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Last updated: 2025-09-19


Fast Classes

Fast Classes spotlight advanced tools and functionality and serve as a supplement to the Core Courses offered in the Training Movies section.


Fast Classes by Topic



Contact Management


Adding a Dynamic Report to a Dashboard

Adding a Dynamic Report to the dashboard makes it easy to view important information anytime during the day.

Runtime: 4:31 |


Adding Content to the Dashboards

In addition to creating Home Page Themes, you can customize your SmartOffice home page to include helpful resources, RSS feeds, pictures, pie charts and Dynamic Reports.

Runtime: 9:04 |


Advanced Search

With Advanced Search, you can perform focused searches based on specific criteria such as a phone number or e-mail address. You can also search a number of categories, including policies, pending cases, investments, advisors, and even activities. By using Advanced Search, you can often find a combination of search results without having to run a Dynamic Report.

Runtime: 7:56 |


Appending SmartPad Notes

Learn how to add additional content to a SmartPad record while preserving the content and date of the original note.

Runtime: 2:00 |


Assigning Dashboards

In addition to sharing dashboards with an entire office, SmartOffice administrators are able to assign dashboards to specific users.

Runtime: 2:57 |


Changing Area Codes

When an area code change happens, hundreds of phone numbers captured in SmartOffice can be affected. The Area Code Change tool makes it possible to quickly change area codes in SmartOffice in a few simple steps.

Runtime: 4:47 |


Checking for Duplicates

The Duplicate Records tool in SmartOffice checks for duplicate contacts, businesses, advisors, agencies and tax IDs, allowing you to modify, delete or merge any duplicates found. You can also easily create a customized duplicate detection method.

Runtime: 7:10 |


Comprehensive New Contact Feature

One of your contacts has just given you a referral for a family whose members would make ideal prospects. Rather than add each family member separately, you can use the New Contact Comprehensive button to create all of the contact records at once, join them in a new household record, add professional relations, link the household to an opportunity and add SmartPad notes!

Runtime: 6:40 |


Copying SmartPad Notes

Need an important note posted to multiple contacts? Copy a SmartPad note from one contact and add it to the SmartPad of another contact in SmartOffice.

Runtime: 2:44 |


Creating a Birthday Report

Don't let a client's birthday slip by you! Birthday reports can help keep you up to date on client birthdays coming up in the next few days, weeks, or months.

Runtime: 2:41 |


Creating a Trust Record

Creating trusts in SmartOffice is a great way to track trust relations, view SmartPad notes related to the trust or track the status of an account or policy linked to a trust.

Runtime: 6:27 |


Dependent vs. Contact Record

What are the differences between dependent records and contact records in SmartOffice? In this class, learn the different ways to add a dependent record, search for dependents, and convert dependents to full contact records in SmartOffice.

Runtime: 7:17 |


Exporting List Data

Export tools in SmartOffice Pro make it easy to export list data into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Export sets, Dynamic Reports, contact lists, policy lists, investment lists and more!

Runtime: 5:21 |


Exporting and Printing a List

Easily export and print a list to share with clients or other users in your office—or import a list into another program—using the Export tool.

Runtime: 4:01 |


Find Contacts with a Matching Profile

Easily find records that share one or more identical characteristics with a particular contact or business record for your marketing or sales needs. Find a list of all contacts with matching occupations, matching employers, area codes, cities, ZIP codes and more.

Runtime: 4:42 |


Finding Contacts without an E-mail Address

Want to update contact records that have a missing e-mail address? Learn how to update contact records with missing e-mail addresses by building a Dynamic Report. Also, when sending out a mass e-mail message, learn to quickly to bring up a list of all clients that have an e-mail address.

Runtime: 6:11 |


Importing Contact Data

The Data Import Wizard makes it easy to import your contact data into SmartOffice in a few simple steps.

Runtime: 11:16 |


Keyboard Shortcuts

Let SmartOffice keyboard shortcuts save you time performing frequent tasks such as adding SmartPad notes and searching for records.

Runtime: 4:26 |


List Customization

Customize how you view columns of information in list layouts.

Runtime: 8:33 |


Mass Merging Duplicates

Over the years, your database may have acquired duplicate records. Perhaps different people in your office entered the same contact information, or duplicates were created during an import or when data was synchronized between SmartOffice and Outlook. Duplicate records can cause confusion and inconsistent data mining when working in SmartOffice. In this Fast Class, learn how to merge a list of duplicate contact records at once using the Mass Merge Duplicates tool.

