Tag Archives: emailed lesson

Lesson #11

Calendar – Send Assignment Notifications/Cancellations function

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

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

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

Automatic attachments

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

Before sending notifications use System Preferences to customize the subject line, the message and whether the worksheet is included in the body of the email, as an attachment, or both. You can include any text you wish, embed contextual RB data fields such as job location and witness name, add images, and style the text with fonts, text treatments, sizes, and colors. You can also customize the subject line and contents of text messages with your own text and contextual data fields.

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

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

You can do the same customizations for assignment cancellations with the exceptions of no file attachments beyond the notice and no iCalendar file.

Emailing notifications

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

• A specific date or date range
• A single job number
• One or more job types
• One or more tasks
• One or more resource types
• One or more business units

The notification list displays each job’s number, date, task, start time, status, witness, resource, notified date, acknowledged date, ordering client, business unit, job type, and job location. Canceled assignments results also list the date each job was canceled.

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function 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.

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

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

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

RB9 concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson #10

Calendar – Resource Blast function

If a client calls and says they need a reporter in 2 hours, how would you find someone close enough and available to handle the job? In an urgent situation like this, use Resource Blast to send a single blast email and/or text message to a group of resources that you specify.

Target the best resources for the job

Use search criteria to optimize the list of message recipients:

• Job number
• Resource’s distance from job (can leave blank for online meetings)
• Single state, some states, or all states
• Resource’s priority level
• Resource type
• Specialty required
• Available resources only or all resources

The search results display resources that meet your criteria and for each resource includes how far in miles they are from the job location (except for online meetings), their email address(es), their mobile phone number & vendor, their priority level and resource type, the city/state they live in, and any warnings about the resource. You can click on any resource name in the results to view/update their listing in your RB database.

You can sort the results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order but when you exit the function, RB9 will revert back to the default order.

Select which resources in the list you want to contact and how you want to contact them by checking the email and/or SMS box next to their names. You can also export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

The message sent to the selected resources will automatically include pertinent job information like location and time. You can customize the default contents and settings for Resource Blast emails and SMS text messages in System Preferences. For example, you can automatically include case information or the witness name. You can also change individual messages on the fly before sending.

In System Preferences you can also designate the number of emails RB9 sends at one time to balance speed against spam filtering on your resources’ mail servers.

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

TL;DR: Use Resource Blast to send email and/or text-message blasts about last-minute jobs to a targeted group of resources instantly. Customize your messages to fit your company and resources.

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 >

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

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

Resource Type: Professions and other categories of resources.

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

Lesson #9

Calendar – Quick Assignments function

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

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

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

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

Assign then notify in one function

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tasks listed in Quick Assignments include information such as:

• Job number
• Job type
• Job status
• Job date
• Job time
• Job location
• Task times (if different from job times)
• Assigned resource
• Client
• Witness
• BU
• Any notes you’ve made about the task

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

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

Customize how you view assignment lists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson #8

Calendar – Resource Availability function

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

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

Search for a resource

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

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

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order but when you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order.

Include notes about time off

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

Quickly change a resource’s schedule

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

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

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

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

Resource Type: Professions and other categories of resources.

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

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

Concept #3

Notes Log

Log notes entered either by a user or automatically by RB appear in a chronological log in the database record where they occurred, such as a case, job, invoice, or entity. Log entries are your internal paper trail because every entry is stored and listed separately — and they cannot be edited nor deleted. Entries can only be canceled but remain in the log as a canceled entry.

Notes Logs are included in:

• Entities (Firms, Contacts, Resources, and Locations)
• Cases
• Jobs
• Witnesses
• Invoices
• Tracking
• Collections

Notes Logs are private

Notes Logs are for internal use only, and log notes are not published on RB Connect or in any correspondence with clients or resources. Notes to be shared with clients and resources — or internal notes that require high visibility such as information the production or billing staff need to know about a particular job — should be entered in other fields in RB dedicated to those purposes. However only notes in Notes Logs are unalterable.

You can set a date and time on any note in a Notes Log to have the system send you or another staff member a reminder about the note.

