Tag Archives: Tracking Steps

Lesson #124

Setup – Tracking Steps function

If you want to monitor jobs as they move through your production workflow — including the location of physical media such as DVDs — RB9 has a tracking function. Set up tracking items to match your production workflow, then define the steps each item goes through in your process. Once you have your tracking steps set up in this function, you can use Tracking to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

Tracking is a stand-alone function in RB9 so you have complete freedom in whether you use it or how you use it. If you want to track the status of service items like transcripts, exhibits, and video, you must first customize the module to fit into your workflow.

Set up tracking parameters

There are 6 steps in setting up tracking. The first step is to create categories of service items that your office produces and wants to track (such as DVD, Editing, Exhibit, Scanning, Synching, and Transcript). Set up tracking item types in Lists.

After setting up item types to be tracked, the second task is to create steps that each item type goes through in the production workflow. Use the Tracking Steps function to define the steps each item goes through in your production workflow so you can track jobs as they move through the process. If an item passes through different departments or staffers as it is produced and completed, you can add alerts to specific steps to automatically notify people when the item is their responsibility.

The Tracking Steps window lists all of the tracking item types you have set up. When you select an item to add steps or modify a step, any previously set-up steps are displayed. You can:

• Add steps.
• Edit or delete any step.
• Change the order of steps to match your workflow.
• Export the list of steps to an Excel or CSV file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

When adding a new tracking step, only the step name is required. We recommend giving each step a descriptive label so users can easily understand what each step means. You can also designate:

• Default turn-around time for the step.
• Whether the step is active (meaning it will appear in the Tracking function).
• Which staff member(s) RB9 should alert when a service item reaches the step.

For steps that involve handing work off to another person/department or that additional staff need to know a milestone has been achieved, set up alerts that RB9 will send to their RB9 inbox when the milestone is reached. You can notify multiple users about any step and add or delete users from the notification list for a step at any time.

Finish tracking setup

After setting up tracking steps, return to the Lists function to complete steps 3–6 of setting up your Tracking function by specifying codes for different areas in tracking:

• Archival Status codes describe the current archival status of original media, such as video tapes.
• Media Classification codes specify who has rights to view/handle the media.
• Media Format codes specify the types of media you produce, such as DVD or audio tape.
• Priority codes specify order of importance or urgency.

Once you have finished your tracking setup, you can start tracking jobs through your workflow in the Tracking function.

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

TL;DR: Define the steps each service item goes through in your production workflow so you can track jobs as they move through the process.

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 >

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

Lesson #110

Customize your RB setup

You can run your business using the setup defaults that RB includes. Or use this module to edit them, delete any you don’t need, and add your own options to tailor RB to your work processes. You can update any Setup function at any time. In this module, you can:

• Customize lists by adding, editing, merging, and deleting list entries. Set the default entry that appears in any field tied to a list.
• Set up users, store work-related and personal information about them, and give them user names and passwords to access RB. Group them according to their access levels and job functions, so they can perform their jobs and receive internal messages. 
• Customize the default Chart of Accounts to match your general ledger or accounting software.
• Set up service items and group related service items so you can locate them quickly in their subgroups when billing, instead of scrolling through a long, undifferentiated list of all miscellaneous service items.
• Enter billing, pay, and rush rates for services, including e-billing information.
• Set up billing rate groups for different categories of clients so you don’t have to scroll through all of your billing rate tables each time you invoice a client. Set up pay rate groups for resources too.
• Group service items into billing sets to speed up billable services selection because you only have to choose the set, not each of the items individually.
• Set the year’s pay dates and their corresponding cutoff dates for each pay period. 
• Create your own invoice headers and messages for different circumstances.
• Set up tracking items to match your production workflow, then define the steps each item goes through in your process.
• Define preferences for how your RB-PDF transcripts will appear and what options they will include. Create multiple transcript preference profiles to cover different transcript requirements.
• Create stamps like “Original” or ”Certified Copy” to apply to transcripts.
• If exhibit file names and exhibit references in transcripts follow a pattern, for example they are numbered consecutively, save production time by setting up those patterns before producing hyperlinked transcripts.
• Set up exhibit stamp templates that will automatically include RB job information and number PDF exhibits sequentially.
• Set global preferences for difference features in RB.

Setup functions by name

• Lists
• Users and Groups
• Chart of Accounts
• Service Item Subgroups
• Service Item Master
• Rush Type Master
• Billing Rates
• Pay Rates
• Billing Sets
• Pay Dates
• Invoice Headers
• Invoice Messages
• Tracking Steps – RB9-only function
• PDF Transcript Preferences – RB9-only function
• PDF Transcript Stamps – RB9-only function
• Link Exhibits Patterns – RB9-only function
• Exhibit Stamps – RB9-only function
• System Preferences

TL;DR: Customize RB to match your business better.

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 >

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.

Service items: Regular charges that you bill to your clients are called service items in RB.

Lesson #92

Reports – Tracking Productivity Analysis function

Do you want to find out how many items have been finished on time? Analyze productivity by different tracking metrics in this interactive report if you use RB9’s Tracking function to monitor service item production and management.

View items you are tracking in RB9 that have reached a milestone during a specific time period by item, step, manager, or resource in an interactive report that lets you see total entries in the selected category at a glance. Drill down to see quarterly and monthly milestone achievements and how many milestones were achieved on time, late, with no due date, or were canceled.

The default Tracking Productivity Analysis report lists all tracked items that finished a tracking step in the current month to date alphabetically. You can expand the view of a single item or the whole list to see the breakdown of milestones, so you can quickly gauge how well your staff hit productivity goals this month.

You can change the report to analyze milestones by tracking step, by managers (grouped by manager), or by resources (grouped by resource).

You can also change the report to:

• View longer/different time periods.
• Include quarterly breakdowns.
• View milestones for one or more of your company’s business units.

Like other interactive reports in RB9, you can quickly switch between detailed and summary views of the report. The initial results in the report are displayed as yearly totals by tracked item. You can “expand” the view to see the monthly (and quarterly, if desired) subtotals for all entries, and toggle between summary and monthly (and quarterly) views for individual years/quarters, or “collapse” all to the initial yearly view again.

You can also expand and collapse the tracked items to see breakdowns by timeliness (on time, late, etc.). You can toggle individual items between the collapsed/summary view and the breakdown-by-timeliness view.

If viewing the report by step, all items listed expand to display steps and their status. If searched by manager, all managers listed expand to display items and their status. If searched by resource, all resources listed expand to display items, steps and their status.

You can export the report in Excel format to save, share, use in other applications, or print.

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

TL;DR: See how many tracking items have been finished on time, by item, by step, by manager, or by resource.

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.

Manager: Used with the Tracking function, RB user responsible for overseeing a tracked item through the system.

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