Runtime: 5:37 |


Mass Modification

Mass modification enables you to change a specific field in many records at once. This feature saves you from having to open each record individually, edit it, and then save the changes.

Runtime: 3:36 |


Notes Last 30 Days

By using the "Notes Last 30 Days" tool, you can quickly bring up every SmartPad record created in the last 30 days for all of your assigned contacts in SmartOffice. This is useful for staying on top of action items such as activities, tasks, and phone calls for yourself or your entire team.

Runtime: 4:33 |


On Access Validation

On Access Validation automatically updates contact, business, household, policy and investment data every 24 hours. Enabling On Access Validation is strongly recommended to ensure that SmartOffice data is accurate and up to date.

Runtime: 4:03 |


Page Layout Customization

Want to view a contact's SmartPad notes or activity list when opening a contact record? Learn how to customize the content and layout for contact, business, advisor, agency, pending case and other records in SmartOffice.

Runtime: 7:19 |


Record Alerts

A record alert is a message that appears immediately when any user accesses a SmartOffice record. You can create record alerts to notify other users about important information they need to know before working with particular records.

Runtime: 3:56 |


Segmenting Clients

How do you want to see your contact data? With SmartOffice, it's easy to work with client data the way you want to see it. In this class, learn how to segment clients by filtering on-the-fly—a tool you can often use instead of running a Dynamic Report.

Runtime: 6:16 |


SmartOffice & Outlook, Working Together

Do you like the power of SmartOffice but prefer the look and feel of Outlook? With the Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice, you can easily access your SmartOffice data directly from Outlook.

Runtime: 8:07 |


The SmartPad Audit Trail

How does SmartOffice track changes made to records? The SmartPad Audit Trail provides a chronology of important changes made to SmartOffice records. The Audit Trail creates an entry in the SmartPad every time data is added, deleted or modified in important SmartOffice fields.

Runtime: 3:02 |


SmartPad Dictation

Don't feel like fumbling with the small keypad on your mobile phone to try to enter a note in SmartOffice? By using the microphone on your mobile phone, you can dictate notes quickly and easily and save them to SmartOffice.

Runtime: 2:46 |


Updating Key Relations

There are times when key relationships change in SmartOffice, e.g., when a client divorces or remarries. In this lesson, learn how to remove or change household and key relationship information in SmartOffice.

Runtime: 4:25 |


Using Laser App

The SmartLink for Laser App integration dramatically reduces the amount of time it takes to prepare forms for your clients! Populate forms in Laser App with contact data captured in SmartOffice.

Runtime: 9:01 |


Sorting and Grouping List Data

SmartOffice offers a number of tools that you can use to sort and group list data. Compare contact source data, identify contacts in a specific ZIP code or group contacts by birthday in a few simple steps.

Runtime: 5:24 |


The History Tab

The History Tab enables you to bookmark any screen in SmartOffice, including favorite sets, Dynamic Reports, policies, contacts, businesses and much more.

Runtime: 3:19 |


Uploading Files to the SmartPad

Learn how to upload or link external documents to a contact's SmartPad.

Runtime: 4:28 |


Uploading a Document

Post files such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, scanned images and documents in PDF format to a number of records in SmartOffice, including contact records, SmartPad notes, policies, pending cases, investments and more.

Runtime: 7:52 |


Using Google Maps

Map specific directions to your clients' addresses and find directions to local restaurants, hotels, gas stations and more.

Runtime: 5:54 |



Calendar Management


Calendar Reports

Carry a printed copy of your SmartOffice activities with you.

Runtime: 4:26 |


Group Scheduling

Learn how to schedule group events such as meetings and conferences using the time block.

Runtime: 3:29 |


Sharing Calendars with Other Users

Improve communication and efficiency by providing a "team view" calendar. By sharing your calendars, you can easily see at a glance all existing appointments and tasks and can more effectively balance assignments across the team. In addition, you can eliminate the need for phone calls and e-mail messages checking for availability prior to scheduling appointments.

Runtime: 5:04 |



Contact Correspondence


Customizing Labels

Combine contact addresses with pre-formatted Avery label documents when sending mass correspondence. You can easily create labels for birthday wishes, holiday greetings and marketing materials.

