and download transcripts that were billed COD.

Manually publish CODs online

To give clients the ability to pay for COD invoices online you manually publish them to RB Connect in the Publish COD Invoices function. (When you publish an invoice to RB Connect it will also appear in the client’s RBCM if you offer that service.) The default view in Publish COD Invoices shows all outstanding COD invoices. (Invoices are designated as COD in Turn In.) For any invoice listed you can see at a glance:

• Invoice date and amount
• If it has already been published to RB Connect
• When the invoice was sent to the client
• Bill To and Sold To clients
• Job number and date
• Case name
• Assigned business unit

You can narrow the list to invoices generated within a range of dates, a single invoice number, job number, case, Bill To firm, and/or one or more of your business units. You can sort the list 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.

From the list you can choose which invoices to publish to RB Connect. You can also select invoices that have already been published and unpublish them so that they no longer appear in clients’ RB Connect/RBCM.

Set up for online payment first

Before your clients can pay invoices online in RB9 you must set up a business/merchant account with PayPal or one of the other accepted online payment processing services, then enter your credentials in Connect Preferences.

The default setting for RB Connect is no online payments. If you want to offer online payment of invoices including COD invoices through RB Connect, you must first set up an account with one of these services:

• PayPal
• Authorize.net
• First Data (Payeezy)
• Square
• Stripe

PayPal is easy to set up and integrate with RB9 and is a good choice if your clients have their own PayPal accounts. The other options are payment gateways — their benefit is that your clients do not have to have accounts with them to make payments through them.

In addition to setting up a merchant account and entering your credentials into RB9 you must choose which users are alerted in RB9 when a contact makes a payment online. You can also customize the email subject and message for payment receipt notices to clients.

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

TL;DR: Because CODs are handled differently from sales, you must manually publish COD invoices to RB Connect so COD clients can pay online, then immediately download their transcripts.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact: The contact responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

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

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

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 >

Sold To Contact: Contact that ordered the services on the invoice.

Sold To Firm: Firm that ordered the services on the invoice.

Users: You and your staff who directly access RB.

Lesson #139

Connect – Transcript Ordered function

If you allow your clients to order transcripts through RB Connect and RB Connect Mobile (RBCM), the Transcript Ordered function is where you confirm, process, and monitor the progress of those back orders.

Clients can request transcripts on previously billed jobs in RB Connect/RBCM’s Order Transcript function. You confirm the back orders and process them through RB9. Clients can track confirmed requests in RB Connect/RBCM. And you can monitor the current status and view order details in the Transcript Ordered function.

Customize the function

Before using the Transcript Ordered function designate which staff members will be alerted when a back order request is received.

You can customize the transcript order request form with your own fields for clients to use to provide instructions — such as turnaround time, delivery options, and other directions that will minimize the need for any client back-and-forth while fulfilling back orders.

You can update your choices and customizations at any time.

View new back order requests

When someone back orders a transcript through RB Connect/RBCM, RB9 sends a pop-up message to the screen of all RB9 users you designated during setup. Alerted users can click through the message directly to the order in the Transcript Ordered function to confirm the order and start the production process.

If you prefer to batch process orders — or just want to check that you haven’t overlooked anything — you can use the Transcript Ordered function’s default view to see all unconfirmed transcript requests sent by clients through RB Connect/RBCM.

The default lists shows each request’s:

• Order date and time
• Contact ordering the transcript and their firm
• Witness
• Case
• Job number
• Job date

You can sort the list 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 details about any requested transcript’s associated job and previous invoice, along with client instructions for the back order. You confirm the back order job in this function by changing the job’s status to back order and generating a report that provides your staff with the information they need to process the order. You can export the report in a variety of formats, such as PDF or Excel, or print it to distribute to your staff.

Process & monitor back orders

Processing the order involves creating a task in the job for the transcript and assigning it to a resource, then notifying them about the assignment. The task window lists previous resources associated with the case to help you select the appropriate resource. As the order is produced and shipped you update its status in the job.

On the client side in RB Connect after they submitted a request, the job’s Request Order option disappears so they cannot accidentally back order more than one transcript for the job. They can review the details of their transcript order and monitor its progress.

You can also monitor a back order’s current status and view details using the Transcript Ordered function. You can search active back orders using any combination of:

• A particular date range
• A single order
• A single job
• A firm
• One or more of your business units

In addition to the information listed above for unconfirmed requests, the results include who on your staff confirmed each request and when. From the results returned you can view any transcript’s current status and order details.