TL;DR: Notes Logs contain notes related to the record in which they are entered by a user or the system and are unalterable. They are for internal use only and are not shared by the system with clients or resources.

Related RB concepts

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

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

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

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

Concept #2

Task

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

Task examples

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

Non-task examples

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

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

Tasks simplify & speed up job scheduling while reducing errors:

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

Task information includes:

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

Tasks or linked jobs?

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

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

Related RB concepts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson #7

Calendar – Tasks (List View) function

In RB, when you schedule a job, you include any services requested — reporting, interpreting, video, conference room, etc. — as tasks in the job, not as separate jobs. That way if the job is canceled, all of the tasks are canceled too and nothing gets overlooked. You can also cancel individual tasks from a job without it affecting the rest of the job.

Monitor tasks

You can use either Tasks (List View) or Tasks (Monthly View) to monitor tasks to see if they have been entered, assigned, and acknowledged. In List View you can see at a glance this information and other basic job information in the main window.

The job status for each task is listed and color coded for easy recognition. RB comes with default sets of tasks and job statuses,which you can customize by adding, editing, and deleting entries. You can also choose which colors represent different job statuses, including different colors for light or dark mode displays, in System Preferences.

In either Tasks function you can:

• Add tasks. Tasks can have different time frames than their related jobs.
• Assign tasks to resources.
• Delete tasks (if no resource has been assigned).
• Remove assigned resources.
• Re-assign tasks.
• Cancel tasks (RB will prompt you to send the resource an assignment cancellation notice).

When you change a task’s start or end time — or assign or remove a resource — RB will record the details in the related job’s Notes Log.

In Tasks (List View) you can use shortcuts from the list of tasks to:

• Add a new task to the job.
• View the task.
• Go directly to the task’s Edit Task panel in its job.
• Record the current date and time as when the assigned resource acknowledged the job.
• Remove the date and time listed in the Acknowledged Date column.

Viewing tasks in a list

The default task list shows all of tomorrow’s tasks in a grid that includes:

• Task’s name, status, and any notes about the task
• Order date and canceled date
• Related job number, date, start & end times, notation, status, location, type
• Task start & end times if different from job’s start & end times
• Assigned resource, when they were notified, and when they acknowledged
• Ordering client
• Related case
• Assigned business unit
• Witness

Use search criteria to refine the list of tasks shown. Search criteria in List View include:

• Date type and date range
• Task type and status
• Assigned resource
• Job’s priority level
• Type of resource required
• Job number, status, and type
• Your company’s business unit
• Related case
• Include canceled tasks or not

Customize how you view tasks lists

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

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

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

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

Manage tasks

You can manage tasks in either Tasks function:

• Add an overlooked task to a job.
• Enter start and end times for a task that are different from its related job.
• Assign a resource to a task which RB records in the task’s Notes Log. If the scheduling client has preferred resources they appear at the top of the resource list. If the scheduling client has a list of blocked resources RB will alert you if you attempt to assign one and not allow the assignment. When a resource is assigned any warning about them appears beneath their name in the Task panel.
• Notify resources when they are assigned.
• Remind resources of assignments by resending notifications.
• Automatically record the current date and time when a task was acknowledged by a resource.
• Remove a task’s acknowledged date and time with one click if a mistake was made.
• Update the related job’s information including notes, contact information, location, and parties.
• Remove a resource from a task which RB records in the task’s Notes Log.
• Upload task-related files to a task’s repository for assigned resources to download.
• Update a task, such as setting resource acknowledgements’ date and time manually or entering page estimates. If you change a task’s start or end time RB will record the details in the related job’s Notes Log.
• Delete a task if no resource has been assigned.
• Cancel a task if a resource has been assigned.
• Reactive a canceled task and assign a new resource (you can cancel and reactive a task in one click if you are reassigning resources).
• Begin production turn-in.

When you cancel a task the assigned resource is automatically added back to your available resources list for new assignments and RB prompts you to alert the resource of the cancellation. In addition RB keeps track of when tasks were canceled. This will be helpful in cases where there is a cost incurred in late cancellations, such as a hotel’s conference room: You will have a paper trail to back up any cancellation fees charged to your client.