Runtime: 5:38 |


Installing the Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice

If you're new to SmartOffice or you recently upgraded to a new workstation, be sure to install the Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice. With the plug-in, you can access SmartOffice data and features directly from Outlook, Word or Excel.

Runtime: 2:50 |


Linking to a Shared Folder

Does your office have a number of folders stored on a shared drive? Linking a contact record directly to a folder or a number of folders eliminates the need to upload individual files.

Runtime: 4:08 |


Microsoft Plug-in Tips

Want to know how to send SmartOffice letters from Microsoft Word? Run Dynamic Reports from Excel? Post e-mails to SmartOffice from Outlook? In this class, we'll cover all of this and more using the Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice.

Runtime: 7:57 |


Printing Envelopes

You've just picked up your holiday greeting cards. Now you can add that extra touch by printing the addresses of your contacts directly on the matching envelopes. Combine the document customization tools of Microsoft Word with contact data to create custom envelope templates that can be printed directly from SmartOffice.

Runtime: 6:03 |


Printing Labels with Microsoft Word

You can easily combine SmartOffice contacts with pre-formatted label templates to print labels for everything from holiday greetings to birthday cards. All you need is Microsoft Word and the Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice.

Runtime: 5:39 |


Printing Web-Based Labels

Learn how to print labels using the web-based SmartOffice Editor, which requires no software installation and looks and functions like Microsoft Word.

Runtime: 5:26 |


Sending E-mail Blasts

Have an urgent message to send to your clients? In this class, learn how to compose a template in Word and quickly send an important, personalized e-mail blast.

Runtime: 5:31 |


Sending Mass Correspondence

In this class, learn how to send mass correspondence directly from a list of contacts in SmartOffice.

Runtime: 8:45 |


Working with Spouse Merge Codes

Learn how SmartOffice merge codes populate contact information for spouses and domestic partners.

Runtime: 6:19 |



Reporting and Filtering


Advanced Date Filters

Use the powerful Advanced Date Filters tool to help build Dynamic Reports based on date-related information captured in SmartOffice.

Runtime: 6:18 |


Automatic Report E-mailing

Create rules to automatically send a Dynamic Report by e-mail to specific recipients in PDF or comma-separated values format.

Runtime: 5:08 |


Building a Combination Set

A combination set brings together elements of an ad hoc set and a filtered set.

Runtime: 6:08 |


Building a Dynamic Report for Age 64½

There are important dates and birthdays that every advisor should track on a regular basis. Being able to report on birthday milestones in SmartOffice enables advisors to provide the highest level of service for their clients and ensures that clients are being contacted at the right time to start educating them about their benefits and eligibilities. A few of these important birthdays include important half-birthdays such as 59½, 64½ and 70½. Learn how to build a Dynamic Report that will find all contacts turning 64½ three months from the current month, allowing ample time for the marketing process.

Runtime: 8:15 |


Building a Dynamic Report for Age 65

There are important dates and birthdays that every advisor should track on a regular basis. Being able to report on birthday milestones in SmartOffice enables advisors to provide the highest level of service for their clients and ensures that clients are being contacted at the right time to start educating them about their benefits and eligibilities. Learn how to build a Dynamic Report that will find all contacts turning 65 three months from the current month, allowing ample time for the marketing process.

Runtime: 8:05 |


Building a Dynamic Report for Age 72

There are important dates and birthdays that every advisor should track on a regular basis. Being able to report on birthday milestones in SmartOffice enables advisors to provide the highest level of service for their clients and ensures that clients are being contacted at the right time to start educating them about their benefits and eligibilities. Learn how to build a Dynamic Report that will find all contacts turning 72 three months from the current month, allowing ample time for the marketing process.

Runtime: 7:56 |


Building a Filtered Set

A filtered set is defined exclusively by filter criteria. For example, a filtered set could be created for all prospects that have attended a retirement planning seminar.

Runtime: 5:14 |


Bunch Reporting

Provide your clients with information quickly and efficiently by bunching multiple PDF reports together. The bunch reporting feature creates a single PDF document containing all the PDF reports that you select.

Runtime: 3:52 |


Copying Filter Criteria

Copying filter criteria in a Dynamic Report can save you time when a report requires creating multiple filters with similar criteria.

Runtime: 3:38 |


Creating an Ad Hoc Set

An ad hoc set allows you to group contacts together for any reason, without entering or tracking specific information. Contacts added to an ad hoc set remain in the set until you remove them.

