Tag Archives: MR Connect

Lesson #147

Connect – Connect Preferences function

MR Connect comes with default settings for the overall system and its different functions. Some cannot be altered, but generally you can customize MR Connect to fit your company by editing, adding, and deleting options. Connect Preferences is where you set options for difference features in your MR Connect. Preferences can be updated at any time.

What you can do in Connect Preferences:

• Customize the contents, look, and feel of your MR Connect.
• Set up systemwide defaults and function defaults.
• Turn access to different functions on or off.
• Customize emails to users from various functions.
• Set up payment processing.
• Designate staff to handle various activities.
• Set options and restrictions for various activities.
• Look up and update your MR Connect information. (Not all information is editable, such as your site URLs.)

Customize preferences for information and feature options of your MR Connect.

General

General preferences include your MR Connect site name, its URL, the default address that MR Connect emails are sent from, which business units are connected to your MR Connect, and which one is the default.

License Info

You can name your MR Connect site to identify it in MR9 dropdowns. The other information under License Info is the URL for your MR Connect. These addresses are set by the system and not editable.

Email

In System Preferences, you set up a default email address (and possibly a list of shared addresses) to be used system-wide. All MR Connect communications will be sent from this default email account. If desired, designate one of the other shared email addresses as the source for automatic MR Connect emails.

Business Units for Contact

If your company has multiple business units (BUs), you can specify which BUs are connected to your MR Connect, and which one is the default. You can add and remove BUs at any time.

If you have multiple BUs (branch offices), it can be difficult for clients to choose the right one when they are entering requests. We recommend creating a dummy BU called “Connect Order” and make it the default BU for MR Connect. Then your staff will make the determination as to which BU should handle a request. You can sort these lists by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 will revert back to the default order). Export these lists of BUs as Excel or CSV files to share, save, print, or use in other applications.

Plug Ins

This section is reserved for future use.

Login

MR Connect sign-in preferences follow the same general security rules for log-ins as MR9, and offer the same customization options. Plus you can give users the option to sign in using social media.

In Connect Preferences, you can:

• Protect user accounts from hacking attempts by selecting a set amount (3–7) of incorrect login attempts before MR Connect locks out the user. (MR Connect preferences offer a Never Locked Out option, but we do not recommend this option as it is against general security rules for business applications to allow unlimited log-in attempts.)
• Require complex passwords that contain a minimum of 8 characters and include 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 MR9 users must change their password.
• If you require users to change their password periodically, allow them to keep using 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.
• Require users to verify their identity upon MR Connect 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 MR Connect 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.
• Allow contacts to sign into MR Connect using their Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn account.

Invitation Letters

When you enter contacts into MR9, you can send them invitation emails that include their user name and other MR Connect information — like how to set their password. You can change the default text of the header and body of these emails.

You can automatically insert relevant MR Connect data into the email message with contextual data fields for user name, login page URL, person’s name, place of business, etc. You can also customize the appearance of the message with text formatting, images, color, hyperlinks, and tables. You can edit your message contents in the default WYSIWYG word processor environment or as HTML markup.

Forgot Password Email

When contacts forget their MR Connect password, they can request a new password from the sign-in screen. MR Connect will automatically send them an email so they can reset their password. You can change the default text of the header and body of these emails.

You can automatically insert relevant MR Connect data into the email message with contextual data fields for who requested the reset, when they requested it, and the link to reset their password. You have the same appearance and content customization options for Forgot Password emails as for automatic email notifications in Invitation Letter.

Branding

Customize the look and feel fof your MR Connect site. Before you start using MR Connect, you must:

• Upload your company logo in 2 sizes: one for the login page and one for the header on all internal pages.
• Enter a title for your site.

Other customization options

In addition to the required customizations, you can further brand your site by:

• Adding text that will appear on the login page. You can customize the appearance of the text with formatting, images, color, hyperlinks, and tables. You can edit your text in the default WYSIWYG word processor environment or as HTML markup.
• Selecting the login page’s background color.
• Customizing the text and background colors of the main menu bar.
• Customizing the text and background colors of internal page headers.
• Customizing the text and background colors of results grid headers and footers.
• Customizing the background color of section headers.

You can preview your MR Connect pages before your contacts see them. When you are finished customizing and previewing pages, save your setup to go live with your choices. You can update your customizations at any time.

Contact–Announcements

Enter and format text for your contacts’ home page. You can further customize the appearance of the text with colors, images, hyperlinks, and tables. Edit Announcements in the default WYSIWYG word processor environment or as HTML markup.