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

TL;DR: Confirm, process, and monitor transcript back orders clients make through RB Connect and RB Connect Mobile.

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.

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

Firm: Company you do business with.

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

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.

Task: Service 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 RB. More >

Lesson #136

Setup – System Preferences function

Entities System Preferences

Save time when entering new contacts, firms, and resources by specifying some defaults.

Autofill contact & resource names

If you enable Autofill for Contact and/or Resource names, RB will autofill the Full Name field when individual name fields (First Name, Mi., Last Name, Salutation) are entered in individual contact/resource listings. You choose which name fields automatically fill in and in which order.

Invoice options for firms

Default settings for new firms cover invoice options.

If you add late charges (one-time fee added to invoice balance after a certain number of days) and/or finance charges (monthly % of outstanding balance) to your invoices, you can set default percentages including up to 3 decimal placements. Similarly if you need to bill for state sales tax, you can include your sales tax rate as a percentage including up to 3 decimal placements.

You can specify how many days old an invoice has to be when you haven’t received payment yet before RB counts it as being past due and notifies you to start collection efforts.

You can also have RB detail services on invoices as the default for new firm entries.

You can change defaults for individual firms in their Firm listing.

Payment terms for resources

Default settings for new resources cover work schedules and payment terms for originals and copies.

The work schedule set here will appear as the default work schedule in individual resource listings.

RB will wait the number of days set here to release outstanding payables to resources. The number of days can range from 0 (zero) to 9999.

A term of 0 (zero) means you pay on bill-out: There is no waiting to pay resources. As long the invoice is within the cutoff date for the next payroll, it will be included in the payroll to pay to the resource. Cutoff dates are set up in combination with pay dates.

A term of 9999 means the resources won’t get paid for an invoice until the invoice balance reaches $0.

If you have specific wait periods — for example resources wait 2 weeks (14 days) to get paid for copies — you set the copy term to 14. RB will wait until invoices for copies reach 14 days old to be released for payment to the resource.

You can change defaults for individual resources in their Resource listing.

TL;DR: Set default invoice options for new clients and default payment terms for new resources.

RB concepts in this lesson

Firm: Company you do business with.

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

Lesson #135

Setup – System Preferences function

Payables System Preferences

In addition to options for fixing printing problems on checks and 1099 forms, you can also set up direct deposit for payroll and other pay options.

1099 Form

In RB9 you have the ability to print each resource’s 1099 directly from the system. RB9 is designed to print in the correct fields on the 1099-NEC forms, but you can adjust the placement if needed to align the RB9 output with the 1099 form’s fields on your printer. Adjustments are in inches. You can increase (or decrease with a negative number) the top and left margins, using up to 2 decimal placements.

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

Check

If you want to print checks directly from RB9, RB9 will create a PDF of the check information according to your settings to print on your own standard or voucher (2-part check) business checks. You can use Quickbooks-compatible laser checks (standard or voucher). Adjust where RB9 information is printing on your checks by increasing (or decreasing with a negative number) the top and left margins, using up to 2 decimal placements.

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

NACHA (National Automated Clearing House Association)

Instead of printing checks or using a third-party payroll service, use RB9’s direct deposit feature to deposit pay into your resources’ accounts instead. After signing up for direct deposit with your bank use information provided by your bank to set up your system preferences for direct deposit payables. Some of the information you must get from your bank includes a unique 9-digit number assigned by the bank and a company ID number. (You will need to enter your resources’ banking information in their profiles.) Then all you have to do is send a NACHA-formatted file (exported from RB9) to your bank and your bank will transfer the funds for you.

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

Draft Pay Statement

Before closing, you can print out or email your resources a draft of their pay statements, so they can review which invoices they will be paid for and how much will be included in their next paycheck.

You can choose the order in which invoices appear on the draft pay statement: by invoice date, job date, invoice number, or job number.

If you email draft pay statements, they will be PDF attachments to the email. You can customize the email that accompanies them. Change the default text in the Subject and Message fields, and insert contextual data fields so that real data from RB9 related to the resource and payroll merge into the email automatically. You can also customize the appearance of the body of the emails with text formatting, colors, images, hyperlinks, and tables.

You can create more than one customized email for this purpose and select the one you plan to use most often as the default. When sending these emails, you can choose a different email template from the default. You can also edit an email before sending it.

Pay Statement

After you run payroll in RB9 and close it, you can print out or email your resources their pay statements – which is the report that shows them exactly which invoices they were paid for on a closed payroll. You have the same email template settings options for pay statements as for draft pay statements.