List View vs. Monthly View

Tasks (List View) shows the most information about tasks in the results, you can customize how the results are displayed, and it has more search criteria than Monthly View plus shortcuts to creating new tasks and setting/clearing task acknowledgements. List View will also display jobs that do not have tasks yet (such as “Request New” jobs from RB Connect).

Tasks (Monthly View) is similar to Jobs (Monthly View) and displays jobs by job number in a calendar page format so you can see your work schedule at a glance. Monthly View only displays jobs that have tasks and displays limited information in the calendar page. Rolling over a job number pops up basic information about the task, job, and case.

In both views clicking a displayed item opens the job detail screen with the View Task panel already open so you can see complete task details and edit if needed.

TL;DR: Use the Tasks (List View) function to monitor and manage tasks in a grid layout that shows the most task information at a glance. List View also has the most search criteria for finding tasks.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 reporters, videographers, interpreters, scopists, account executives, other agencies that cover jobs for you, or a conference room.

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

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

Lesson #6

Calendar – Send Job Confirmations/Cancellations function

As a courtesy to your clients— but also to check that your information is correct — send your clients Acknowledgements of Scheduling, AKA job confirmations, to let them know you have added their requested jobs to your calendar. You should also send cancellation confirmations for the same reasons.

In RB you can email these acknowledgements as they happen or save time by sending them in batches, especially if you deal with a volume of jobs every day or if it is your practice to confirm jobs the day before they are scheduled to take place. Use the Send Job Confirmations/Cancellations function to handle this process.

In Send Job Confirmations/Cancellations you can email job confirmations by day scheduled or job date (if you confirm jobs the day before they should occur). Cancellation confirmations are selected and sent by cancelled date.

The default list shows all jobs scheduled for today. Refine your confirmation list to a date range, single job number, particular job types, or specific business units. Search for canceled jobs using the same search criteria.

Automatic attachments

Confirmation and cancellation emails automatically include the confirmation/cancellation form. RB comes with default confirmation and cancellation forms that you can customize. You can also create your own.

Before using this function to send confirmations or cancellations use System Preferences to customize each type of notice’s subject line, the message, and whether the notice is included in the body of the email, as an attachment, or both. You can include any text you wish, embed contextual RB data fields such as the job date and case name, add images, and style the text with fonts, text treatments, sizes, and colors.

You can also automatically include an iCalendar file with the confirmation emails that clients can import into their own calendar. You can customize its subject line and description.

You can preview the emails before they are sent and attach other files when sending the emails. You can attach files from your desktop or from your RB Job-level Repository.

Managing confirmations & cancellations

When you send job confirmations or cancellations via email, RB makes an entry that includes the receiver’s email address in the job’s Notes Log. RB also records the email sent in the Email Log function in Tools (RB9 only) so you can refer back to it later.

After sending out job confirmation notices either singly or in batches, track the jobs in this function to follow up with clients and record their responses in each job’s status. You can double-check that tomorrow’s jobs are confirmed by reviewing the Status column at the end of the day for any jobs still waiting for a call-back or not confirmed.

In addition to the Status column the results grid displays each job’s:

• Number
• Date
• Ordering client
• Location (of in-person locations not Zoom details)
• Business unit
• Type
• Date created
• Date confirmed
• Case
• Witness

Canceled jobs also list the date the job was canceled.

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order but when you exit the function 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.

TL;DR: Use the Send Job Confirmations/Cancellations function to send acknowledgement emails to clients in batches at the end of the day then monitor the jobs’ statuses and follow up with clients.

RB concepts in this lesson

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

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

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

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

Notes Logs: 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. Log entries are your internal paper trail because every entry is stored and listed separately, and entries cannot be edited nor deleted.

Lesson #5

Calendar – Jobs (Monthly View) function

Monthly View displays a month’s worth of jobs at once in a calendar-page format. You can quickly get a feel for how full your calendar is with the total number of jobs scheduled and cancelled in each day’s square, and page back and forth through the calendar or jump to a specific month. Monthly View is also the best way to quickly locate a job when a client is on the phone asking about a job by date.

Jobs are color-coded by their status (new, in progress, billed, etc.). Roll over a job to see basic information like date and time, or click to see full details. Click the bar in a day’s box to see all jobs for that day in a list like List View.

