In this chapter you will read:
Organizations have sub-sets and thousands of employees. Each employee or customer could be counted on as an entity each of which could have its own properties, information and etc. Each entity in an organization could have a set of events arranged for himself/herself. Please note that in this chapter we will metaphorically assume an entity as being a "he". An entity could then be notified about events that have been prepared and set in advance. For example, a group of entities in an organization could have a meeting at a certain time in a certain place in the company. You could use our events system in Mekashron Call Center Software to organize such event by means of getting notified at a certain time, confirming the meeting by calling the entities and etc. At the core level of these events is the calendar of course. In this chapter of our user manual we will learn about the calendar in Mekashron Call Center Software and also various options in setting events for entities. Please note that it is assumed that you already have installed Mekashron Call Center Software and you do have the main screen in front of you. If you believe you have not done this so far or you don't know how to do this, please click here.
1 - Importing Entities from a Comma Delimited Text File
The calendar window in Mekashron Call Center Software can be reached in various ways. We will use the Calendar to organize events such as meetings, phone confirmation upon certain occasions and etc. In order to reach the Calendar window, please follow the below steps:
- In the main screen of Mekashron Call Center Software, find the Calendar button as highlighted in a red rectangle depicted below and click on it:
Figure 1.1 - The Calendar button in the main screen of Mekashron Call Center Software
- After clicking on the Calendar button, the Calendar window and all of its components will be shown on the screen as depicted below:
Figure 1.2 - The Calendar Window
- The Calendar window can also be reached using the main menu of the main screen of Mekashron Call Center Software. Please find the Tools main menu and click on it at which time you will be presented with the below list of menu-items:
Figure 1.3 - The Tools menu items
- You can now click on the Calendar menu item which will bring up the Calendar window as shown in Figure 1.2.
Once in the Calendar window, we will be able to inspect various optins and panels that are implemented for us. In the next section of this chapter we will walk you through different tabs and panels that are available in the Calendar window such as Monthly View, Weekly View and etc. We will then talk about each of these panels in details.
2 - Quick tour of the Calendar window
The Calendar window is divided into four major parts or panels or what we will also call tabs. Let us see what each of these panels do in brief:
- Monthly View: list of the events that happen in a month. This is also our main calendar component. By default, the current data is selected and highlighted in this view.
Figure 1.4 - Monthly View tab in the Calendar window
- Weekly view: a grid of X and Y axis with the X axis displaying the days in the week and the Y axis displaying the working hours in a day. This panel is the small representative of the Calendar view since it limits the events to those that happen in the current week:
Figure 1.5 - Weekly View tab of the Calendar window
- Daily List: this tab is exactly what the Weekly View tab is except the fact that it limits the events for the current day only. There is only a Y vertical axis
in this panel that shows the working hours of the current day:
Figure 1.6- Daily List tab of the Calendar window
- Events List: this tab summarizes all the events that are arranged in the organization in an intuitive list where you will also get a chance to edit each event. The difference between this tab and the Monthly View tab is that this tab only lists the events but the Montly View tab shows the events on the calendar in a slightly different manner:
Figure 1.7 - Events List
tab of the Calendar window
Aside from the tabs shown above in the Calendar window, there are also a couple of buttons and combo-boxes in the Calendar window which we will go through in next chapters. But first, let's learn about what events are! Once we get a grip of creating and editing events, we will come back to the Calendar window and analyze various options at our disposal. The next section of this manual is dedicated to adding and editing events in Mekashron Call Center Software.