Payroll

You have 2 options for when you pay resources:

1. “Hard Wait” is the default and refers to waiting a set number of days before releasing an invoice for payroll — regardless of whether you received payment from clients. (The default number of days to wait for originals and copies are set in Entities preferences, and can be overridden in individual resources’ settings.)
2. “Soft Wait” is similar in having your resources wait to get paid after a certain number of days — but there is an exception. If you receive payment for an invoice within the wait period, then RB9 will release the invoice to the resource in the next payroll you run.

TL;DR: Customize pay statement emails. Specify when resources get paid in relation to invoices. Adjust printing layouts for 1099s and checks. Set up your direct deposit account for paying resources.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

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

Lesson #134

Setup – System Preferences function

Receivables System Preferences

Set the subject line for payment receipts. Choose a statement template based on your company’s payment options, and set other statement options.

Payment Receipt

Enter default text and RB9 data fields into the subject line for receipts you send clients for payments received. (Set up receipt forms in Form Templates.)

Statement

Before sending statements to clients, choose your default statement template plus other invoice options, and create templates for the email that accompanies statements. You can also customize which colors are used to color code open-invoice listings on statements by invoice age. These choices are system-wide.

You have 4 statement templates to select from:

• Standard RB9 statement with a remittance section at the bottom of the statement
• Statement without a remittance section
• Statement with a credit card payment section that accepts American Express, MasterCard, and Visa
• Statement that accepts only MasterCard and Visa

You can also have RB9 automatically include both the client firm’s main phone number & fax number (if they have one) below the address on printed statements.

If you email clients their statements, they will be PDF attachments to the emails. You can customize the email that accompanies statements. Change the default text in the Subject and Message fields and insert contextual data fields, so that real data from RB9 related to the billed contact and firm merge into the email automatically. You can also customize the appearance of the body of the emails with text formatting, colors, images, hyperlinks, and tables.

You can create more than one customized email for this purpose and select the one you plan to use most often as the default. When sending these emails, you can choose a different email template from the default. You can also edit an email before sending it.

Color code the age of invoices listed on statements to help older invoices stand out. You select which colors to use for different time periods (over 30–over 180). You can export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

TL;DR: Customize the subject line of payment receipts, and set up templates for your company’s statements and the accompanying emails.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To Contact: The contact responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job.

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

Firm: Company you do business with.

Lesson #130

Setup – System Preferences function

General system preferences

As the name implies, these are preferences for features that span more than one module or are basic to the system, like log in.

Email

Email is integrated into many RB9 functions. If you will be sending emails from RB9, this is the one system preference that you are required to customize by entering your primary company email address settings. Other preferences can be customized at any time.

The Email preferences panel lists any email addresses already entered with the main email address selected as the default sender address for RB9 email. You can:

• Add email addresses.
• Change the default sender address.
• View, edit, delete, or test any listed email address.
• Export this list of email addresses that can be used systemwide as an Excel or CSV file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

When entering a new email address, you can designate that it use either the standard email protocol or a Microsoft 365 Office email protocol. If using:

• Default email protocol – You must include the email server address and port. You can also add security measures like SSL encryption of your email and SMTP authentication.
• Microsoft 365 email account – You must verify the account before using it because RB does not store your email’s password in the database.

The rest of the email setup is the address, user name, and any Bcc email addresses to include in emails by default. Plus you can create a signature using formatted text, images, hyperlinks — even tables — that appends automatically to the end of your emails. You can edit your signature in the default WYSIWYG word processor environment or as HTML markup.

After setting up an email address, you can test it within this same function to see if you have the correct settings for sending emails within RB9 from this address. You can also view the sent email to see if you want to make any changes to the signature.

General vs. personal email addresses

You do not have to enter every user’s email address in System Preferences. If your staff should use their own address when emailing from RB9, they can set up their email address in User Preferences (preferences that affect their RB9 account only, not the entire system). Then in most instances, their address will be the sender address when they send an email through RB9.

If you have a small staff and want to have users share addresses, enter the addresses in System Preferences — not User Preferences. Then they can use the default company email address or choose any of the other addresses as the sender when sending an email.

Email & RB Connect

Another reason to set up email accounts in System Preferences is if you have RB Connect. All RB Connect calendar communications for the contact side of RB Connect will be sent from the email account listed as the default in System Preferences.

Or you can designate one of the other General email addresses as the source for auto confirmations and cancellations that are sent to clients regarding RB Connect job schedulings. This is so in case a client responds to the auto confirmation email they receive, their response needs to go to a validated email account. Set this up in RB Connect General Preferences.

