Tag Archives: MR9

Lesson #172

Tools – Merge History function

You can merge certain types of MR data into similar entries in MR9’s database. When you merge a firm/contact/location into another one, MR9 records the event. Use this function to find merged entries, when they were merged, and by which staff member.

You can find all of the contacts, firms, or locations that were merged in any specified time period. Instead of using the Notes Finder to search for the word “merge” in the Notes Logs of the different entities, this function simplifies the search and the results returned while still giving you easy access to the individual Merge To entry’s data.

Review merge history

The default search is for any firms that were merged in the last 30 days. Any merger listed in search results displays:

• Name of the entry that was merged
• Name of the entry that was merged into
• Who on your staff did the merger
• Time and date of the merger

Use the search filters to find other mergers. You can search for mergers of several types of data including:

• Contact
• Firm
• Location

In addition to choosing which type of data to find mergers of, you can change the date range from the current month to any date range.

You can sort the list in ascending or descending order of any column by clicking the column’s header. Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

In addition to the information that is displayed in the search results, you can click any listing to view its entire entry in your MR9 database and optionally update its information.

TL;DR: Review mergers of cases, contacts, firms, and locations for the current month or any date range. Update individual entries’ listings if desired.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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.

Location: Place where records are stored — such as hospitals, schools, doctors’ offices, or businesses.

Lesson #171

Help – Suggest Ideas function

When you get an idea for improving MR9, you can ensure your idea has the best chance of being implemented by getting it discussed and voted for in this online forum. All MR9 users can participate in improving MR9 by using this function. Submit your suggestions, respond to other users’ ideas, and vote for those you would like to see incorporated in MR9. OMTI’s development team monitors this forum (previously called Idea Collaborator) and considers these suggestions when developing new MR features and functionality.

Suggest Ideas strategy

Because ideas with the highest scores are more likely to be implemented, it’s best to check the forum first for ideas like your own before submitting your idea. That is because having similar ideas in the forum runs the risk of diluting each idea’s score. So always look at what other MR users are suggesting first. You can add your input to these ideas — for example if an idea is similar but not exactly like your idea then add your unique aspects in a comment on the idea — and vote for the ones you would like to see implemented.

If you can’t find an idea like yours, then submit it to the forum — follow the guidelines to increase its likelihood of success, such as only one idea per request — and monitor how it does. You can see what other users say about your idea and respond — plus answer any questions the development team has about your idea. You can also check your idea’s status to find out if it is accepted, in development, implemented, or rejected.

Review existing ideas

The default view in Suggest Ideas is all ideas that have been submitted by any user — except those that have been implemented or rejected by OMTI’s development team. You can sort the list in ascending or descending order of any column by clicking the column’s header. Export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

Use the search filters to find specific ideas. You can search by:

• Who suggested an idea: Everyone, just yourself, or just your company
• Where the idea is in the development process — for example: new ideas, implemented ideas, rejected ideas, and ideas the development team is considering, is implementing in a future version, or that they have questions about.
• All modules or a specific module.
• All functions, all functions in a specific module, a specific function in a module, or a new function for the selected module.
• Idea number
• Idea title

The list of ideas includes each idea’s title and description, category, current status, how many votes it has gotten, and when it was last commented on.

Comment & vote on existing ideas

You can view, comment on, and vote for any ideas listed in this function. When you view an idea’s details you can see a thread of comments by other users and the development team. If you enter a contribution to the discussion you can format the text of your comment, add URLs, and include screenshots and other images. If you like an idea, be sure to leave a comment on it and vote for it.

When you submit a comment, it appears in the suggestion’s threads and MR9 sends you an email acknowledging your comment. If you voted, your vote is added to the Votes/Score counts in the suggestion. Votes and scores are different categories: Votes are the total of all users who voted for an idea. Score counts unique agency votes. So the 1st person from an agency to vote for an idea gives the idea 1 Vote point and 1 Score point. If another user from the same agency votes for that same idea it gives the idea another vote, but doesn’t increase the score.

Votes help OMTI keep tabs on how many people overall view, respond, and like ideas. Score tells OMTI how many agencies like an idea, which is one of the metrics used in considering which ideas to research and develop.

Submit your own ideas

If you don’t find an existing idea like yours, use this function to submit your idea directly to OMTI’s development team from within MR9. You will have a record of your suggestion, its development status, and other users’ comments and votes. Plus you can have a dialog with the development team about your idea if they reach out to you.

When submitting an idea, start by selecting the MR9 module that your idea applies to, then the specific function that your idea applies to. If you want to suggest adding a function instead of improving an existing function, you can indicate that instead.

When you select those options, ideas submitted previously for the same function appear. This gives you one more chance to check that your idea isn’t a duplicate. If you do find a similar idea, you can comment and vote on the existing idea instead of adding a new suggestion.

If you do not find a similar idea to piggyback on, then enter your new idea following the guidelines on the screen to increase the likelihood of your idea’s success. Your idea will be posted in the forum with a status of New.