3 - Adding events
The core components of an enterprise or a coorporation are its entities. Entities are customers or could also be employees. Therefore, in Mekashron Call Center Software, events are associated with entities. In this section of the text we will learn how we can associate different events of different kinds to entities. In later chapters, we will talk about organizing and viewing these events. In order to associate an event to an entity, please follow the below steps:
- In the main screen of Mekashron Call Center Software, double click on an entity to which an event should be associated. You can also right click on the entity and select the View/Edit Entity menu-item. As an alternative, you can also select the entity and press the CTRL+E combination of keys on your keyboard. At this time, you must be shown the Entity Form window as shown below. Please note that if you have problems getting to the Entity Form, you can click on this link for further assistance:
Figure 1.8 - The Entity Form window
- After the Entity Form window is open, please find the Events tab on the list of available tabs and click on it. This will open the Events tab as shown below:
Figure 1.9 - The Events tab of the Entity Form window
- On top left hand corner of the Events tab, find and click on the Add Event button as highlighted in a red rectangle in the below figure:
Figure 1.10 - The Add Event button in the Events tab of the Entity Form window
- After clicking on the Add Event button, the Event window will pop up as shown below:
Figure 1.11 - The Event window with the Advance Options check-box ticked
As you can see in Figure 1.11,
there are many options available to you in the Events window. Below we will go through them one by one and we will analyze their functionalities:
- When: the "When" date/time combo-box is where you will set the starting date and the time of the event. By clicking on the time/date combo-box, you will be presented with a calendar window such as that shown below where you can set the exact starting date of the event:
Figure 1.12 - The Calendar shown after clicking on the "When" combo-box
You can also adjust the starting time of the event by modifying the time displayed in the time box to the right of the date/time combo-box of the "When" field in the Event window.
Please also note that you can also click on the 
to the right side of the When field in order to fire up the Calendar window and select your chosen date and time in that window instead of using the date-time combo-box.
- To: here you can select when the event ends. For example, if you have a meeting or a series of employees in the organization have a meeting with their boss, you could manage when the meeting ends using the To field. All the components in this group are similar to those in the When field.
- Remark: this is the place where you can enter information relevant to the event. For example, a small note. You can enter multi-line text in this box as shown below:
Figure 1.13 -
The Remark field
- For Employee: this field allows you to associate an event between an entity in the system and an employee. Suppose entities are customers and employees are people who work in your firm. The customer makes a phone call to your company asking to arrange a meeting with one of the employees. You will first select the customer in the Entities List in the main window of Mekashron Call Center Software and once in the Event tab of the Entity Form window, you will click on the For Employee combo-box and select what employee should be associated in this meeting with the selected entity. In the below figure, the current event is associated with an employee called "Vandad":
Figure 1.14 - An event associated with an employee called "Vandad"
Please note that you can also click on the 
button in order to fire up the Users Management window.
- Remind Event: if this check-box is checked, the current user or the employee with whom the event is associated will get notified upon the starting time and date of the event. Upon selecting this option, you will be presented with the below window where you will be able to set when the notification message should be sent:
Figure 1.15 - The Reminder
- Phone Confirmed: in an organization meetings could be arranged in various sectors and places spread around the enterprise. Suppose as an operator, you have to arrange a meeting with 50 customers and 50 employees of the enterprise in which you are working. Usually, you will have to call your customers on a set number of days before the meeting to give them a heads up about the upcoming meeting. This can be done for example a week before the meeting. Once you call your customers and let them know again about the meeting, you will check the Phone Confirmed check-box to indicate that the customer has been called about the meeting or the event. This option can also be useful while printing report. We will talk about reports in the Reports chapter of our users' manual.
- Event Success: assumin, again, that you are an operator in an enterprise and that you have arranged a meeting between 50 customers and employees: after calling the customers and ticking the Phone Confirmed check-box, you must wait for the meeting day. Once the customers show up for the meeting, you will check the Event Success check-box in order to point out the success flag of the event.
- Advance Options: this check-box will extend the width of the Event window in order to reveal a set of extended options shown below:
Figure 1.16 - Advanced Options in the Event window
The Calendar, Event Type, Location and Status combo-boxes can contain arbitrary values based on your decision and relevance. You can add a value to any of these combo-boxes using the 
button and delete an item using the 
button. The Created By field allows you to indicate the user who has created this event. The list of users will automatically be enumerated into the combo-box. The default user is Admin.
Now let us assume that we want to arrange an appointment between an entity called "Mr. Brian Shepardson" in our database and an employee called "Vandad" on January 28th 2008 at 13:00 in the Employee Hall #3 and allow the employee to be confirmed with a phone notification message. The appointment should take an hour or even less. We will also set a reminder message to be shown to the current user 30 minutes before the appointment. This can be done with the below settings in the Event window:
Figure 1.17 - All the settings for the current appointment
Once all the settings are changed and modified accurately, you can click on the OK button at the bottom of the Event window which will save the current event as shown below In the next section of the text, we will see how events can be notified and viewed. Then we will start talking about notifications that are received upon events and etc.