Runtime: 3:17 |


Customer Referral Value

Know who your top clients are? Easily identify the clients that have given you the most valuable referrals with the Customer Referral Value Report.

Runtime: 6:55 |


Data Integrity Dashboard

Data maintenance is essential not only for reaching out to clients but also for reporting and filtering. In this class, learn how to create a "Data Integrity" dashboard made up of reports showing contacts that are missing important data, such as Social Security number, type, birth date, phone number, and e-mail address.

Runtime: 4:21 |


Dynamic Report Download

Download Dynamic Reports featured in previous Fast Classes! This Fast Class walks you through the simple process of downloading files from the Dynamic Report Download page in the SmartOffice Help & Training Center and adding the files to SmartOffice.

Runtime: 3:41 |


Dynamic Report Usage Statistics

Identify the most popular Dynamic Reports in your office by taking advantage of the Dynamic Report Usage Statistics tool. View information about when a particular report was run and by whom. Identify reports that could be used on a more frequent basis or that may need to be redesigned -- and make your office even more efficient!

Runtime: 4:51 |


Favorite Dynamic Reports

For Dynamic Reports that you run on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, use the Favorites feature to quickly access your most important and frequently used Dynamic Reports.

Runtime: 3:33 |


Life Settlement Prospects

Identify potentially ideal life settlement prospects meeting the following criteria: Contacts 65 years old or older with an inforce life policy with a face value of $250,000 or greater. Sample Life Settlement Prospect letter included.

Runtime: 7:52 |


LTC Prospecting I: Creating the Report

Research indicates that ideal candidates for LTC products are life insurance policyholders between 40 and 55 years old. SmartOffice can help you identify these potentially ideal candidates with a Dynamic Report.

Runtime: 5:44 |


LTC Prospecting II: Mass Mailing and Follow-up Activities

In the first LTC Prospecting class, we created a Dynamic Report that helped identify potentially ideal long-term care prospects. In this class, learn how to send mass correspondence to those prospects and create a follow-up activity for each.

Runtime: 6:03 |


LTC Prospecting III: Mass Mailing to New Prospects

In the previous LTC Prospecting class, we sent a long term care approach letter to clients identified as LTC prospects from a Dynamic Report. Now, let's suppose some time has passed and we want to send the same letter to new prospects. In this class, learn how to send approach letters to prospects who have not already received one.

Runtime: 6:03 |


New Dynamic Report Wizard

Beginning with SmartOffice 2021 Release 1, SmartOffice features a new setup wizard for Dynamic Reports that has been reorganized to make report creation more intuitive. Improvements include a preview pane, an easier column search, grouping of filter and layout options on one screen, and real-time drag-and-drop column arrangement.

Runtime: 7:47 |


Pending Tasks Report

Want a way to track the progress of tasks among multiple SmartOffice users? Assigning the Pending Tasks Report to the home page is a great way to know at a glance who completed their responsibilities.

Runtime: 6:28 |


Policy Upselling

Capturing up-to-date contact information in SmartOffice is vital to ensuring that the insurance needs of your contacts are met as their lives change. The Dynamic Reports featured in this Fast Class will help you meet the changing needs of your clients by taking advantage of up-to-date contact income information.

Runtime: 5:03 |


Running Dynamic Reports from Excel

With the SmartOffice Add-in for Microsoft 365, you can run SmartOffice Dynamic Reports directly from Microsoft Excel and have results automatically display in an Excel workbook.

Runtime: 5:26 |


Running PDF Reports

Use PDF Reports for distributing information to clients about policies and investments. PDF Reports present SmartOffice data in an organized, professional format that can be easily saved, printed or sent by e-mail.

Runtime: 5:43 |


Ten-Year Term Renewals

Policy renewal dates can sneak up on your clients, especially with ten-year (or longer) term policies. SmartOffice can help you remind your clients of policy expiration dates in time for them to make important decisions regarding policy renewal or conversion. This Fast Class will demonstrate one way to create a Dynamic Report that will find all ten-year term policies with a renewal date in the next two months.

Runtime: 5:44 |



Administration


Creating and Modifying User Accounts

Need to add new user accounts to SmartOffice? Learn how to create, modify and disable user accounts and assign available licenses to new users.

