PIBH Contact System User Instruction

PIBH Contact System User Documentation

The following documentation introduces you to the PIBH Contact System Website, as well as describes how to best use the functionalities of the System.

Table of Contents

I What is PIBH Contact System

II How to Use PIBH Contact System

Ø Registration and Login

Ø Download

Ø Send e-mails to Legislators and Members

Ø Page through Rows in the Data Grid

Ø Edit Agency, Edit Legislator and Edit Member

III Conclusion

What is the PIBH Contact System?

The PIBH Contact System is designed to accommodate the needs of PIBH members to log and track their contacts with legislators in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania .

The Website allows members to view, add new, edit, search and download contacts with the legislators. The contacts information and functionalities accessible to the members are role-dependent. See the following table for details:

Ø Role-based Contact Management

Functionality / Data Accessible

Role

Functions Availability

Administrator

Agency Administrator

User

Edit Member

X   (All members)

X   (Members of

      his/her own

      agency)

Edit Agency

X   (All agencies)

X   (His/her own

      agency)

Edit Legislator

X

Edit My Profile

X

X

X

Data Visibility

Contact Information

All the contacts of all members of all agencies can be viewed, edited or deleted.

All the contacts of all members are accessible but only the contacts of members of his/her own agency can be edited or deleted.

All the contacts of his/her own agency can be viewed, edited or deleted.

How to Use the PIBH Contact System?

Ø Registration and Login

New Users(3-step registration)

1. Click “New User? Register” below the password entry on the login page.

2. Fill in the Registration Form

3. Activate your account

After the registration form is submitted, an e-mail will be sent to your registered e-mail address. To complete your registration, you must click the validation link in the e-mail to activate your account. You will not be able to log in the system with your registered e-mail address and password until you activate your account.

Registered Users

Use your registered e-mail address and password to log in.

Ø Forgot Password

§ 3-step for setting a new password instead of the forgotten one

1. Click “Forgot Your Password?” below the password entry on the login page.

2. Enter your e-mail address and click Submit Email button.

3. Set New Password

After submitting the request, you will receive an e-mail that provides you with a link to a page that enables you to enter your new password.

Ø Edit Your Profile

You can access the profile page by clicking the Edit My Profile hyperlink on the top of the Welcome page. On the profile page, you can change the basic information of your profile and reset your password. Click the Basic Information or Password as you need. Click Apply Changes or Change Password to update your profile

§ Change Basic Information

§ Change password

Ø Add, Edit and Delete Contacts

After logging on, you will be presented with the Welcome Page and a list of legislator contacts. Refer to the table of Role-based Contact Management to see the contact information for the different users.

To add a new Contact, click Add New Contact button and you will be displayed with Add New Contact panel where you can select the contact date, contact type, legislator, contact issue, and enter the contact location and a brief description of the contact. Click Save button right below the Calendar to add the new contact, or click Cancel button to remove the new entry.

To edit your contact information, click the EDT button and the Edit Contact panel will appear.

Make the necessary changes and click Save to update your contact information. You can also cancel your editing by clicking Cancel button.

To delete your contacts, click the DEL button and a window will pop up to confirm whether you are sure to delete the contact you selected. Click OK to delete the contact, or click Cancel to abort the deletion.

§ Select Add New Contact, Edit or Delete button to perform your task

§ Add a New Contact

§ Edit a Contact

Ø Filter and Search

The filter button allows you to filter the rows in the data grid so you can narrow down the search. Click Filter button (the filter button will then change to Hide button) below the data grid and the search panel (including a search button, a textbox, a drop down list and a check box of Search in Current View) will appear. If you click the Hide button, the search panel will be invisible.

To make a search, first select the name of a column you want to search in the drop down list, then enter the keywords in the textbox and click Search. If the current data view is a filtered one, and you want to look at a complete list of contacts, select ANY in the drop down list and leave the textbox blank and click Search.

The check box by Search in Current View at the bottom of the list enables you to filter the filtered contacts in the data grid. For example, if you want to get a list of your contacts regarding “state use law” issue, you can select ISSUE in the drop down list, enter State Use Law keywords in the textbox and click Search. The result is a table of filtered contacts with issues limited to State Use Law only. Based on these filtered contacts, if you need to view a list of contacts you made with a specific legislator in regard with State Use Law issue, you can select Search in Current View check box, then select LEGISLATOR in the drop down list, enter the name of the legislator (you only need to type first one or two letters of the legislator) in the textbox and click Search.

Index search is only available on Edit Agency, Edit Legislator and Edit Member pages. It helps the users easily find an agency, a legislator or a member of their interest from a long list of agencies, legislators or members.

On Edit Agency, Edit Legislator and Edit Member pages, the “Index” and “Others” searches can be switched and you can select either of the two. The “Others” search is the same as the search on other pages introduced earlier in this document.

Ø Download

Download button allows you to download the current view of the contacts as an excel file to a directory on your PC that you designate. The contacts downloaded can be a filtered list or a complete list of the contacts that are accessible to you. Please refer to the Filter and Search section on how to obtain a filtered or a complete list of contacts.

Ø Send e-mails to Legislators and Members

Users can look up the legislators by clicking the name of the legislator in the contact data grid. Clicking the name of the legislator will pop up a docked window where you can click the e-mail address of the legislator (if it is available) to send an e-mail to him/her. If you are Administrator or Agency Administrator, you can view two more columns (Member and Agency) in the data grid. You can click the name of the member and then click the e-mail address (if available) to send emails to him/her.

Ø Page through the Rows in the Data Grid

To page over to a specific page, click the page number on the top or the bottom of the data grid. To easily locate a row or rows of your interest, use filter and search, or use index search if you are on the Edit Agency, Edit Legislator, or Edit Member page.

Ø Edit Agency, Edit Legislator and Edit Member

Refer to the table of Role-based Contact Management to see whether these functions are available to you.

Edit Agency and Edit Legislator and Edit Member are similar in presentation and functionality. Prior references to the usage of any of these pages should apply to any one of these.

Conclusion

The Contact System is intended to provide PIBH members with an effective and user-friendly interface where they are able to smoothly manage their contacts with the legislators. Its purpose is to present an information space to facilitate the working practices performed by different roles, therefore better addressing the needs of the PIBH member community.