Figure 1.18 - An event that has been added for an entity
4 - Editing and Viewing events
After an event has been added for an entity, there are various ways of viewing its properties or editing them. Below we will read about different ways of viewing and editing events that have been associated with entities. Each of the routes are, with their sub-routes, explained below. Please note: it is assumed that you have already added at least one event to the system. If you believe you have not yet done this, please click on this link.
- Through the Calendar (Monthly View): after you have reached the Calendar window, you will be able to see the list of all the days in the current month. You can then change the small back and forward button we have provided. The working order for the buttons is: (
= Next Year), (
= Next Month), (
= Previous Year) and (
= Previous Month).
Figure 1.19 - An event added to 28th of January, 2008; viewed in the Monthly View tab of the Calendar window
To edit this event, double click on it in the Monthly View tab of the Calendar window which will automatically take you to the Events List tab. There you will see the list of the event(s) and can thus edit the event(s).
- Through the Calendar (Weekly View): by navigating to the Weekly View tab of the Calendar window, you could view all the upcoming events that will happen in the current week. The event created in the previous section had its starting time on January 28th 2008 which is Monday. Assuming that today is January 27th 2008, just a day before the event, the Weekly View's first column will list all the events for the 27th and not the 28th. Therefore, you should expect to see the event in the second column of the Weekly View tab in this case, as shown below:
Figure 1.20 - The Weekly View containing an event on Monday, 28th of January 2008
- Through the Calendar (Daily List): the Daily List tab of the Calendar window simply lists all the events that are supposed to happen today. Assuming that today is January 27th 2008, just a day before the event, the event will not get listed in the Daily List tab unless the day-to-view is changed on top right side of the Calendar window to 28th of january as highlighted below:
Figure 1.21 - The Daily List tab of the Calendar window (Day set to 28th of January 2008)
In order to edit an event in the Daily List tab of the Calendar window, simply double click on it and you will be redirected to the Events window which has already been thoroughly explained before. Note that by holding the mouse on an event in this list you will be given more information about that event with a baloon-popup menu such as that shown below:
Figure 1.22 - The detailed popup menu
Please also notice that the top header of the Daily List tab is changed to "Employee Hall #3" which is the name given to the location of the appointment, as shown in Figure 1.17.
- Through the Calendar (Events List): once in the Events List tab of the Calendar window, you must adjust the current day to see the events that happen in that day. This can be done by changing the current date on top right side of the Calendar window as highlighted in a red rectangle in the below figure. Once this is done, you can view the events that happen in that day. In the previous section, we created an event for January 28th 2007 at 13:00:
Figure 1.23 - The Events List tab of the Calendar window
In order to edit an event, you can either double click on it or simply right click, and choose the View/Edit Event menu-item from the list:
Figure 1.24 - Popup menu after right clicking on an event in the Events List tab of the Calendar window
Right now, you must have gained a sound understanding of how events work in Mekashron Call Center Software and how they can be added, viewed and edited. In the next section of this chapter, we will talk about some adjustable settings related to the Calendar window which will help us in finding and customizing events even further.
5 - Calendar Settings
The Calendar Settings window is a small and at the same time a very useful window implemented in the Calendar window. The Calendar Settings window allows you to, for example:
- Limit the number of events shown in lists.
- Limit the number of working hours in events lists.
- Show or hide various columns in the Calendar window.
In order to open the Calendar Settings window, please follow the below steps:
- Assuming that Mekashron Call Center Software' main screen is open in front of you, follow these steps to open the Calendar window.