Runtime: 7:17 |


Defining Custom Fields

The variety of data you can capture with SmartOffice is immense. But you may need to capture data that is unique to the way you interact with your contacts. If you need to track which of your contacts own a home or rent, when a contact attended one of your seminars, or who likes to golf, view this fast class to learn how you can use the custom fields in SmartOffice to meet your unique needs.

Runtime: 6:43 |


Importing and Exporting Dashboards

Want an easy way to share dashboards with other SmartOffice users? Use the Export/Import Dashboard feature.

Runtime: 3:34 |


Managing Storage Space

Learn the different storage options in SmartOffice, including storage allocation, document storage usage, and how to purchase additional storage.

Runtime: 4:59 |


Protect Communication History

The Protect Communication History feature prevents correspondence such as e-mail messages and letters from being altered or deleted. This powerful tool helps organizations comply with SEC record-keeping regulations.

Runtime: 5:02 |


Resetting Passwords

What do you do if you feel your password has been compromised? Not to worry—your SmartOffice administrator can easily reset your password. With proper user rights, you can even change your own password.

Runtime: 4:00 |


SmartOffice Folder Watch

Looking for a quick way to post documents to client files even when you're not signed in to SmartOffice? It's as easy as saving scanned files, HIPAA documents or PDF reports to a folder monitored by SmartOffice Folder Watch.

Runtime: 9:20 |


SmartSecurity: Introduction

SmartSecurity is a set of rules that regulate data visibility for SmartOffice users. This class is for the SmartOffice administrator responsible for setting up who will see what data in their SmartOffice office. In this class, learn the difference between user assignment, user groups, proxies, Super Users and department/team hierarchies.

Runtime: 7:24 |


SmartSecurity: User Assignments and User Groups

Learn how to assign SmartOffice users to specific contacts, businesses and other records. Also, learn how user groups can simplify certain tasks that normally involve selecting users individually.

Runtime: 7:09 |


SmartSecurity: Proxies and Super Users

A user with proxy rights can view and modify non-privatized records that are assigned to other users. Users designated as Super Users bypass proxy and user assignments. In this class, learn how to set up a sample office with Super Users, proxies and user assignments.

Runtime: 8:08 |


Tips for User Preferences

Learn a handful of user preference tips that will help you better customize your SmartOffice experience.

Runtime: 5:56 |


Two-Step Authentication

Want to add an extra layer of security to your user account? You can easily enable a two-step authentication process whenever you sign in to SmartOffice.

Runtime: 3:37 |



SmartPolicies


Copying a Policy

Creating a new policy? There's no need to start from scratch! Save time by simply copying a policy that's similar to an existing policy in SmartOffice.

Runtime: 6:21 |



SmartCaseManager


Carbon Copy List for Advisors

When you send a letter or e-mail as part of a pending case workflow, you can use the Carbon Copy List feature to automatically copy another recipient, such as an advisor's assistant.

Runtime: 4:10 |


Sending Automatic Correspondence for Pending Case Updates

SmartOffice has automation features that help you eliminate some of the manual tasks typically associated with pending case management. In this class, learn how to automatically send correspondence when a case's status is updated.

Runtime: 4:29 |


Sending Case Status

The Case Status feature allows you to send pending case status updates by e-mail or letter to advisors currently assigned to a pending case.

Runtime: 6:04 |



Proposal Tracking


Presale Activity/Proposal Tracking Workflow

Whether you call them quotes, illustrations, proposals or presale activities, many advisors struggle to keep track of requests coming through the office on a daily basis. In this class, learn how you can easily track illustration requests using the Proposal Tracking workflow.

Runtime: 13:10 |



Outlook Integrations


SmartOffice Add-in for Outlook 365

The SmartOffice Add-in for Outlook 365 supports posting e-mail messages from Outlook to the SmartPad as well as contact integration to display notes, documents, policies, investments, and other SmartOffice data in Outlook.

Runtime: 6:53 |


SmartOffice Add-in for Outlook 365: BGAs and Distributors

In this class for BGAs and distributors, learn how to use SmartOffice's integration with Outlook 365 to post an e-mail to an advisor record, add an advisor record from Outlook, and work with SmartOffice data and illustrations directly from Outlook.

Runtime: 8:20 |



Mobile Solutions


SmartOffice Anywhere on a Mobile Phone

SmartOffice Anywhere is available wherever you have access to an Internet connection, and it works on the device you have with you—regardless of screen size—with support for the vast majority of today's smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Runtime: 7:44 |