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SPS Calendar SPS
provides a calendar application that allows users to share a common public
calendar while retaining a private schedule.
Additionally, the SPS calendar application provides users the ability to
automatically distribute email notices about scheduled events by ‘inviting’ or
‘notifying’ system users of events. In
order to assist in the scheduling of public events, each system user’s
availability may be viewed in order to minimize scheduling conflicts. The
SPS Calendar can be accessed under the Documents tab of the Main Menu and or
via the SPS Email
Console application.
From
the Email Console, you may access your personal calendar by choosing the
‘Calendar’ menu choice from the menu found in the upper left-hand corner of the
Email Console. You may also toggle back
to the Email Console using the same menu.
Choosing the Month The
Calendar Console screen consists of two main frames along with a button
bar. The top frame allows you to adjust
the month in view by choosing the appropriate month using the slidebar
utility. The < and >
arrows move the current month in view backward or forward by one. You may also simply click on the month you
wish to view in order to cause the month knob on the slidebar to select the
desired month.
Calendar Desktop
A
calendar event (entry) designated as ‘private’ is viewable and accessible only
by the user that created the entry. In
contrast, events not designated as private are considered public in nature,
meaning that all users may view and modify the event. In this manner, users may keep events that are personal in nature
separate from common group events such as company meetings or business trips. From
the Calendar Console, you may elect to view the calendar entries by event type
by simply selecting the appropriate check box option from the upper right-hand
corner of the screen. To display only
the public calendar entries for your company, simply select the “Show public
events” checkbox. To view your private
calendar entries, select the “Show private events” checkbox. Of course, you may choose any combination of
the two.
You
may view your calendar in a variety of formats. Specifically, you may modify the number of days being viewed from
one day up to the entire month and you may adjust the size of the daily entries
in weekly views. All calendar view
options are changed through the Options button from the Calendar Console
screen button bar.
Clicking
on the Options button opens the Calendar Options dialog. From this dialog, you may choose to modify
the format and display size of your Calendar Console screen view. Additionally, you may elect to show the show
the weekend days in a weekly or monthly view.
Any changes made to the calendar view will only effect the display until
the next calendar refresh, whether manually by clicking the Refresh
button or by exiting and re-entering the program. In order to change your user profile to always display your
calendar in the selected view, check the “Save as new profile” checkbox. You may also choose to have your daily
calendar emailed to you on a daily basis by checking the “Email daily calendar”
checkbox and saving your profile.
The
Calendar format options consist of a daily, multiple weekly, and a monthly
view. Select the desired format from
the menu option as shown below.
The
“Month” format displays the calendar days and calendar entries as shown below.
The
“1 day” format displays the chosen calendar day along with the calendar entries
listed by time.
The
display size of the calendar days may also be adjusted vertically and
horizontally in order to better show the text of calendar entries. Simply choose the appropriate percentage of
size increase from the original monthly view to the desired amount to cause the
Calendar Console screen to redraw itself to the new specifications. The following graphic shows one calendar day
in the monthly view shown at 150% increase in both vertical and horizontal
size.
Adding, Editing, or Deleting Calendar
Entries (Events) To
create a new calendar entry from the monthly or weekly view, simply select the
day that you wish for the event to begin (causing the day block to turn light
blue) and click New. You will
receive the Calendar Event window.
All
calendar events must include a subject and may contain a location entry. If the event is to be a private event,
simply check the ‘Private’ checkbox.
All events not marked as private will be noted as public, thereby
causing all calendar users to have access to the event for viewing, editing, or
deleting purposes. Start and End Dates (Times) Under
the General tab of the Calendar Event window, you will find inputs to control
the start and end date and time of the event.
You may adjust these in any direction taking care to always have an
ending date and time which occurs after the starting date and time.
As
with any SPS application with the calendar pop-up utility, you may either enter
the date directly into the date input field using a MM-DD-YYYY format or you
may simply choose the date from the calendar dialog and click OK. You may scroll through months and years
using the < and > arrows found at the top of the dialog.
