We recommend this form of training as staff come away with a working system on their own machines that they then know how to use.

Assumptions

It is assumed that:


  • The person reading this is the trainer
  • You have already installed the software on your own machine and have a working license
  • The training is on-line with screen sharing

Headlines of the course

This course will:


  1. Guide users through the installation (where appropriate)
  2. Show them how to grab their license
  3. Help them to connect to a filing Group so that they have can see a list of shared filing locations
  4. File an incoming email
  5. File an outgoing email
  6. Search for the messages they have filed
  7. Accessing further help and learning material

Preparation

Firstly make sure that:

 

  • You have licenses for all the of the staff and, where they are named user licences, you have allocated them to staff or they have been set to auto-claim
  • If staff don't have installation rights on their own machines, you will have deployed the software to them beforehand
  • You have created at least one filing Group that they will be using in the training
    • We recommend that this is list of live filing locations and not a place purely created for training purposes i.e. make it real. A typical set of locations would be 'Projects'
    • We recommend that you review the section on Best Practice Advice before creating your filing groups as this provides do's and don'ts that will help you to get it right first time
  • Whilst the course does not explicitly cover these things, it is likely that staff will want to know:
    • Where the messages really go?
    • Can we work off-line?
    • Where should we file confidential emails?

So we recommend that the trainer is a knowledgable user of the software and is prepared to answer any of the most obvious questions. If you are new to the software it is usually best that the first course is delivered by an Symetri trainer.

  • In the search section of the training you will get all staff to search the same place. 
    • Think about which location you will use
    • Make sure that there are some messages already in that location for them to find
    • Be careful to select a location that you are happy for them to search (no confidential content)


Promoting the training

It's always a good idea to let people take a look for themselves beforehand as it will dispel any fears that the software or processes are difficult and they will get more from the training. So we recommend that you send them a link to the Video Tutorials stating that "You don't need to have seen these short videos before the training but it may help you to preview them"


Send an appointment and be sure to add screen sharing.

Hands-on Basic Training (The course)

Introduction and outline

Introduce yourself and explain what you will cover on the course i.e.

  • Installation (if not previously installed)
  • Grabbing a license
  • Connecting to a list of filing locations - known as a Group
  • Filing some messages
  • Finding messages


TIP: As staff will need to both file messages into your businesses folders and search them, if they are working remotely they will need to VPN onto the network before starting training. If you are using M-Files and staff are connected via HTTPS, this will not be necessary

What won't be covered

Explain that this short course is designed to quickly get them started and then show them where they can find further training materials and documentation if they want to become more expert

Installation

If you have deployed the software to users machines you can skip this section, otherwise direct users to the Downloads & Change log and guide them on what to download and install.

Licensing

Depending on the type of licensing you have purchased, guide the users through one of the following:

Connect to a Group

Explain to the staff that filing locations are gathered into lists know as Groups and that you can then have separate Groups for:

  • Projects
  • Business development & Marketing
  • Sales
  • Internal Management
  • HR
  • etc.


TIP: The Outlook control may initially be collapsed, so you may have to show staff how to expand it


Guide them to connect to one or more Groups using whichever of these methods is right for your environment:


Ensure that everyone one now sees a list of locations in Outlook.

File some incoming messages

Be sure to explain to people that even if the configuration is set to delete messages upon filing, they are NOT deleted but instead are moved to their 'deleted items' folder.


Guide them through selecting a message from their inbox and filing it by either double-clicking a tile or single-clicking the envelope on the tile.

Explain that the software learns their preferences and display the blue bars to show its level of confidence in the suggestions.

Encourage them to file more messages so that they can see what happens.


File some outgoing messages

Explain how the software will offer filing locations when they send an email, but that they have the option to Send Only or Cancel.


TIP: Staff may struggle to think of a sensible message that they can send in the training session and file to one of the locations. If so, get them to draft the message and hit Send in Outlook but to then Cancel once they have understood how it works

Find the messages that they have filed

Explain that the search needs an index and that PentagonMail Assistant maintains an index on their machine of just those places that they work with. 

Explain that this provides them with a fast search which will also work when they are off line.


You are now going to get them to search the locations they have filed to. These will be at the top of their list in Outlook so get them to right-click the tiles and search the locations to find their messages. Let them experiment with this.


Get them to:

  • