USER GUIDE
November 2015
Version 1
The SOPA VSYS ONE User guard is a supplement to the online manual
provided by VSYS
Please go to this link for more information http://www.vsysone.com/docs/VSys/HTMLDocs/3.0/365.htm
You Tube Vsys Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQCil6j45vg&feature=youtu.be
CONTENTS
Introduction
What is Vsys / Getting Around
People
Finding by personal Data
Addresses / Phone / email
Create A New People
Attach PDF
Attach Files
Comments and Images
Enter email, address, and phone number
Mark bad phone numbers
Combining Duplicate people
Letter Types
Letter Reply
Email Attachments
Email Merge
Letter Manager
Labels
Custom Labels
Email Robot
Ical/.ics files
Text
Reports
3
4
6
7
7
8
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
22
24
26
27
29
31-37
Project
38
USER GUIDE
Introduction
Vsys One (pronounced Vee
Vee-Sis-One)
One) is a powerful tool that makes it
easy to organize and communicate with your volunteers. VSys
tracks volunteer information, manages mailing lists, tracks skills,
needs and interests, automates volunteer screening, helps assign
and track volunteers to specific tasks, provides a myriad of
communication tools and provides over two hundred built-in
built
reports with the ability for you to create an unlimited number of
your own reports.
What VSys Looks Like: Conventions and Getting Around
On the Home page you
ou may find one or more panels. Which panels are
visible will depend on how VSys is configured and its current status. These
are items that might need your attention or are there to help you. In the
example below there are four panels showing:
Notifications Notes about incoming messages, applications and other defined
notifications
notifications.
Scheduled Notifications about overdue scheduled tasks and the tools for viewing and
tasks
running them.
Help
Get support - Opens up the customer and technical support tool.
tool
Online documentation - Opens your web browser and brings you to the
online, searchable version of the documentation.
Help - Links to context
context-sensitive
sensitive help, information about the current screen
and, if enabled, a tool to search the VSys One knowledgebase for answers
to common questions. This is the same as hitting the F1 key on your
keyboard.
Online videos - Brings up a search tool where you can find and then open
training videos from the VSys One website.
About VSys About VSys One - Brings up the "splash" screen with information about what
version of the software you are running. It also allows you to scroll through
One
the cool quotes, or mark quotes you never want to see again.
VSys One website - Opens your browser with the www.VSysOne.com
website.
On the left side of almost every screen is a navigation bar with tools and links. Here on
the home screen they're panels with the various tools available from this screen. As we
get further into the program they will become specific to the current tool you are using.
Tools and
reports
If you are unsure where to find a feature or tool that you want to use, put a keyword in this
search box and you will be given a list of opti
options. See Searching Screens for more details on
how this works.
People
Type in someone's last/family name, date of birth, e
e-mail
mail address, phone number or kiosk
PIN to search. Search o
opens the Person lookup tool without any search terms, Advanced
brings up the Find people using advanced criteria tool.
Help me find Gives you a tool for searching through saved and built
built-in
in reports.
a report
Tools
Switch tool profile - Tool profiles allow you to create a simplified VSys screen with only the
tools you want to see. Use this link to toggle between a tool profiles or the full VSys screen
(security permitting.)
Font size - VSys supports font sizes up to 200%. The font size that you set here is used
throughout VSys One.
Switch language - Toggle VSys between English and other installed languages; only
available if the VSys.bld file is installed on your machine.
User preferences - Customize some of the features you use. See User preferences.
Get support - Opens up the customer and technical support tool.
tool
Help
Help - Shows the built
built-in help file.
People
People are Persistent
By "persistent" we mean that you enter the person into VSys once and then tie that
person to all kinds of events, jobs, and other properties in the system. The Volunteer Profile
is everywhere. You can view and update someone's details from anywhere in the system
where you work with the person, such as within a project or job assignment,
lookup/search, as well as in the data entry tools. Once a person is entered into VSys, his
attributes and history build as his relationship to your organization grows. This data
persistence helps you to tap into and develop greater volunteer resources.
This also means that changes made to a person in one place affect that person
everywhere: change "Jim Doe" to "James Doe" from within a project and his name is
changed everywhere
re in VSys all at once.
Finding People by their Personal Data
You can search for people in VSys using many different methods:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Quick
Personal information
Address, phone and e
e-mail
Skills, job preferences and availability
Other searches
Using advanced criteria
criteria.
There is also a search tool right on the VSys One home screen:
Type in someone's last/family name, date of birth, e
e-mail
mail address, phone
number, then hit Enter or click on Search.. You will need to use at least 6
characters. VSys will search for people with the value you've entered as if
you'd gone into the Person looku
lookup tool and done a "Quick" search. If VSys
finds exactly one person meeting your criteria, it will open up that person
directly.