Contact–Accessibility

Designate which areas of MR Connect contacts can access. The default is full accessibility but you can turn accessibility on or off for any area at any time. You can export this list of functions as an Excel or CSV file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

Contact–My Profile

Set up preferences for profile alerts:

Users to notify

Designate which staff members are alerted when a contact changes information in their profile in MR Connect. You can have any number of MR9 users alerted, and add or delete users at any time. You can export this list of users like the Contact-Accessibility list.

Contact–Attention

Set preferences for what tracking information contacts can view and who on your staff receives clients’ messages about orders in progress.

Contact–Orders

Set preferences for viewing orders in MR Connect: Whether clients can view the tracking status of individual order parts, and if so whether clients can see any notes your staff made about the current tracking step.

Contact–Account Activity

Set preferences for online invoice access and payment:

Options

For orders that have different Bill To and Sold To parties the default is only the Bill To party can view and pay the invoice. You can choose to allow both parties access to the invoice and/or allow both parties to pay the invoice.

Online Payment

For e-commerce MR Connect integrates with several online payment processing services including PayPal, Authorize.net, First Data, Square, and Stripe. If you want to offer online payment of invoices including COD invoices through MR Connect, you must set up an account with one of these services and enter your credentials here.

Users to notify for Online Payment

You have the same options here for staff alerts as under Contact-My Profile.

Payment Receipt Email

You can customize the emails that MR9 automatically sends to clients that notify them when you have received their online payment. You have the same customization options for payment receipt emails as for automatic email notifications in Invitation Letter — plus you can automatically insert relevant MR Connect data into the email Subject with contextual data fields for the related business unit and transaction ID.

Contact–Repository

Set preferences for contacts’ repository access and notifications:

Email notifications

You can customize the emails that MR9 automatically sends to clients that notify them when you have uploaded files to their order, part, record, or invoice repositories. You have the same customization options for repository upload emails as for automatic email notifications in Contact-Account Activity.

Users to notify

You have the same options here for staff alerts as under Contact-My Profile.

Others

Set preferences for downloading files:

• Files can be downloaded as soon as they are available or only when the original invoice tied to the files is paid in full.
• Clients initiating orders don’t have to pay in full before they can download records.
• Clients can have MR Connect automatically stamp the date and time when they downloaded a file.

Contact–Online Orders

Set preferences for records ordering:

General

• Select the default business unit that requests made by clients through MR Connect will be associated with.
• Allow clients to select locations in your MR9 Location database instead of having to type in where they want records from, subpoenas served, etc.

Users to notify

Choose which MR9 users are alerted when new order requests are received. You have the same options here for staff alerts as under Contact-My Profile.

New Order Notification

You can customize the emails that MR9 automatically sends to clients that notify them when you have received their online order. You have the same customization options for new order notification emails as for automatic email notifications in Contact-Account Activity.

Contact–Reward Points

If you offer reward points, designate which staff members are alerted when a contact requests reward point redemptions online. You have the same options here for staff alerts as under Contact-My Profile.

Contact–Support Tickets

Set preferences for contact support ticket notifications:

Ticket Notification

MR9 automatically emails clients when there is a response to their support ticket in MR Connect. You can change the default text of the Subject and Message of these emails. You can automatically insert relevant MR Connect data into the Subject and Message with contextual data fields. For example, you can automatically include the text of the latest reply so the contact does not have to go to MR Connect to see your reply.

You can customize the appearance of the email messages with the same options as the Contact-Account Activity section.

Users to notify

You have the same options here for staff alerts as under Contact-My Profile.

TL;DR: Set preferences for features of your MR Connect.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Award Points: Used to encourage clients to book with your agency by rewarding them with points for different services. If you have MR Connect, you can allow contacts to request point redemptions online.

Bill To Contact: The contact responsible for paying the invoice for a job. This contact could be the same as the Sold To Contact, but also could be a different person at the same firm or a person at a third-party firm that is paying the invoice such as an insurance agency.

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.

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

Repository: MR9 has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval. If you have MR Connect, you can give clients access to specific repository files.

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

Users: You and your staff who directly access MR9.

TL;DR: Customize the experience for contacts by setting MR Connect function preferences.

Lesson #146

Connect – Support Tickets function

Your clients can get help and support within MR Connect. They can look up information in the online user guide or they can contact you via support tickets to ask questions and get assistance, then track the resolution of their issues.

Manage MR Connect users’ questions and problems, and maintain a paper trail of their resolution in the Support Tickets function. Or you can choose not to use support tickets at all and have your clients on other methods such as phone calls, texts, and email to contact you about issues.