Event Status The
‘Status’ menu options determine the contents and function of the second tab of
the Calendar Event window. If the
calendar event is scheduled as a ‘Definite meeting’ or a ‘Tentative meeting’,
the second tab will be labeled ‘Invitees’ and any notice sent to these users
will contain the language necessary for the scheduling of a meeting. If your wish to notify people that you (or
anyone else in your office) will be ‘Out of the office’, you may elect the
third menu option. This will label the
second tab of the Calendar Event window ‘Notifies’ and any notice sent to these
users will espouse the time period of the event as one in which the person
listed is out of the office.
You
may invite or notify both SPS users and outside contacts of any new or modified
calendar event via email through the Same Page Mail ServerTM. For contacts or external (to the SPS) email
addresses, simply type the email address in the ‘Send notice to’ field found in
the General tab or click the Contact button to view a contact list
dialog.
You
may also invite or notify SPS groups and users by clicking the second tab of
the Calendar Event window and selecting the desired groups and users. Use the < and > buttons
to move selected items from the left frame to the right (causing invitation or
notification to occur). Use the <<
and >> arrows to move all groups (and their users) between the
left and right frames.
Any
type of email attachment may also be associated with an email notification
using the Attachments utility in the General tab. Click the Add button to receive the Upload File
dialog. From this dialog, you may
select the desired file to upload from your PC’s local drives. Of course, to delete a previously uploaded
file, simply choose it from the Attachments menu and click Delete.
Text Input A
calendar event may have a description of any length associated with it using
the SPS Editor utility found at the bottom of the General tab of the Calendar
Event window. Simply type the desired
description using any of the formatting functions of the editor, including
bold, italics, underline, bullet points, and highlights. See the SPS Editor section for more
information about the functionality of the editor and the available formatting
features.
Editing or Deleting Entries To
edit an existing entry, simply choose the entry from the Calendar Console
screen (from the daily, weekly, or monthly view) causing it to turn blue and
click the Open button. You will
now receive the Calendar Event window and may modify the event in the same
manner as you would add an event.
To
delete an event, select the event from the Calendar Console screen and click
the Delete button. You will be
asked to confirm your action before proceeding. Once an event has been deleted, it can no longer be recovered and
restored. Synchronizing Calendar With Palm Pilot and
Other Applications The
SPS allows you to import or export calendar data to the Palm Pilot in Palm’s
proprietary Date Book Archive (.dba) format or to other calendar applications
from various vendors (such as Microsoft’s Outlook calendar) using a standard
comma separated file (.csv) format. To
perform a synchronization, simply click on the Sync button from the
Calendar Console.
You
will receive the Calendar Import and Export dialog. Choose the appropriate action from the radio button options. To export the SPS calendar in either the
comma separated file (.csv) or Date Book Archive (.dba) format, you will need
to designate which event types to retrieve (either public or private events or
both) and the date range to retrieve.
If you wish to export all entries in your calendar (without regard to a
beginning and ending date), you may leave the Start Date and End Date inputs as
all zeros. Be aware though that a full
export is not recommended since your export file may be larger that normal and
may cause performance issues with your Palm Pilot or other application.
To
import calendar events from your Palm Pilot or other calendar application,
simply choose the appropriate import action from the radio button options. You will notice that the ‘Private Events’
checkbox is checked indicating that all of the events that will be imported
into the SPS calendar will be marked as private to you. This feature is for security purposes to
prevent others from viewing your sensitive information. You may elect to import all events as public
by un-checking the ‘Private Events’ checkbox.
This will cause all imported items to be considered public. You may always change the event type of an
event in the Calendar Event window by following the procedure described in the Adding, Editing, or Deleting Calendar Entries section
above.
ã 2003 –
Root Systems LLC – http://www.idcs.info/ |