By Personal Information
Let’s begin by looking for a known volunteer - Marcus Velásquez.
You don't have to enter the person's complete last name to search. By
entering just the first few characters, VSys will find all of the people whose
names begin with what you entered. This is especially useful if you're not
sure how the name is spelled.
Other criteria
Entering a Date of birth brings up all people who were born on that date,
regardless of the name criteria you enter. People who match both the
name and date of birth criteria will sort towards the top of the list.
Including a Company finds people who are employees of a company
that begins with the values you enter (not a relationship search, this uses
the Company field in the Profile editor).
Including a team name brings up teams with that name, and selecting a
gender will only show those people who have that gender, or who have
none recorded.
Use the Exclude filter to show inactive, archived, and deceased or
placeholder people. They are excluded by default.
Working with People You've Found
From the list of people retrieved from the Person lookup tool, you can work
with an individual by clicking on a person's name which will take you into
the person's profile. Or you can work with any individual or combination of
people on the screen as a group using the Tools section of the left
navigation bar or by right-clicking.
Address, phone, e-mail
We can search for people by address, postal/zip code, phone, or e-mail
by clicking on the Address, phone, e-mail link on the left navigation bar.
•
•
•
•
Entering a phone number or e-mail address will find people who
have a phone number or e-mail address beginning with the text
you enter. You'll need to type in at least five characters for the
search to work.
Putting in a Postal code (zip code in the US) brings up all people
with an address in or within the given distance of the center of that
postal code. Adding a state/province when searching that way will
restrict the people to that state - great if you are in a location near
the border of another state/province.
State/province will bring up all people in that state. Combined
optionally with City/town, it will bring up only those in the given city
in that state. Note that City/town cannot be used by itself State/province must be entered if City/town is included.
Street name brings up all people with that street name.
State/province must be entered with Street name. (Omit the street
type when entering a Street name, e.g. to search for someone on
"123 Main Street" enter "Main" in this field.)
A person will be shown if he meets one or more of these criteria
criteria..
This search only works if your zips table is up-to-date.
date. If you don't get the
results you expected, ask your system administrator to go update the zips
table through the Check for zip/postal code updates tool. This will let her
download the latest US zip c
codes
odes or Canadian postal codes database.
How does this work? VSys doesn't know the latitude/longitude coordinates
of every address of every person, but it does know these values for most
zip codes and postal codes. To determine how far someone is from a
point,
nt, it uses the center of the person's postal code and compares it to
the center of the postal code(s) that you enter. It's less accurate for large
rural postal codes that cover a lot of area, and is more accurate for
metropolitan areas.
Create a New Perso
Person
A person must be entered into VSys before they can be included in a
mailing or in your volunteer pool for future assignments.
You will always want to check if the person is in VSys before creating him
again as a new person. If a person is created multipl
multiple
e times, VSys will treat
each one as a different person. It will become very difficult for you to
maintain the person's information accurately and see his entire history with
your organization. If you do find that a person has been created more
than once see Combining Duplicate People
People.
A new person can be added to VSys in three common ways:
•
•
•
Using an application form
form.
The Registration Wizard from within a project
oject lets you create a new person
while also registering that person in the project.
From the Person lookup tool, click the Create new person button in the left
navigation bar. (This method is described here.)
Enter the information about the new person.
Field Name
Person type
Group
Definitions and Comments
The primary type of person such as Volunteer,, VIP, etc. (required)
The primary group associated with this person. (required) Note that the
person must be assigned to a group, even if it's just the group General.
Gender
Date of birth
Primary
(required) If you have searched for this person, the name fields will be
First/given name automatically populated.
Primary Middle
name
Primary
(required)
Last/family name
Primary Suffix
Phonetic name
Jr., III, etc.; often used to indicate generation.
If the name is difficult to pronounce or easily mispronounced, enter a
pronunciation hint here. This information can be used on reports,
name tags, and credentials.
Alternate name Nickname or preferred alternate name. This information can be used
on reports, name tags, and credentials. (These fields won't be visible if
you haven't enabled alternate names from the Setup panel and
Name setup options.)
VSys may be set up to automatically adjust capitalization in the name
fields. If necessary you can turn off that feature for this person by checking
the Ignore capitalization rules checkbox at the bottom of the window. Use
this for names like "van der Waals" to keep the name exactly as you've
typed it in.
1. Click the Create button to create this person.
2. If the Don't check for duplicate people checkbox is not checked,
VSys will first look through all of the people already in VSys to ensure
that you're not making a new copy of an existing person. If it finds
people who may be a duplicate of the new one, it will show you
those and allow you to either work with one of the people that it
found or create the new person anyway.
After entering all applicable data on the volunteer profile screen, click the
Save button at the top to finish creating a new person in VSys.
Attach PDF pages
Dragging a PDF file onto a person normally attaches that complete file to
the person. But what if you have a central, high-speed scanner that's not
near your desk and you want to attach scanned images to multiple
people? It's inconvenient to scan each of the pages into individual PDF
files, but you can't put the whole PDF file (with multiple volunteers' data in
it) into each person.
From the Person lookup tool, click on Attach PDF pages then select your
PDF file. (If the file contains more than fifty pages, VSys will ask you where
in the file to start - it can only handle fifty pages at a time.)
Attached Files
VSys One lets you attach files to people and jobs. Why? Use this to take
PDF files, resumes, pictures and other documents from your computer's
hard drive and link them to a person for later use. Once the file is
attached to a person or job then VSys doesn't reference the one on your
computer anymore, and that attachment is accessible to people who
can't see your computer but who can see the VSys One database.
databa
To work with the attached files for a person, right
right-click
click on his name in the
Person lookup tool and select Attachments. Or, from within the Profile
editor, click on Attachments on the Additional data panel.
If you attach the same file to two or more people, VSys only stores a single
copy of the file in its database and "shares" the attachment. This means
that if you attach a 5MB PDF file to twenty people VSys only uses up 5MB
of space in the database, not 100MB. This only works if the attached file is
truly identical: scanning a document twenty times and attaching each
scan to a person will result in twenty subtly different files, not one.
Deleting an attached file from a person doesn't delete that file from the
database immediately since that attachme
attachment
nt may be connected to
other people. The Index update tool option Remove attached files no
longer in use identifies "orphaned" attachments - those not connected to
anyone anymore - and removes them from the database.
Comments and Images
VSys lets you add, view, and print comments and images associated with
a person or group. The Comments and images tool puts a date and time
stamp on every comment and image and maintains a history of this data
so you can view it, add new data, or print it. It also shows the comment
text you add and indicates whether you entered a comment, image, or
both.
Images added here are different from the portrait photo and cannot be
used for the same purposes. See Portrait Photo for instructions on adding a
single portrait, which can be used for credentials and on Profile reports.
From most lists of people, right
right-click on the person and select Comments
and images for this person
person.
Enter Name, Address, Phone Number and
E-mail
mail Changes
The standard Profile editor is very complex and
d may take several seconds
to bring up a person's data. If you are primarily editing someone's basic
personal data (name, gender, date of birth) and addresses, this is a faster
and simpler tool.
Open the Enter name, address and phone changes tool. You'll find the
same Person lookup tool as elsewhere. Use this to search for the person to
be updated. Click on the person, edit the information here as
appropriate, then click the Save button.
If you find that you have changes to make that require the full Profile
editor, clicking on the Switch to detailed view link on the left navigation
bar will open the full editor without having to exit and find the person
again.
In the Person lookup tool, rright-clicking
clicking on a person and selecting Update
addresses and phones will bring you to this same tool.
Mark Bad Phone Numbers and E
E-mail
Addresses
VSys gives you a quick tool for marking individual phone numbers and ee
mail addresses as bad. This doesn't mar
mark the person as "Do not call" or "Do
not e-mail", it's meant to mark the phone number or e
e-mail
mail address so you
don't try to re-contact
contact the person again with this information. By marking it
bad instead of just deleting it you don't re
re-add
add the same bad phone
number or e-mail
mail address over and over again. (VSys will never use a
phone number or e-mail
mail address marked as "Bad".)
Combining Duplicate People
If you have the same real
real-world
world person in VSys more than once, you can
combine the two VSys people together to form a single person with the
attributes of both.
What's transferred/combined?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
All addresses and phone numbers
Certifications
Background check requests and results
Custom field values where the person to be deleted has a value and the
person to be kept does not
Comments and photos
Credited hours
Job assignments
Job associations
Availability
Mandates, memberships and account records
Web/kiosk data
Skills, job preferences, contact flags, and other similar values.
You can only combine two people at a time. If the same person is
entered in VSys three times, combine them in two stages: copies #1 and
#2, then the result of that with copy #3.
Letters, Mailing Labels and E
E-mails
VSys One has a built-in
in word processor and mail merge engine which you
can use to send printed letters and e
e-mails
mails to your volunteers. VSys merges
your templates with each volunteer's data, and then keeps a record of all
communications sent so you can go back and reference it later or rere
send letters as needed.
Every letter has a Letter type and is created using a Letter template.
template You
can also post "empty" letters (not created in VSys), for example using VSys
to print the mailing labels for your newsletter and then tra
track
ck who was sent
the newsletter.
Letter Types
Every letter has a letter type. These let you categorize your letters and
group them by what is being communicated. When filtering or searching
on letters, you can do that by letter type when you don't care which
whic
birthday card the person got (e.g. ""Staff birthday", "Junior
Junior volunteer
birthday" or "Senior
Senior volunteer birthday
birthday"" letters) or by specific letter when it
does matter (e.g. the "TB
TB test clear
clear"" letter means something very different
than the "TB
TB test positive
positive" letter.)
To define letter types start, click Setup letter types on the left navigation
bar from within Letter templates and then click Add letter type to add a
new type.
Right-click tools
Add letter
type
View
Edit
Make
inactive
Delete
Creates a new letter type.
Opens this letter type in read-only mode.
Edits this letter type.
Marks the letter type as inactive, which means it won't be used in any new
outgoing letters but is not deleted.
Removes this letter type. VSys will not let you delete a letter type which is in
use by any letters.
Merge with Changes the name of this letter type with another on the list.
another
letter type
here
Letter types in italics are built-in types and cannot be edited or deleted.
Letter Reply (RSVP) Statuses
VSys lets you associate an RSVP status with each letter in order to track
things like invitations. To define the RSVP statuses that can be used, from
Letter templates, click on Setup reply/RSVP statuses. The built-in types are
in italics and cannot be edited or deleted, but you can make any number
of your own.
On the right-click menu
Add RSVP
status
View
Edit
Make
inactive
Delete
Creates a new status.
Opens this status in read-only mode.
Edits this status.
Marks the status as inactive, which means it won't be used in any new
letters but is not deleted.
Removes this RSVP status. Note VSys will not let you delete an RSVP status
which is in use by any letters.
Merge with Changes the name of this RSVP type with another on the list.
another
RSVP type
here
To track the RSVPs as they come back in, you can edit the RSVP by going
to the Letters sent panel in the person's Profile editor and right-clicking
clicking on
the letter.
E-mail
mail Attachments
VSys allows you to send file attachments with e
e-mails.
On the right-click menu
Add e-mail
attachment
View
Edit
Make inactive
Delete
Creates a new attachment.
Opens this attachment in read
read-only mode.
Edits this attachment.
Marks the attachment as inactive, which means it won't be used in any
new outgoing e
e-mails but is not deleted.
Deletes the attachment from the database, making it unavailable for
future e--mails.
After the attachment is defined, you can replace the file within (if you
need to make edits), save it to a file elsewhere on your computer system,
or have VSys try to open it.
Once an attachment is set up here, VSys no longer uses the file on your
disk. Instead it works from the copy that it saved to it
itss database. If you've
made a change to your original file and want VSys to use the updated
one, after editing the attachment click the Replace link to update it.
VSys will not let you include any attachments which appear to be
Windows executable files, eve
even if they don't have an .exe or .dll extension
on them.
Mail Merge
The mail merge tool combines a letter template with the people who
meet your criteria to form a batch of letters. These letters can then be
printed, saved and/or e--mailed.
VSys will find all of the people who meet your criteria, then combine them
with your letter template. The results, if any, will then appear on screen.
Once you've gotten your settings the way you want them, if you intend to
do this same or similar merge again, click Save settings and name your
merge. Next time you run a mail merge, you can click on the Load
settings link and re-load
d those settings.
To exclude people who have recently received a similar letter, you can
add the filter Letter sent.. In the options VSys brings up, you can set the
criteria for recency, letter types, etc. in order to not repeat the same or
similar letters over and over.
Letter Manager
The Letter manager is a tool for viewing, editing, printing and deleting
letters sent to any number of people at once.
A common practice with mail merges is to execute the mail merge and
save the letters without printing them. You can then use the E-mail
mail Robot
to e-mail alll of the letters it's able to, and then use the Letter manager to
print the rest.
Changes made here to letters don't generally take effect until the Save
button has been clicked.
Tools
Print selected
letters
Save selected
letters to a file
Print labels for
selected
Prints all of the selected (checked) letters to the printer.
Takes all selected letters and saves them to a single, combined RTF file.
You can then open this file in your preferred word processor.
For all of the selected letters, prints mailing labels with the person's
address (includes envelope formats.)
Right-click tools
Edit
Properties
View
View as
Print
Change
Details
Delete/Undelete
Edit letter's
recipient
Select
Selected
letters
Edits this letter's contents (this isn't available if the letter is already
marked as printed).
Opens the properties of this letter - Description, Letter type, etc.
Opens this letter to view its contents in read-only mode.
Shows the current letter in HTML or plain text formats.
Prints just this letter to your printer.
Status
Method
Changes the status for this letter.
Changes the method (Any mail, E-mail, Mail, etc.) for this
letter.
View activity log - Shows the history of this letter.
Deletes or un-deletes this letter. Once the letter is deleted and saved it
cannot be un-deleted.
Opens the letter's recipient in the Profile editor.
Tools for selecting letters, including by their status.
Options for performing operations to all of the checked letters at once
in addition to tools listed above for a single letter.
Save to a
file
Print
mailing
labels
Change
status
Change
Takes all selected letters and saves them to a single,
combined PDF, RTF or HTML file.
