Connect Now Workgroups and Communication: If you click and login to Connect Now, you will see the main Family Suite as seen below: Click on Family Directory then on Family Workgroups Family Workgroups are the tool to show a commonality for a number of different families in your software. On the left hand side is a listing of workgroups already in your system. On the right are the families that are part of this workgroup.
Editing Family Workgroups Click on the edit icon next to the workgroups, and you will see an edit workgroup box show up as seen below if you wish to edit the name or description of the workgroup. After editing the workgroup, click Save. Adding in a Workgroup To add another workgroup, in the main screen click the green plus sign as indicated below: To delete a workgroup, make sure the group is marked by a checkmark and then click on the red symbol.
Merging workgroups: To merge two workgroups together, click on the green bubbles icon, as seen below: Your screen will appear similar to the one below requesting the new workgroup name. Click Save to finish the copying of the existing families into the new workgroup. This process will leave the existing original workgroups as they originally were listed. Editing within Family Workgroups
Within the family work group area, you have different options on the right side to either edit, or create filtering or reports on the existing workgoup. The following screen shows which button to click to save an existing layout, add families to the workgroup or manage all the selected families. If you move around the columns in the layout screen, then you can save the manner in which the screen is laid out by clicking on the Save Layout button: Family and Member Workgroups There are two different types of workgroups: family and member workgroups. Click on Member Workgroups tab to open just the member workgroup area. Click the red + icon to add in a member workgroup and you will get the following screen:
Now you see the new Workgroup listed in the Member Workgroup area: If we click on the words Summer Committee, we can see that we re working with that Member workgroup by the screen below:
When you click the Add Members button, you get the following search screen. You can enter in either a specific member or leave the filter wide so you can see many people that qualify. Click Search It will now show us all the members that qualify, and we can see a listing of multiple members We ve selected 3 of the A last names above and when we click on the letter K and we can add in a couple of people too. After we ve found everyone we need, click on Accept at the bottom: We ll be back at the main screen and can see all the people that have been selected and that they are in the member committee.
There are Quick Reports available for workgroups, just like many other parts of Connect Now. Communicating with Workgroups: Please Note: You can t email or mail merge from the main Workgroup lists at this time, but can accomplish this through the Family List screen instead. Click on Family List under Family Directory in order to email to a specific workgroup. On the main screen, we will select the Filter icon to start filtering by specific criteria.
Click on the box next to the Family Workgroup in which you d like to see. Next, click on the Advance Options in the filter screen. Under the Advances Options you ll select Email and then select email for the status and click Apply. The resulting family list has just the families within the family workgroup that have email addresses. Next, click on the family s checkbox to select all the families you wish to communicate with, and then click on the envelope with a pencil icon to start the email process.
The email tool will open up with the families we ve selected in the popup screen. If you want to click on Load from Grid, that link will pull in all the unique email addresses over and above what you ve selected with the check boxes if you decide you want to change whom you re emailing: Click on Send Web Based Email button and you ll get the following screen for use of sending email. The Send Web Based Email will only work with the major providers like Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo, Parishmail, etc. You don t need to know the outgoing settings, it ll automatically try to access your account and send it from there.
You should see this screen above, where you will want to enter in your email address in the From box, along with your email address password in the Password box. Please click the Save Credentials checkmark after verifying this works for the very first time In the To line, CC line, and BCC line it will show what you ve previously selected. In the attachments area you are only allowed up to 3 email attachments. It s a good idea to verify the size of the attachments, so that your email provider doesn t block this message if the total size of the email it too large. Note: For the first time with Gmail, or any web tools, please test on a single person to verify that the email comes across as desired. Also, you many need to adjust your web settings to allow for a different security setting to enable Connect Now to log in and use your email to send this email message. Alternate means to email from Connect Now if you are using Outlook on your computer: If you are currently using Outlook to access your email you can use the Send Outlook Email if you are logged into Connect Now through Internet Explorer. Click on the Send Outlook Email button on the main email screen. You may get the following security setting warning:
OR you will have Outlook open and from the Outlook screen, you will see the people whom you are trying to email, being filled in as we see below.
Please note, that like any other emails that you compose, you will only want to have a limited number of people on the email. (Typically no more than 50 to 100) otherwise you can potentially be marked as spamming people. It s usually a good idea also to keep your email to being only those people that have requested that the email be sent. If you re wondering about spamming, what it is, how spam filters work, etc. The following is a good introduction: http://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/how-to-avoid-spam-filters/html/ Alternate Method to Email: If you are having issues with either of these email methods, in Internet Explorer you can click on the right side of the screen and highlight the copy/paste method and then paste the members into your email in the appropriate place. Mail Merging information to families: Typically it s the people/families that don t have email addresses, or those people we d like to communicate with via a standard mailing in which we d like to use the mail merge function in order to customize our communications. First, select a group of people to communicate with by clicking back on the Family List area and then on the Funnel icon, click the Advanced Options, click on the dropdown to the right of the Email: area and select Not email. Click Apply.
You will now see the families that are specified in the filter that do NOT have an email address. If you d like to send to only some of these families, click on the boxes next to the ones you wish to communicate with. To start the mail merge process, click on the mail merge icon which is the little yellow cylinder indicated below.
The computer will open up Microsoft Silverlight, which is our mail merge too. We can see the standard mail merge screen below. On the left side, you can see that: Global Templates: are templates that staff in your parish have made global for all to use. New Template: allows you to create a new template from a blank document. Open a Local Template: allows you to access a template on your local computer and use it as the basis for this mail merge ParishSOFT Templates: are standard templates that already have the mail merge fields filled in.
If you click on any templates and you go to the File area, you will see the following information: The functions across the top of the menu bar are similar to the newer Microsoft 2007 and newer functions. Ex: the Insert tab is where you can insert in a picture, etc. Clicking on the Templates tab, if we go to ParishSOFT templates, scroll down to the bottom to the Welcome letter. Then click the Open link to the right of it. We see that the template opens up in the Mail Merge tab, as seen below:
You can use this template as a starter, then click File < Save as and save it into your own templates, or you can even save it to your local computer.