TL;DR: Submit your ideas for improving MR9. View, comment on, and vote for others’ ideas. Ideas with the most community approval are more likely to be incorporated into future versions of MR9.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Module: Group of related work functions.

Lesson #170

Help – Report Issues function

Ask questions and make requests online with support tickets that maintain a paper trail of your issues and MR9 support responses. After making an inquiry, you can track its progress and continue the discussion with us online. When the issue has been resolved, close the ticket. You can re-open closed tickets to resume the conversation whenever you want.

Start a new ticket

When starting a new ticket, you just need to enter its topic and details. You want to give it a descriptive title so it will be easier to find when you have multiple inquiries. Write a detailed description too which will help us understand your inquiry and resolve it sooner. You can format your description, add hyperlinks, and include screenshots or other images to help communicate your issue.

When you submit your ticket, it is issued a number and placed in your queue.

Quickly follow up on existing issues

The default view in Report Issues is a list of any unresolved inquiries so you can immediately see the status of an issue and follow up. Each ticket listed shows its ticket number, topic, current status, when it was issued, and when it was last acted upon. If you cannot find the ticket you want, you can search your tickets by:

• Whether it is open or closed (resolved).
• The date or date range when it was issued.
• Its topic — you only have to search for part of the title.

Report Issues will display all of your tickets that meet the search requirements. Sort the list in ascending or descending order of any column by clicking the column’s header. You can export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

Review any ticket’s details and respond/add more information. Each ticket has a conversation thread that includes all responses with their date, time, and responder’s name so you can easily follow the discussion. When commenting you can format the text, add hyperlinks, and include screenshots or other images just like when you entered the initial description.

When an issue has been resolved or you no longer need it to be an active inquiry, you can close its ticket and include the reason. You can always re-open the ticket at a later date if you want to continue the conversation.

TL;DR: Find step-by-step tutorials for many functions as well as solutions to error messages and other problems.

Lesson #169

Help – FAQ/KnowledgeBase function

Find answers to common questions about MR9 and MR Connect. Step-by-step tutorials for many MR9 functions as well as solutions to error messages and other problems are some of the articles you can find here.

The FAQ/KnowledgeBase function groups all of its articles by MR9 module, plug-in, or other category so you can search for information by general topic area. The list of these subdivisions includes how many articles are in each of them.

Selecting one of these areas reveals a list of all the related KnowledgeBase articles. Each article in the list includes an excerpt to help you located the information you are looking for. You can sort the list in ascending or descending order of any column by clicking the column’s header. You can also export the list as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, share, use in other applications, or print as a report.

Some articles — such as tutorials — include screenshots and other images to make the contents more understandable. You can read any article within this function or send  articles to yourself and others via email directly from within MR9. You can include other files in your MR9 repository as attachments to the email if desired.

TL;DR: Find step-by-step tutorials for many functions as well as solutions to error messages and other problems.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Module: Group of related work functions.

Lesson #163

Connect – Send Invitations function

Use Send Invitations to invite contacts to your MR Connect by emailing them customized letters that include their user name and other pertinent information. Customize the invitation forms with your own content, MR9 data fields, text formatting, and images.

Setting up invitations

Increase the likelihood and success of people using your MR Connect by including important information in your invitations, such as how to set their password. You can also customize the email to include other information like a site orientation. Include your company logo and other branding too. You can also customize the default subject lines to include your company name and/or the name of your MR Connect if you call it something else.

After customizing your invitation templates, use Send Invitations when you have new contacts to give them access to your MR Connect without waiting until you have business to conduct with them online.

The default list in Send Invitations is all contacts entered today. You can use search filters to find a single contact, contacts at a single firm, or search a different date or a date range.

Listings in the results include the entity’s name, city, state, email address, login name, and the date they were entered into MR9. The results also include the name of the firm where they work.

You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 will revert back to the default order).

From the results grid you can view and update anyone’s details, send invitations, and export the grid as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.

Sending invitations

You select who to invite by checking their box(es) in the list or checking the box in the header to select them all. (If there is no box next to an entity’s name, that means the entity is missing contact information in their profile. Click the hyperlinked entity to add their contact information to their profile.)

You can preview emails before they are sent. You can edit an email’s subject line and message, change the recipient and sender, add Cc’s and Bcc’s, and attach files before sending the email.

After sending the email, MR9 notes the result in the Send Invitations grid, and records the email sending in the entity’s Notes Log.

TL;DR: After entering contacts into MR9, email them targeted invitations to MR Connect that automatically includes their login credentials and onboarding info.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

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

Notes Logs: Un-editable internal-use only notes entered either by a user or automatically by MR9 appear in chronological logs in the database record where they occurred. More >

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

Lesson #162

Receivables – Send Payment Receipts function

After posting payments for outstanding invoices, send receipts to clients. You can customize the subject line and contents of your company’s email receipt, then use this function to automatically send receipts to clients.

In Send Payment Receipts, the post date defaults to today and the recipient defaults to Bill To clients (companies responsible for paying the invoices). You can select a different date to view payments for and change the recipient to Sold To clients (companies that ordered your services or are otherwise responsible for an order). You can also restrict the results to only payments posted by a specific staff member.