Set up your support tickets

To use support tickets in MR Connect, first turn on access for your contacts in Connect Preferences. Then set what your email responses to support requests say. You can make the email a generic alert that there is a response to their ticket in MR Connect; or include response information in the email.

You can insert MR9 data fields into the Subject and Message fields of the email so your responses automatically include relevant information. For example,you can include the data field that will insert the text of the latest reply so the user does not have to go to MR Connect to see your reply.

Designate who on your staff will be alerted when a support ticket comes in. The staff you list can use the Support Ticket function whenever they are alerted to a ticket or as fits their work process to handle support requests received online.

Managing support tickets

The default view in the Support Tickets function lists all requests awaiting your response from the most recent to the oldest. Each listing includes:

• Ticket number
• Current status
• Who initiated the ticket
• Subject line of the ticket
• When it was issued
• When it was last updated
• Any rating from the user

You can sort the list by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 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 the list by:

• Tickets you are waiting for the user’s response to, tickets the user has closed and rated your response, and/or tickets you have resolved/closed (in addition to the default view of tickets awaiting your response).
• Tickets initiated during a specific date or date range.
• Tickets from a single firm or contact.

Click the hyperlinked ticket number of any ticket to read the message, view the message thread, and follow up. When you send your reply, the support ticket’s status automatically changes to Pending Customer Response, leaving it open while waiting for the user’s response unless you choose to close the ticket. If you close the ticket, you can include an explanation in your follow-up comment that is sent to the user.

When you reply — whether you are furthering the conversation or closing the ticket — MR9 updates the user’s support ticket log in their MR Connect and records your reply in the ticket’s thread so you have a paper trail.

TL;DR: Manage MR Connect users’ questions and problems, and keep a paper trail of their resolution. 

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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

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

Lesson #145

Connect – Activity Log function

MR9 tracks activities by contacts on MR Connect. This interactive report lists firms and their contacts who use your MR Connect and how often they access your MR Connect site during a specified period.

Monitor user activity

Activity Log defaults to listing all of the firms whose contacts accessed your main MR Connect site during the current month to date. The results show the number of times each firm’s contacts accessed your site during the month, with additional columns for the current year and a grand total column. At the bottom of the list is a grand total row for how many times all of your clients accessed your MR Connect during the month.

You can click any firm name in the report to have it expand to list all of the firm’s contacts who accessed your site through either MR Connect. And you can export the results as an Excel spreadsheet to save, print, share, or use in other applications.

You can change the date range you want to view activity for. If you choose a longer date range, the initial results will be the year’s total, and you can drill down to see the month-by-month breakdown. If desired, you can have the interactive report break down the results by year, quarter, and month instead.

If you have additional MR Connect sites, you can view the same activity breakdowns for each of those sites.

TL;DR: See who is using your MR Connect and how often they access it.

MR concepts in this lesson

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

Firm: Company you do business with.

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

Lesson #141

Connect – Fulfill Points Redemption Orders function

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

In MR9, 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 MR9 reward points system is an optional service you can enable.

Before setting up reward points in MR9, 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 MR Connect .

View requests & redeem points

Use the Fulfill Points Redemption Orders function to grant requests clients make through MR Connect 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, MR9 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 MR Connect display their request as completed so they know they can expect a delivery. MR9 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.

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

MR9 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.

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

Lesson #140

Connect – Publish COD Invoices function

If you allow clients to make payments via MR Connect, 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 mobily, 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 MR9 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 MR Connect. 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 MR Connect in the Publish COD Invoices function. The default view shows all outstanding COD invoices. (Invoices are designated as COD in Turn In.) For any invoice listed, you can see at a glance the invoice date and amount, if it has already been published to MR Connect, when the invoice was sent to the client, the Bill To and Sold To clients, the job number and date, case name, and your assigned business unit.

You can narrow the list to invoices generated within a range of dates, a single invoice number, order 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, MR9 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 MR9, 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 MR Connect is no online payments. If you want to offer online payment of invoices, including COD invoices, through MR 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 MR9, 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 MR9, you must choose which users are alerted in MR9 when a contact makes a payment online. You can also customize the email subject and message for payment receipt notices to clients.

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

MR9 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.

MR Connect: Online repository, orders, and access to your office for clients. 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.

Plug-in #1

Online offices for clients & others

MR Connect, formerly MR Web, is the optional MR9 plug-in that gives clients and others online access to essential information in your office, like orders, locations, records and other case files, and billing information.

With MR Connect, information is available instantly whenever your clients want it with no effort on your part. And it’s always up to date because it comes directly from your MR9. Plus MR Connect reduces production and delivery costs because clients can download information as needed.

