VTH FirstClass® Desktop
The First Class Desktop is where everything begins for your Virtual Town Hall®.
The FC Desktop displays your mailbox, file folders, and calendars, which contain
all the information you need to maintain your Web site. And depending on how
your user group or personal preferences were set up it could look like any of
following.
Your desktop may have additional items on it, and they will be explained to you
during initial training. It's all pretty straightforward.
If you have further questions, contact our customer support line at (978) 4615895, or send an email to [email protected], and we will be happy to
assist you.
© Copyright 2010
This documentation is proprietary information for the use of Virtual Town Hall clients and should
not be disclosed to unauthorized persons without the express written consent of Virtual Town
Hall.
Mailbox
The Mailbox is the core
of the Virtual Town Hall®
service. First Class® is,
among other things, an
email application -- much
like Outlook®, Eudora®,
etc. Your mailbox is
where you send public
notices and post meeting
minutes and agendas,
even when you start out
in the Posting Stationery
folder. Comments sent
from your Web site by a
visitor may also appear
in your mailbox if you
have been set up to
receive them. If you are not using FirstClass as your primary mailbox you may
want to enter a forwarding address to your regular email account. See
"Preferences".
Posting Stationery
You may have a folder for special, pre-addressed stationery icons in your
desktop to make it easier for frequent postings. Posting stationery is simply a
pre-addressed, partially completed email message. For minutes and agendas
we will typically pre-fill the subject with your standard naming convention for that
particular board. You will only need to change the date of the meeting in the
subject. We strongly recommend using the numeric date, mm/dd/yyyy, since it
will make sorting and organization of your minutes and agendas much easier.
© Copyright 2010
This documentation is proprietary information for the use of Virtual Town Hall clients and should
not be disclosed to unauthorized persons without the express written consent of Virtual Town
Hall.
The Menu Bar vs. Icon Shortcuts
There are two ways of performing operations within the Virtual Town Hall. The
first is to use the menu commands at the top of each window. From your
desktop the menu choices are as follows: File - Edit - Format - Message Collaborate - View - Help. The second way is to use the icons below the menu.
The icons are designed to be easy to use. In addition, if you hold the mouse
arrow over any icon you will display the function of that icon at the bottom of the
window and, with Windows, as a pop-up near the icon. To make life easier, you
can customize your
tool bar by selecting:
View - Toolbar Customize Toolbars.
You can drag and
drop icons from the
category windows to
your toolbar and place
them wherever you
wish. You can also
delete unneeded icons
by dragging them off
the toolbar and
dropping them into the category window.
Splitting Folder Views
You also have the capability of
splitting the view of any folder
on your desktop. By selecting
View from the menu bar, and
then select Split - you can
either split the screen vertically
or horizontally (the example is
split vertically). This allows for
you to view your folders AND
your documents or messages
at the same time.
Splitting a folder containing
minutes or agendas makes it
easier to archive your posted files into sub-folders when you change from year to
year. By choosing File - New - New Folder you can create archives for past
© Copyright 2010
This documentation is proprietary information for the use of Virtual Town Hall clients and should
not be disclosed to unauthorized persons without the express written consent of Virtual Town
Hall.
year's contents, then select and either "drag and drop" them into the appropriate
sub-folder, or with the right mouse button choose Move to Folder and select the
appropriate sub-folder to move the items all at once.
Address Book/Contacts Folder
If you are using VTH for your email services this is where you can save the
contact information and email address of people you frequently communicate
with.
VTH Help
The Help folder is a collection of VTH First Class documents that provide highly
detailed examples and explanations. To read the help documentation, simply
open the folder and click on a topic. Note that the folders at the top are help
documentation that was written by Centrinity® (the makers of First Class®), and
comes with the server. This will help you if you are using VTH for your email
services. The topics below that were created by Virtual Town Hall®.
VTH FAQs & News
The VTH FAQs & News is a folder that we use to communicate with our users en
masse, notifying you of new features, upcoming events, and (hopefully) providing
answers to some of the more common questions we receive.
Folders and Conferences
Folders and Conferences are technically very different things, but we usually use
the term "Folders" to keep things simple. As the term implies, First Class folders
are much like file folders, where you store documents and other sub-folders.
They are, in fact, almost identical to the folders your computer uses to organize
information.
Technically, every container you see within your Digital File Cabinet is a
conference, even though we often refer to them as folders. Conferences contain
permissions to restrict which users will have the ability to access or update the
files within them. You can also create mail rules for conferences that allow you
to affect the way the conference and items within the conference act.
You can only create sub-folders within any of the existing Folders and
Conferences in your Digital File Cabinet. With very few exceptions we must
© Copyright 2010
This documentation is proprietary information for the use of Virtual Town Hall clients and should
not be disclosed to unauthorized persons without the express written consent of Virtual Town
Hall.
create any conferences in the first level of the Digital File Cabinet so we can
assign the appropriate permissions.
Just in case you're curious, the main difference between conferences and folders
is that you can actually send email directly to a conference, but not to a folder.
Creating a new folder
Creating a new folder allows you to save messages and documents in areas
other than your mailbox, or if you are within your web Digital File Cabinet, to
create sub-folders to contain collections of web pages that are similar in nature.
For email users you may want to separate them by sender, by project, or any
other means that is logical to you. You can change the name of the folder by
going to the File menu and selecting Properties, or by right clicking on the title to
either rename it, or choose Properties to also change the subject at the same
time. To file any message into the new folder, simply highlight the message, click
and hold the left mouse button, drag and drop it into the new folder.
© Copyright 2010
This documentation is proprietary information for the use of Virtual Town Hall clients and should
not be disclosed to unauthorized persons without the express written consent of Virtual Town
Hall.
Calendars
Calendars are, well... calendars. They are used to post events, meetings and
agendas, or simply keep track of what you're doing next week. Calendars have
four primary views: daily, weekly, monthly, and list. The monthly view is shown
below:
© Copyright 2010
This documentation is proprietary information for the use of Virtual Town Hall clients and should
not be disclosed to unauthorized persons without the express written consent of Virtual Town
Hall.
Global/Group Calendars: Group calendars come in handy when you want to be
able to look at one calendar to see a variety of calendar events that may or may
not apply to the same type of meeting or people. For instance, we often
recommend a Group Calendar for the actual meeting room so your staff can
easily see when time is available within the room to schedule their meeting. You
may want additional group calendars for any town facility that is available for
reservation.
To Create New Group Calendar: File - New - New Group
Calendar - Standard Group Calendar
File - Properties to give it a logical name
Collaborate - Permissions: Uncheck "Do not publish in directory"
Belongs to e.g. CityST Staff Cals group
Subscribers:
 Add Subscribers: Choose name to put a copy on
their desktop.
Giving Permissions
 Who: Enter the person you subscribed
Key Permissions
 Ability to delete any item you created
 Ability to create items
 Ability to edit items you created
 Ability to edit items
 Ability to delete items they created
 View unrestricted details
 Search the calendar
 Add Participants
 Open items
 Download attachments
 View history
 Open calendar
.
© Copyright 2010
This documentation is proprietary information for the use of Virtual Town Hall clients and should
not be disclosed to unauthorized persons without the express written consent of Virtual Town
Hall.