For all of the selected letters, prints mailing labels with the
person's address (includes envelope formats.)
Allows you to manually change the status of a letter, e.g.
Undeliverable.
Allows you to manually change the method of a letter to
method
Change
kiosk
visibility
try sending it a different way.
Allows you to manually change whether a letter should
be visible on the kiosk.
Add/remove Adds or removes the person receiving the letter to/from the specified
"letter
list.
recipient" to
list
Empty letters - letters for which VSys only created a mailing label, rather
than the full letter - show in the Letter manager in italics.
Printing Basic Mailing Labels
Select Basic mailing labels from the Letters/e-mails panel.
For labels
If checked, and two or more people sharing an address are included here,
going to
only one label will be printed for all of the people sharing that address.
2+
people...
Label type Choose from any one of the built-in label types or ones you've defined
yourself.
Left
All text printed on the labels will be moved this distance to the right/down.
nudge,
(Use negative values to move left/up.)
Top nudge
Font, Size Pick a font and size appropriate for your label.
Starting
VSys can skip labels to re-use a partial sheet of labels. Set this to the starting
label #
label. The label at the upper-left corner is considered the first label going in
columns.
Name to Normal name, Normal name with prefix and Alternate name are the options. The last
use
tells VSys to use each person's alternate name, if available. If the alternate
name is blank, VSys will use the person's normal name.
1. Set the filters for the people to be included. People are only included in
these labels if they meet all of the criteria you specify.
Exclude contact flags
Groups (Delegations
within a project)
People types (Entrant
roles within a project)
Volunteer types
Scratched people
(projects only)
Team filters
Only people on
selected lists
Exclude people who
are
Excludes people with one or more of the selected contact
flags. Use this to eliminate people who don't want to get this
mailing or use this mode of communication.
Only people in these groups/delegations are included.
Only people of these types (globally) or roles (in a project) are
included.
Filters by volunteer type.
Include or exclude people based on their scratched status in
the project.
Use this to include only people who are teams, exclude
people who are teams, or include both.
Check this to filter recipients to only people on one or more of
the lists you check. Remember that you can use Intellilists to
define advanced criteria.
Filters to exclude people based on their active/inactive status,
deceased, banned, etc.
1. On the left navigation bar, under Address types, set your preferred
address type(s), as well to Include/Exclude incomplete addresses and
Include/Exclude records without a matching address.
2. Choose any Sorting for your labels. Click the Add sort link to add a sort.
Labels will first be sorted by the topmost field, then the second field, then
the third, and so on. The and arrows next to each field indicate that
the field will be sorted ascending or descending, respectively.
3. Set your Output options
options.
4. Click Print to run the labels.
If desired, use the Save settings link to save your settings and criteria for
future use.
Custom Mailing Labels
Where the basic mailing labels have a fixed layout for their labels, custom
mailing labels let you put any information you want on the labels. There
are a number of built-in
in label templates that you can use. Starting with
one of those built-in
in templates, y
you can select Design report to customize
it. See Report Designer for more information.
For labels
going to 2+
people...
Starting label
If checked, and two or more people sharing an address are included
here, only one label will be printed for all of the people sharing that
address.
VSys can skip labels if you re
re-use
use a partial sheet of labels. Set this to the
#
starting label. The label at the upper-left corner is considered the first
label, then continuing in columns.
Exclude
Excludes people with one or more of the selected contact flags. Use this
contact flags to eliminate people who don't want to get this mailing or use this mode of
communication.
Groups
Only people in these groups/delegations are included.
(Delegations
within a
project)
People types Only people of these types (globally) or roles (in a project) are included.
(Entrant roles
within a
project)
Volunteer
Filters by volunteer type.
types
Team filters
Use this to include only people who are teams, exclude people who are
teams, or include both.
Only people not scratched, Only scratched people or (any).
Scratched
people
(projects
only)
Only people Check this to filter recipients to only people on one or more of the lists you
on selected check.
lists
Exclude
Filters to exclude people based on their active status.
people who
are...
1. On the left navigation bar, under Address types, set your preferred
address type(s), as well as to Include/Exclude incomplete addresses
and Include/Exclude records without a matching address.
2. Choose any Sorting for your labels. Click the Add sort link to add a
sort. Labels will first be sorted by the topmost field, then the second
field, then the third, and so on. The and arrows next to each field
indicate that the field will be sorted ascending or descending,
respectively. Checking (no page break) or with page break turns
page breaks for this field on and off. You might use page breaks to
separate labels by delegation, by role, or by postal code.
3. Set your Output options.
4. Click Print to run the mailing labels.
When printing labels from within a pr
project,
oject, if a person is registered in the
project more than once, he will have a label printed for every delegation
that he's in.