Monthly View resizes dynamically to your browser window size — but if the window is too small vertically for the minimum size calendar page, the calendar page will scroll so the current week is visible as the default view. You can scroll the page and the top navigation bar will always remain accessible so you know which month you are in and can navigate to other months or back to today’s date.

Narrow which jobs are shown in the calendar by using Monthly View search criteria:

• Ordering Firm
• Ordering Contact
• Scheduling Contact (Scheduled By)
• Job Status
• Job Type
• Business Units
• Sales Representative
• Case
• Case Type
• Parent Firm
• Job Location
• Job Location City
• Job Location State

From the calendar you can add a new job, or view/update/turn in/cancel/reschedule existing jobs.

Set up options to match your business

RB comes with default sets of job statuses, job types, and case types, which you can customize by adding, editing, and deleting entries. You can customize how jobs are identified in the calendar and set a maximum number of jobs to display per day in System Preferences. You can also customize job color coding including different colors for light and dark mode.

Which view for you?

If you prefer to see more details on your schedule, a different range of dates than monthly, or need more search criteria, switch to List View. Or if you’d like to see jobs for the current week then week by week, switch to Weekly View.

TL;DR: Use Monthly View to see at a glance how busy your schedule is or to locate jobs quickly when clients call inquiring about a job by date.

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.

Case Type: Categories of cases by work type, e.g., Civil or Personal Injury.

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

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

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

Ordering Firm: Firm that is responsible for a job with your company.

Ordering Contact: Person at the firm that is responsible for a job with your company.

Scheduled By: Person who initiated a job with your company. Can be different from the Ordering Contact.

Lesson #4

Calendar – Jobs (List View) function

List View, as the name implies, displays your schedule as a list with important information about each job, such as date and time, client, and location, in a grid. You can also choose to view your schedule in a monthly calendar format (Monthly View) or a week at a glance (Weekly View).

List View displays more information about jobs in your schedule than other views with 21 fields for each listing, so you don’t have to click into individual jobs to find most relevant information. It also has more search criteria so you can refine which jobs are shown.

The default List View is all jobs for tomorrow. It displays:

• Job number
• Date
• Start and end times
• Time zone
• Location
• Job status
• Job type
• When the job was last updated
• Witness
• Ordering client
• Who scheduled the job
• Job task(s) & assigned resource(s)
• Related case
• Type of case
• Your assigned business unit
• Sales rep
• Your custom notation

List View search criteria are:

• Job Number
• Job Date range
• Ordering Firm/Contact
• Attending party (firm/contact)
• Scheduling Contact (Scheduled By)
• Job Status(es)
• Job Type(s)
• Witness
• Business Unit(s)
• Sales Representative
• Case
• Case Type(s)
• Parent Firm
• Job Location
• Job Location City
• Job Location State(s)
• Job Entered Date range
• Notation

Customize how you view your job listings

Group jobs by one or more parameters to more easily see the job information you want to know. For example, you could group jobs by Job Status, then Job Date to find your calendar priorities quicker. You can add additional grouping categories to the results, remove any grouping category, and re-arrange the grouping order.

You can also:

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

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

On a system wide basis, you can make additional customizations. Listings in List View are color coded based on their job status. You can create your own job statuses (RB9 comes with a set of defaults to get you started), plus designate which color each status has.

From the calendar, you can:

• Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.
• Add a new job.
• View/update/cancel/reschedule existing jobs.
• Send job confirmations.
• Change the status of a job.
• Begin turning in a job.

TL;DR: List View provides the most information on a single screen about all of the jobs displayed. If you want to search your calendar by job number, a date range other than monthly, or witness, use List View.

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.

Case Type: Categories of cases by work type, e.g., Civil or Personal Injury.

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

Firm: Company you do business with, such as a law firm that schedules depositions with you.

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

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

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

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

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

Ordering Contact: Contact at the firm that is responsible for a job with your company.

Ordering Firm: Firm that is responsible for a job with your company.

Scheduled By: Contact who initiates a jobs with your company. Can be different from the Ordering Contact.

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