Payments in the results list include:

• Post date
• Payment type
• Check number
• Amount
• Who issued the check (if different from the Bill To firm)
• Who posted the payment
• When posted

With a click you can view which invoice(s) any payment in the list has been applied to, along with invoice information such as:

• Invoice amount
• Balance
• Any adjustments made
• Fees
• Additional charges
• Basic client info

Automatic email receipts

Select all the posted payments or only specific ones to send receipts for. Payment receipt emails will automatically include the payment receipt as the body of the message. MR9 comes with a default payment receipt form that you can customize. Or you can create your own. Customize the Subject line of payment receipt emails with default text and MR data fields in System Preferences. 

You can preview the emails before they are sent. In preview mode, you can:

• Edit the subject line
• Edit the message
• Change the recipient
• Change the sender
• Add Cc’s and Bcc’s
• Attach files

After sending the email, MR9 notes the result in the Send Payment Receipts grid, and records the email in the Email Log so you can refer back to it later.

TL;DR: Send clients customized receipts acknowledging posted payments.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Bill To client: Client responsible for paying the invoice for an order.

Sold To client: Client responsible for an order with your company

Lesson #158

Personal – Log Out function

MR9 automatically logs you out of the program after a certain period of inactivity for security reasons. You can also manually log out of MR9. For example, when you want to switch to working on a different computer or are finished working for the day.

However before using this function to log out, be sure to save your work: MR9 does not automatically save your work for you whether it logs you out automatically or you log out manually.

Lesson #157

Personal – Close All Tabs function

Every time you log out of MR9, MR9 automatically closes all open tabs (MR9 functions). However while working in MR9, all functions you open stay open unless you specifically close them.

You can close individual tabs one at a time; or if you have too many tabs open you can close them all at once with this function to clear your window while staying in MR9.

(The opposite function of Close All Tabs in MR9 would be Startup Functions in User Preferences. With this feature you can specify up to 5 functions you want to open automatically every time you sign into MR9.)

Lesson #155

Personal – Locked Data function

To prevent two or more people from working on the same data at the same time and overwriting each other’s work when they save, MR9 “locks” data when someone accesses it so that only that person can edit it until they save, cancel, or close the data window. You can use this function to release a lock to switch access from the current user to yourself.

When you attempt to access data that another user is already accessing, you can view the data but you cannot edit it. If you attempt to edit the locked data, MR9 displays a popup that tells you the data is currently being edited and identifies who is editing it.

If you can’t wait for the other MR9 user to finish — and you can’t contact them to save their work and “unlock” the data but you need immediate access — you can use this function to override a lock to access the data. We don’t recommend this except as an emergency procedure because it overrides anything the other user has entered but not saved yet.

This function displays all currently locked data showing who is using what data in which database and when they started using it. 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.

TL;DR: Only one person at a time can edit data in an MR9 function but you can use this function to switch access to yourself in an emergency.

MR9 concepts in this lesson

Users: You and your staff who directly access MR9.

Lesson #154

Personal – Change Password function

Like most online services, to log in to MR9 you need a login name and password. You cannot change your login name yourself but you can change your password at any time using this function. You can also change your password at log-in if you forgot it so you are not locked out of the system.

We recommend using strong passwords for better security meaning your password should:

• Be at least eight characters long.
• Contain characters from each of: upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numerals, and symbols.
• Not contain your name, login name, or birthday.
• Not contain 3 or more characters in sequence (e.g., 123 or abc).

It is good business practice to change your initial password to a strong password that only you know and to change it periodically. You can change your password as often as you like — plus your system administrator might require you to reset it periodically (although they might allow you to reset it to your current password). When you change your password no one else will know it nor can it be retrieved from the system.

Don’t know your password? Use Forgot Password

If you forget your password, you can ask your system administrator to issue a new one for you — or you can save time and generate a new one yourself by using the Forgot Password function on the log-in screen.

If your log-in name is in the system, MR9 will send you an email with a link for resetting your password. This also works if you weren’t given a password: If you are in the system, MR9 will allow you to access the Forget Password function to set a password so you can use MR9 without waiting for an administrator.

When you use Forgot Password it will require you to not only submit a new password but also prove you are a person and not a bot by entering text in a Captcha field.

Using Forgot Password is a good way to avoid account lock-outs when you don’t remember your password. If you attempt to log into MR9 with an incorrect password too many times, MR9 will lock you out of the system. And the only way to unlock your account is to contact an administrator. Instead of going through this hassle you can use Forgot Password to set a new password before you get locked out of your MR9 account.

Changing your login name

If your login name is not your email address, you can ask your system administrator to change your assigned login name if you want a different one. MR9 will not allow you to choose a login name that is already in the system but otherwise if the system is not using your email address for your login name you can have that customized that too.

MR9 automatically displays the last logged-in username on the Login screen so you will only have to enter your password in the future after entering your new login name.

TL;DR: If you forgot your password or never had one, use Forgot Password on the login screen. Otherwise use this function to change your password at any time for better security and/or to a password you prefer.