If desired, use the Save settings link to save the label layout along with
your settings and criteria for future use.
E-mail Robot
The E-mail Robot consists of a pair of tools for sending bulk letters via ee
mail. These are the same letters you'd print and mail in an envelope, just
sent electronically. See the section SMTP vs. MAPI to decide which one of
these tools to use.
Open the E-mail Robot by clicking on E-mail letter robot (SMTP) or E-mail
letter robot (MAPI).. The screen which comes up is nearly identical to the
Letter manager with a few extensions: the Setup e-mail options link and
the Send selected letters button.
At any point during the sending process you can cancel the operation
and VSys will stop. Those letters already sent at this point are already gone
and cannot be cancelled.
The first few e-mails you send should be to yourself or to some sample
addresses to ensure that the process worked as expected. Consider
setting up one or more Gmail, Hotmail or other web-based e-mail
accounts for this purpose, as e-mails to your organizational e-mail address
are sometimes handled differently than those sent outside of your local
network.
Standalone E-mail Robot
The Standalone E-mail Robot is a free-standing tool which runs in the
background delivering messages. You don't have to use the Standalone
E-mail Robot: you can send messages using the E-mail Robot (SMTP) or Email Robot (MAPI), and you can send SMS/text messages using the
SMS/text message robot. But using the Standalone E-mail Robot means
that all of your messages get sent out right away, and you don't need to
worry about running any of the robots to send them manually.
The Standalone E-mail Robot can be installed as a Windows service.
Requirements
To send e-mails, the Standalone E-mail Robot requires either an SMTP
server that it can use for relaying outbound messages, or you can enable
the internal SMTP relay function and permit the Standalone E-mail Robot
to make outbound connections through your firewall to deliver the
messages. The Standalone E-mail Robot does not and cannot use MAPI
for mail delivery, it only uses SMTP.
To send SMS messages, track their statuses and download incoming messages,
the Standalone E-mail Robot must be allowed to make outbound TCP
connections using SSL over port 443 to https://api.twilio.com. For SMS messaging
you also must have your own account set up with Twilio.
The Standalone E-mail
mail Robot will not attempt to deliver any messages
more than thirty days old. This is intended to prevent its accidental
delivery of very
y old messages when the Standalone E-mail
mail Robot is
started. The regular SMTP and MAPI E
E-mail
mail Robots will happily deliver old
messages since they show you those messages on
on-screen
screen before delivery.
Notes
•
•
•
•
Changes made to the E-mail Robot SMTP settings or the SMS/text message
Robot settings may
y take up to one minute to affect the Standalone E-mail
E
Robot.
If the Standalone E--mail Robot is shut down, it cannot be restarted from
the Standalone E-mail
mail Robot Monitor tool.. Instead it must be re-launched
re
on the machine that it normally runs from in the same manner that it was
originally started.
You can run multiple copies of the Standalone E-mail Robot:: each one
locks letters/messages before sending them and so multiple robots won't
work on the same letter/message at the same time.
If SMS is enabled and activated, the robo
robott will also send any eligible
pending outbound messages, and every sixty seconds it will download
new incoming messages and synchronize the status of previously sent
outbound messages
messages.
iCalendar/.ics Files
iCalendar is a computer file format which allows Internet users to send
meeting requests and tasks to other Internet users, via email, or sharing
files with an extension of .ics. iCalendar is used
ed and supported by a large
number of products, including Google Calendar, Apple Calendar
(formerly iCal), IBM Lotus Notes, Yahoo! Calendar, Evolution (software),
eM Client, Lightning extension for Mozilla Thunderbird and SeaMonkey,
and partially by Microsoft
oft Outlook and Novell GroupWise.
VSys One can create and include iCalendar files when it sends e-mails to
people based on scheduled events, such as job assignments, trainings
and interviews. Whether a letter includes .ics files depends on the letter's
content and on if you've checked Include iCalendar/ics files with e-mails
in the letter's properties.
Different e-mail programs on the volunteer's end will handle iCalendar files
differently (if at all).
Text/SMS Requirements
To use the SMS/text messaging tools in VSys, you must have your own
account with Twilio, a service provider used for sending and receiving
messages. Communication with Twilio is done using their API, and
accessing that API requires that VSys (and possibly the Standalone E-mail
Robot) have access to their website, https://api.twilio.com.
Things our lawyers make us say
You are responsible for your own account, its security and any charges
that you incur. Bespoke Software does not exercise any control over Twilio,
its pricing, reliability or availability. If Twilio should no longer provide the
services that VSys requires, you may find that SMS message sending and
receiving are no longer available, and Bespoke Software cannot
guarantee the immediate replacement of another provider.
Sending a Quick SMS/Text Message
There are two ways of sending someone a quick SMS message: using a
letter template or a simple message. The first creates a letter and merges
the recipient's information with a template, sending it via the SMS Robot or
the Standalone E-mail Robot. The latter lets you type freeform text which is
sent immediately.