- Once the Calendar window is open, spot the little button on rightmost top side, with the
glyph and click on it:
Figure 1.25 - The Calendar Settings button
- After clicking on the marked button on top right hand corner of the Calendar Window, the Calendar Settings window will pop up as shown below:
Figure 1.26 - The Calendar Settings window
As you can see in Figure 1.26, the Calendar Settings window has an intuitive design with only a few useful settings. Here we will discuss how these options work and what their functionalities are. We will start with the Display Units spin box:
- Display Units: as you saw in Figure 1.5 and Figure 1.6, the Weekly View and the Daily List tabs in the Calendar, by default, show intervals of 30 minutes. This means that events are categorized by the time axis of each 30 minutes. For example, the first row in each of those windows corresponds to the first working hour, the second row is equal to first working hour plus 30 minutes, third row is the first working hour plust 60 minutes and so on. Therefore, assuming that the first working hour is 8:00 A.M, the first row in each of those tabs responds to events that happen at 8:00 A.M, the second row for events at 8:30 A.M, the third row at 9:00 A.M and so forth. Using the Display Units spin box as shown in Figure 1.26, you can either increase or decrease this interval. For example, if the Display Units spin box's value is set to 10, every 10 minutes will be categorized as a separate row in the Weekly View and the Daily List tabs of the Calendar window as shown below:
Figure 1.27 - Display Units changes affect the Weekly View and the Daily List tabs
- Active Hours: using these two time boxes you can select the working hours of your company/corporation or enterprise. By defauly, Mekashron Call Center Software shows 24 hours of each day in its Weekly View and Daily List tabs. You can limit these hours in order to make your list smaller and more tidy. Please note that changing these values will not have any effect on the aforementioned two tabs unless the Display only active hours check-box is checked. Please read the below description about this check-box.
- Display only active hours: ticking this check-box will make sure that the changes in the Active Hours edit-boxes will take effect. For example, if the active hours are set from 09:00 to 17:00, you will see the changes in both the Weekly View and the Daily List tabs as shown below:
Figure 1.28 - Hours start at 9:00 with 30 minutes intervals
- Daily Header Display: this group-box lists some important information about each of the events that can be set as headers in the Daily List tab of the Calendar window. For example, if you have 2 events set for 28th of January 2008 (or any other arbitrary date) for two employees in your company, you can just set the Daily Header Display group box's value to "Operators". This will cause the Daily List tab to display one tab (in this case). The only tab that will be shown would be the "admin" tab since in the previous sections in this chapter we created events using the user "admin". Therefore, all other users will be omitted from being enumerated and listed in the Daily List tab as shown below:
Figure 1.29 - The Daily List with headers for Operators
You can see that the user "admin" seem to have arranged two events that are displayed with their details in two separate rectangular boxes. Please note that if we had more than two users in the system, the Daily List tab would not have listed them unless the Display all header check-box was checked . To read more about adding users to the system, please read the Users Management section of our manual. Read more about the Display all header check-box below.
- Display all header: if this check-box is checked and (for example) the "Operators" radio-button was also selected in the Daily Header Display group box as shown in Figure 1.26, regardless of what operators in the system have events associated with them, all the users will get their own column in the Daily List tab as shown below:
Figure 1.30 - All operators are listed after having ticked the "Display all header" check-box
That's all there was to the Calendar Settings window! Now you must be able to use all the options in this window in order to further customize Mekashron Call Center Software and in particular, the Calendar window and its various tabs. In the next section of this manual, we will talk about receiving notifications upon events' start and ending time. We must know how users are confirmed by messages by Mekashron Call Center Software once events are fired.
6 - Getting notified by events
The main reason we create events is to be notified by them. There is absolutely no use in having an event if we have to manually and by hear remember them all. Mekashron Call Center Software makes sure that entities or employees will get notified, according to settings that were adjusted when events were being created, at the requested time/date. In this section of the chapter we will discuss on how you will get notified upon events that are fired based on your settings:
Suppose that the appointment scheme set earlier is now changed to 27th of January, 2008 at 19:12 (Military format). With such settings, when the user "admin" is logged into the system, he will receive the below notification message from Mekashron Call Center Software:
Figure 1.31 - Notification message for an event
There are two buttons that are implemented in this notification message. One is the View Entity and the other is Close. Clicking on the View Entity button will take you to the Entity Form so that you can edit and view the entity who is associated with this event. The Close button, which however has the default tab index and focus when the reminder window opens, closes the reminder window. Please note that even if an event is created for a certain employee other than "admin", the "admin" user will get the notification message since he or she has the highest access level and permission in the system. However, if an event is created for no specific employee or for an employee who is not currently logged onto the system, the current non-admin user will not get notified about the event.
Congratulations! You are now all set to start organizing and creating your own set of events in your organization/enterprise. We have already covered the events chapter comprehensively and thoroughly hoping that it will help you get a head start on setting up events in your organization.