Forgot Password Email

If one of your users forgets their RB9 password, they can request a new password from the sign-in screen. RB9 will automatically send them an email so they can reset their password. You can change the default text of the header and body of this email.

You can automatically insert relevant RB9 data with contextual data fields for who requested the reset, when they requested it, and the link to reset their password. You can also customize the appearance of the body of the email with text formatting, images, color, hyperlinks, and tables.

License Info

In these section, find information about your RB9 licenses and other product information. It contains:

• Your RB9 product code
• Your current number of paid-for user licenses — which you can increase or decrease at any time
• Date your RB9 licenses will expire if not renewed
• Version of RB9 software you are using — you can request to change your version (Standard or Lite) here
• Web address of your RB9
• Entity your RB9 is licensed to
• Amount in gigabytes of storage you are currently using for your RB9 repository
• Number of files in your RB9 repository
• Any plug-ins you currently subscribe to are marked Active in this pane (you can export this list as an Excel or CSV file to save, print, share, or use in other applications)
• Any RB9 custom programming you have is listed in this pane (you can export this list as an Excel or CSV file to save, print, share, or use in other applications)
• Billing information including history, individual invoices, and the credit card you have authorized to pay your RB9 subscription with. You can update your credit card information and also pay overdue invoices and any prorated amount for increased user licenses here.

Login

RB9 follows general security rules for business application user log-ins. You can change some of these security features. In System Preferences you can:

• Protect user accounts from hacking attempts by selecting a set amount of incorrect login attempts before RB9 locks out the user. Single-system users can select the “Never locked out” option.
• Require complex passwords that contain a number, lowercase letter, capital letter, and symbol.
• Force users to reset their password periodically. You can set the duration to every 30, 60, 90, or 180 days before RB9 users must change their password.
• If you require users to change their password periodically, you can allow them to keep the same password when they update their password.
• Use email addresses as the log-in name for all of your user accounts instead of custom log-in names. With custom log-in names, users can change their log-in names but everyone must have a unique log-in name. They do not have that option with email addresses.
• If you choose email addresses as the log-in name, you can give users the option to log in using their social media accounts: Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, or Microsoft.
• Require users to verify their identity upon RB9 sign-in with a second factor in addition to their user name and password. A verification code will be sent to the user’s preferred method of communication — which they must then enter into RB before accessing the site. Authentication is per device, and users can decide to authenticate a device once or every time they sign in on that device.

Notifications and Messages

You can select 30, 60, 90, or 180 days for how long RB9 will keep old messages in the Sent Message and Trash folders in the system’s message center before deleting them.

Session Timeout

Because RB9 is web based you can work anywhere you have a web browser and internet connection. However, RB9 stores sensitive data — including information about your business units, accounting, contacts, and resources — so it will automatically log you off after staying inactive for a set period of time to deter prying eyes from compromising any sensitive data. It is exactly like how online banking sites sign you off after a predetermined length of inactive time.

The default is that you are automatically logged out of RB9 after 20 minutes of inactivity but you can change the session timeout. You can set the interval at any 5-minute increment from 5 minutes to 60 minutes. Your changes will take place the next time you log in. Since this is a system preference, all users will be affected — including contacts and resources that use RB Connect — the next time they log in.

Since RB9 does not automatically save your information when it logs you out, it’s a good idea to set an interval that balances security with your work processes — and to let other users know what the interval is so they remember to save their work periodically.

SMS

Select the third party vendor you want to use in RB9 to send text messages from within RB9. Then store your account credentials and related phone number.

System Time

Set your RB9 job clock to the time zone that your company is in. (The list of time zones is set in Calendar System Preferences.) Users can select a different default time zone for jobs they schedule in User Preferences.

You can also set the system to automatically adjust the job clock for Daylight Saving Time.

TL;DR: Set preferences for aspects of RB9 that impact multiple modules or the entire system in General preferences. Some preferences can be overridden by individual users in User Preferences.

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.

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

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

Repository: RB9 has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval. When you store files in a case, they are in RB9’s Case Repository; when you store files in a job, they are in RB9’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.

Users: You and your staff who directly access RB9.

Lesson #129

Setup – System Preferences function

RB9 comes with default options for its different functions. Some cannot be altered but generally you can customize functions to fit your company by editing, adding, and deleting options. System Preferences is where you set global options for different features in your RB9 system.

These global preference settings are used throughout your RB9 system by all users. You must be part of the Administrators group to change System Preference settings.