Either way, the first step to send someone a quick SMS/text message is to
right-click on them from most lists of people. If you want to use a letter
template choose Send this person a letter. If you want to send a send a
simple message choose Send this person an SMS/text message.
Using a letter template
Click Save here to just save the letter for later delivery or allow the
Standalone E-mail
mail Robo
Robot to deliver it, or click on SMS/text message on the
left navigation bar to deliver it immediately.
Sending a plain message
Select Send this person an SMS/text message brings up a dialog:
Choose the phone number that the message should appear to come
from, the recipient's phone number (which will be their preferred SMS
number, or any mobile number if there's no preferred value set), along
with the message itself. Click on Send to deliver the message immediately.
Report Concepts
Reports in VSys have some common elements:
•
•
•
•
One or more filters
A Tools section where you can load and save report settings as well as
design your report, add an image or "save as a shortcut" if those features
are available
Sorting options
Output options which lets you choose where the report will print (screen, a
PDF file, an HTML file, an Excel file, RTF file, e-mail or any one of your
attached printers).
Mail merges, exports, and some other tools also share some of these
elements.
Built-in Reports
Report
Account
records
Advanced/
custom
(global)
Advanced/
custom
(project)
Assignments
calendars
(RTF/PDF)
Assignments
listings
Awards
Banned
people
Description and variants
Account details and summary by person; Account record details;
Account summaries; Account summary by person; Account summary by
person (crosstab)
Projects summary; Project summary with counts; Save the date mailing
labels; Thank-you list; Meal card; Birthday listing; E-mail list; Kiosk user
IDs.
Delegation summaries; Entrant photos; Phone list (project); Project
exceptions; Project people report; Project people sign-in list.
Volunteer assignments styled in a weekly or monthly calendar for posting
in an editable or PDF format.
Volunteers assignments in a columnar format, with user-specified
columns, filters, grouping and page breaks.
Awards details; Awards summaries.
All people marked as "banned".
Basic mailing
labels
Comments
Simple mailing labels for hundreds of different types of labels; see the
Letters, e-mails and mailing labels panel.
Details about comments attached to people: Comments; Comments
(only those with images); Comments including images; Comments, fullpage images.
Configuration System settings, including groups, options, etc.
Custom
Account records in a year; Anniversary month; Assignment Crediting
column
Details; Assignments for the next 30 days; Awards given in a year;
Birthday listing; Deceased People; Hours in the past 30 days; Job
associations (active); Job assignments and associations; Kiosk automatic
checkouts; People who've been automatically checked out from the
kiosk; Kiosk user IDs; People details; People showing lifetime hours;
People with group, DOB and type; Recurring assignments ending in the
next 30 days; Trainings in a year; Recent transitions; Volunteers with DOB,
kiosk and e-mail.
Custom
#10 Envelope w/return address; 5160 Mailing labels; 5160 Mailing labels
mailing labels w/bar code; 5162 Mailing labels; 5162 Mailing labels w/bar code; 5163
labels with job associations; 5163 Mailing labels; 5163 Mailing labels
w/bar code; 5166 File Folder Labels; Birthday card mailing labels.
Demographics Summarize people by most values, including custom fields.
Directory
Listing to make a directory in an RTF format.
listing
Exceptions,
People who have one or more problems which might either restrict their
people with
volunteering or need special attention.
issues
Hours
Hours details by volunteer; Hours totals by volunteer and job; Hours total
by volunteer: current period + lifetime; Hours totals by volunteer w/bonus
hours; Hours totals by volunteer; Hours details w/account records; Hours
details.
Hours
Company hours summary; Group hours summary; Job hours summary;
summaries
Monthly hours summary (Fiscal); Monthly hours summary; Quarterly hours
summary (fiscal year); Quarterly hours summary; Supervisor hours
summary; People with hours summaries by year; Volunteer Source hours
summary.
Expiring
List of people with certifications due to expire, of a given type and
Certifications expiration date range.
Hours
Hours summary by group and month; Hours summary by current group
crosstabs
and month; Hours summary by volunteer and year; Volunteer hours
crosstab by month.
Interviews
Interviews completed, Interviews this week.
Invalid
People in system with invalid addresses.
Addresses
Job
associations
Job associations; Job associations and assignments; Job associations
and assignments by job group and job; Job associations w/job details;
Job associations w/o comments; Job associations w/supervisors and
locations; Job associations with phone numbers.
Details and summaries about jobs themselves (their definitions): Job
definitions; Job listing; Job listings with locations; Job profiles.
Job
definitions/
setups
Late/no-show See who is late or has missed an assignment.
Mandates
Mandate details.
Memberships Membership list (expiring), Membership list with associates, Membership
list by type.