In addition to looking up and downloading information, your clients can order records, pay invoices, and monitor order progress. If you offer client loyalty awards, they can manage and redeem points.

Customize to meet your needs

Customize your MR Connect before opening it to your clients and others. You can:

• Change the site’s content to communicate your message, share company news, provide extra help, etc.
• Change the site’s appearance (colors, logos) to match your company website.
• Choose which functions clients can access.
• Set up lists of services clients can select from.
• Customize automated emails clients receive.

Because MR Connect is browser based, your clients do not have to install anything on their computers or laptops to access your MR Connect. All they need is your MR Connect URL and their sign-in credentials. It works in all major browsers and on any operating system. They can customize some options in their individual MR Connect accounts, such as whether to view their MR Connect in dark or light mode.

Users can change their password themselves whenever they wish or if they forget their password. And you can offer social media sign-in as an option so they have one less password to remember.

Increase site security

You can incorporate one or more of these measures to make your MR Connect site more secure:

• Require users to periodically update their password. You choose how often they must reset their password and whether or not you allow them to reuse the same password.
• Lock user out of the account after x number of incorrect log-in attempts. You set the number of attempts you will allow, and the user must contact you to unlock their account.
• Require strong passwords.
• Add two-factor authentication (2FA), which requires that the user enter a verification code (received on their phone or in an email) along with their ID and password before accessing the site on a new device. The end user can choose to verify their device each time or recognize their device as a trusted browser.

MR Connect highlights:

Online case repositories

Give clients online access to their files. Win new clients by offering them the same service during the pre-discovery period.

E-commerce

Clients can pay invoices, including CODs, online. Copy clients can pay online, then download records.

Personalized dashboards

Upon sign-in, users are greeted by their dashboard which gives them news from your company and direct access to their:

• Top 10 recent orders
• Top 10 orders with most recently uploaded records
• Total accounts payable

Users can resize and rearrange the layout of the different panes in their dashboard, then save their personalized layout.

Additional features

Depending on the access preferences you set, your clients can:

• See at a glance the status of any order including which orders have been canceled.
• Upload notices.
• Request records either by copying and updating existing orders or from scratch. (They can also set some defaults to minimize time spent entering job information.)
• Use search criteria, such as case, patient, or client matter number, to limit which orders are displayed and/or find a specific entry.
• View any order’s details.
• Download records and other files.
• Order records.
• Look up outstanding and paid invoices. View invoice details including payment history and current outstanding amounts.
• Pay invoices. COD clients can download transcripts after paying online.
• Use search criteria such as case name, invoice date, and open
  or paid invoices, to limit which listings are displayed and/or find a specific invoice.
• If you offer reward points they can see their current points balance, pending amounts and history, and make requests to redeem or transfer points.
• Ask questions and track the resolution of their issues with the support ticket system.
• Look up information in the contextual User Guide.
• Update their contact information.
• Set personal preferences such as how many rows to display in a single page of results.

Adding MR Connect to MR9

MR Connect is available by subscription, month-to-month contracts, no long-term obligations, and can be canceled anytime.

If you have MR9 set up and working, you are ready to add MR Connect. MR9 and MR Connect reside in the cloud, so you do not need any hardware or software except a computer, laptop, or mobile device connected to the Internet through one of the major browsers to run MR9 and MR Connect.

All anyone needs to access your MR Connect site is a computer, laptop, or mobile device with Internet access through a browser, and your MR Connect URL, which is similar to your MR9 URL. It will have the same base name, but end in “.contact”.

TL;DR: Online repository, calendar, and access to your office for clients, including downloadable records, order status, downloadable invoices and e-commerce.

MR9 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 — such as attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, legal assistants, claim adjusters, and court clerks.

Lesson #138

Manage your MR Connect online offices

If you have the MR Connect plug-in, this is the module you use to manage your MR Connect online offices. In this module, you can:

• Invite contacts to use your MR Connect.
• Import client orders from MR Connect into MR9
• Allow COD clients to pay for and download transcripts online.
• Fulfill online reward point requests.
• Manage users’ questions and problems and maintain a paper trail of their resolution.
• See who is using your MR Connect and how often they access it.
• Customize the experience for contacts by setting function preferences.

Connect functions by name

• Send Invitations
• Import Online Orders
• Publish COD Invoices
• Fulfill Points Redemption Orders
• Support Tickets
• Activity Log
• Connect Preferences

TL;DR: Used for providing services through the MR Connect plug-in.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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

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