Tools highlights
Tools module functions cover a wide range of areas. Some work throughout your entire RB9, such as tools that search your database for different types of information, some affect a single module, such as Entities’ tools for importing and updating your entities’ listings, some are for single functions, such as label templates, and some are simply back office operations, like downloading backup files.
Import your address book into RB9
Instead of re-keying your existing client and reporter/
Quickly update multiple listings at once
Bulk Update is a stand-alone function in RB9 for mass updating jobs, firms, contacts, resources, and locations. Depending on the type of listing you are updating, you have different options, although some are the same. For example, in addition to bulk updating the Sales Rep on a set of jobs, you can bulk update the Sales Rep for a selected group of firms or contacts.
Depending on the type of entity you select, you can update a lot of options. Firms have the most: You can bulk update over 20 fields in firm listings, such as Account Status, Sales Tax Rate, Finance Charge Rate, and the method you use for sending them statements.
Create & manage templates for labels
Modify default label templates and create new ones.Label Templates is where you store all of your company’s label templates that are used elsewhere in RB9, such as Production’s Envelopes and Labels function.
Everyone has access to the same label templates when printing labels from RB9, and you won't lose your label templates when transferring to a new computer because they are stored in the cloud. In addition to included label templates, you can create your own label templates in DYMO software and upload them here.
Customize forms & letters used in RB
Create forms and letters using the set of customizable templates in a word processor with mail merge that automatically incorporates your RB data. In addition to the default set of forms and letters, you can import forms or create your own from scratch. The Form Templates function includes a lot of customization options so you will be able to create forms and letters that fit your business.
What’s in RB9’s Form Templates:
- Set of forms organized by type: All forms are organized by type, which are listed on the side of the function, so you don’t have to click through screens and drop-downs to find the form you need. Plus you can create your own groups of forms within those types to further organize your forms.
- Easy-to-find visual customization tools: You can easily customize forms to look the way you want. Tools are grouped in major categories on tabs, and each tab has all tools visible and organized in subgroups, so you minimize searching for a particular one.
- Several types of data fields:
- Contextual data fields are available in templates. Only data fields that relate to the template being edited appear in the list of data fields to add. You don’t have to search through 100s of options that don’t apply each time you create or update a template.
- List Data Fields let you create tables in your form of related merge fields that you select. You can also select the order the fields appear as columns in the table, or have the information display in paragraph format. So you can easily add a list of parties scheduled to appear to a Job Worksheet, that includes each party’s firm’s name, the party’s email address, party type, and services requested.
- You can also insert Special Fields, which allow you to customize their formatting, such as a Date field that you can select the order and appearance of day/month/year, and even include time stamps.
Create your own reports
Use QueryMaker to perform custom searches of your RB database, then create simple custom reports from the results.
Query Maker is a tool for creating your own report from a single table (e.g. Cases, Firms, or Payroll) in your RB database. It also offers a few multi-table report options, such as Firm+Contact and Invoices+Jobs+Cases, which allow you to select fields from more than one table to generate a report.
While RB9 includes many reports, we cannot generate every report possible due to the thousands of data fields within RB. So we give you a list of all the tables so you can create and run your own simple reports in Query Maker.
You can set up multiple conditions in one query to find the exact results you want. For example, you could find all of your active preferred contacts. You can save your queries to re-use later, share queries you create, use pre-existing queries so you don’t have to start from scratch, and export your reports to Excel or as generic CSV (comma separated values) files.
With the multi-table options, you can create reports that combine data from 2 or more tables. For example, use the Firm+Contact option to create a report listing all the contacts with the firm address instead of their home addresses.
If you want to create more complex reports or use your RB data in another application, add the Data Reader plug-in, or ask OMTI Sales about developing a custom report for your business.
Use RB9 data in QuickBooks
Import contacts, resources, invoices, paychecks, payments, and other transactions from RB9 directly into QuickBooks. You don’t have to export RB9 information and then import it to QuickBooks if you set up the QuickBooks Integrator in RB9 to work directly with QuickBooks.
More Tools functions
The RB9 Tools module contains other tools that give you the ability to:
- Use tags (keywords or phrases) to organize entities like clients or resources, then email or print labels for tagged groups.
- Create templates of boilerplate text to fill notes fields in cases and jobs.
- Search for notes made in notes logs systemwide.
- Monitor repository usage by in-house staff as well as by clients and resources via RB Connect as required by general security rules for business applications.
- Save copies of your RB database to your hard drive/server.
- View lists of emails sent from RB9 and look up details about each automatic email sent.
Want to learn more about RB Tools?
You can find out more about the Tools module in ReporterBase 101, which contains lessons about every module, function, plug-in, and concept in RB9.
ReporterBase 101 comes in 2 versions: weekly email lessons and a website, the RB9 Primer, where all the lessons appear. You can sign up to have an RB lesson delivered to your inbox each week. And you can also look up anything on the website, where lessons are grouped by module or concept.
What RB9 Tools functions are in RB Lite?
Check the comparison chart to see which of these functions are included in RB Lite.