Name tags,
4-up credentials; 5095 name badges; 5095 name badges with
badges and assignments; 5160 bar code label; 5383 "My name is" name tags, 5384
credentials
credentials with assignments.
Other custom Assignment summaries by job group and job; Assignment summaries by
reports
location, job group and job; Assignments report; Daily assignments;
Incoming messages; Volunteers with assignments by job; Volunteers with
hours by job.
People
People; People just a list of names; Lengths of service by primary type
and primary group; Lengths of service by volunteer type; People
summary by primary group; People summary by primary group and
primary type; People summary by primary group, primary type and
status; People with address/phone; People with hours summary; People
with hours summaries and details; People with no recent hours; Team
details by primary group; Team summary by primary group; Termination
details; People emergency info; People with account summaries; People
w/all certifications; People w/hours lifetime and between specific dates;
People showing assignments and job associations;
Phone list
Phone and e-mail list; Phone and e-mail list w/contact flags.
Profiles
Detailed demographic information.
Program
Strength, growth, attrition, hours, tenure.
statistics
Reference
Reference checks for volunteers.
checks
Recurring
Recurring assignments; Recurring assignments ending.
assignments
Relationships Relationships; Relationships with contact information.
Screening
Issues with background checks.
exceptions
Screening
reports
Details about specific background check records and their associated
volunteers: ChoicePoint Background Check Request Report; IntelliCorp
Background Check Request Report; Lexis/Nexis Background Check
Request Report; Manual Background Check Request Report.
Users report; Users report with actions log.
Security
reports
Sign-in list
Manual sign-in lists for specific assignments.
Slot calendars Calendar format of job slots and times (RTF or PDF format).
Slot details
Information about job slots (openings), including partially-filled slots,
filtered by slot status: Slots; Slots details; Slots details by location; Slots with
supervisors; Slot periods; Slot periods with supervisors; Slots with periods
and volunteer details; Slots with volunteer details; Slots with volunteers
and crediting status.
Slot summaries Summarizes job slots.
Summary/
Account Records by Quarter; Active Status Transitions Summary;
crosstab
Delegation entrant summary report; Hours by Current Group and Month;
Hours by Volunteer and Month; Hours summary for period by volunteer;
Hours summary monthly by location, job group, and job; Hours summary
monthly by volunteer; Hours summary monthly by volunteer type; Hours
summary quarterly by volunteer; Hours summary quarterly by volunteer
type; Hours summary yearly by location, group, and job; Hours summary
yearly by volunteer; Hours summary yearly by volunteer type; Person
Type Transitions Summary; Survey Summaries; Unique Volunteers with
Hours by Job group, Job and Year; Unique Volunteers with Hours by
Location, Job group, Job and Year; Volunteer Counts by Active Status
and Year Started.
Survey details Survey result details.
Survey
Results of completed surveys.
summaries
Trainings
Training class roster; Training class summary; Training details.
Who's
All people currently signed in via the kiosk.
checked in
Report Tools
If you run the same type of report regularly, or have custom designed the
contents of a report, saving your settings lets you re-run the report again
later without having to recreate the options you used.
For most types of reports, VSys comes with one or more built
built-in
in settings
that you can use directly or as the basis for setting up your own report.
Load settings
Save settings
Opens the Select saved report tool for loading built-in
built or saved reports.
Saves the current report, including its design and filters, to the database
or to a file.
Properties
Edits the report's name, keywords, grouping and comments.
comment
Clear settings Erases all of the settings and designs you've made in this report.
Save as a
This makes a desktop shortcut with all of the settings for this report
shortcut
exactly as they are on screen right now. Double
Double--clicking on that
shortcut later will launch VSys, run this report with the saved settings,
then exit. Any changes made to the report here in VSys don't affect that
shortcut. To have changes reflected in the shortcut, make that shortcut
again. Use relative dates to keep the report timely.
timely (Not available for all
reports.)
Use a header Adds an image to the top of a report or a watermarked image behind
image
the report. Images must first be defined in the Report header images
tool.
Design report Opens the Report Designer to edit the underlying layout of the report.
(Not available on all reports.)
Calculated
A tool for creating your own fields based on built-in
built fields. These
fields
"calculated fields" can use arithmetic, string formatting, replacing and
other methods. (Not available on all reports.)
Detail
Provides methods for edi
editing
ting detail records on a report, for example
filtering/sorting which training records appear and in what order when running a report
based on people, but which includes a person's trainings.
Report settings saved within a project are only available within that same
project.
Saving and loading reports saves and loads the settings for the report, not
the report's contents. This is an important distinction. To send the contents
of the report (what you see when you print it) to someone else, print the
report to a PDF file and send that PDF file. Likewise, save the PDF if you
need to have an archive, thought you can re-run the report at any time.
Chapter Name
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