System preferences can be customized at any time. The only one you need to set before using RB9 is entering your company’s email settings in General > Email if you will be sending emails from RB9.

Options you can customize in System Preferences include:

• Company email address(es)
• Text of “Forgot Password” emails
• Upgrade to Standard or downgrade to Lite editions of RB9. This feature is only available to Administrators.
• Which credit card to use for your RB9 subscription payments. You can also view your billing history and pay overdue invoices.
• How many Named User Licenses access your RB9
• Login security — such as requiring strong passwords and 2FA verification
• How long RB9 saves messages sent internally
• How long a period of inactivity allowed before RB9 logs a user off automatically
• Company time zone default & other time zones to select
• Job confirmations & cancellations
• Task assignments & cancellations
• Job statuses displayed as calendar search options
• Future calendar emails
• Holidays observed
• Job & task calendar view options
• Job status colors
• Job status automatic updates
• New job defaults
• Overdue tasks emails
• Resource Blast (last minute job announcement emails & texts) contents and defaults
• Zoom account settings, preferences, and other customizations
• Envelope printing specs
• FedEx & UPS account information
• Repository publishing default & use tracking options
• RB Digital Signature Proxy settings
• Invoices, statements, and payment receipts & related emails’ contents and other invoice options
• LEDES 1998B exported files
• Reward points
• Pay statements & related emails’ contents
• Payment wait periods
• 1099 Form & check printing
• Direct deposit payment settings
• Default settings for new firms, contacts, & resources
• QuickBooks settings
• Company contact information for RB Network membership
• Email Logs tracking

System Preferences sections

With so many options to describe each section is broken out into a separate lesson:

• General
• Calendar
• Production
• Billing
• Receivables
• Payables
• Entities
• Tools

System Preferences vs. Lists

RB9 separates out list customization from other system preferences. If you want different options in a list you would make those changes in the Lists function. All other options are grouped by module under System Preferences.

Some System Preferences options work with Lists — such as the file types you can have RB9 automatically attach to assignment notifications. They are generated in Lists under Repository, which you can then select from in System Preferences under Calendar.

Personal preferences

Some system preferences can be overridden by personal preferences set by individual users. Preferences that only affect your individual RB9 setup are available under User Preferences.

TL;DR: Use RB9’s default options or customize these systemwide options to match your company.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

Administrator: RB9 user who has access to and control of all areas of RB. You can have any number of RB9 administrators but each RB9 system must have at least one administrator. Administrator rights include setting up user accounts, assigning users to groups (which authorize what actions users can perform in RB9 and what kinds of notifications and messages they receive), and setting global system preferences.

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 >

RB-PDF Transcript: PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features. More >

Users: You and your staff who directly access RB9.

Lesson #128

Setup – Exhibit Stamps function

Make stamp templates that can be applied to PDF exhibits when uploading them to RB9 which automatically include exhibit numbers and information from your RB9 database, and are customized to your specifications.

You can create as many different stamp templates as you need, then select a template that will apply serially numbered stamps to PDF exhibits when uploading to the Witness-level repository.

Stamp options include:

• Box size and color
• Border thickness and color
• Number of digits and leading character in exhibit numbers
• Text and RB9 data fields to include on the stamp
• Text styling (such as bold face, text size, and color)
• Where the stamp occurs in the document
• Where the stamp is placed on the page

You can also designate stamps resources can choose from to apply to exhibits when uploading them via RB Connect during turn in.

The default view in Exhibit Stamps is to list all of the stamps alphabetically in ascending order. Each listing includes:

• Stamp name
• Its position on the page
• Its occurrence in the document
• Preview
• Whether it is available to resources to use in RB Connect

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

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

TL;DR: Automatically stamp exhibits in RB9 with your custom serially-numbered stamps.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

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

Repository: RB9 has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval.

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

Lesson #126

Setup – PDF Transcript Stamps function

Make stamp templates that can be applied to RB-PDF Transcripts so you don’t have to switch to a different program to stamp a transcript “original” or “certified copy.”

Stamp templates can be styled with different text formatting, border treatments, and stamp colors. Create as many templates as needed. Update templates — or delete templates when no longer needed.

You can apply stamps to full-sized and condensed transcripts — as well as word lists and word indexes if you create them as separate documents. You can apply as many stamps to a document as you want.

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

TL;DR: Apply stamps like “original” or “certified copy” to PDF Transcripts and exhibits without leaving RB9.

RB9 concepts in this lesson

RB-PDF Transcript: PDF version of a transcript with built-in transcript-specific features. More >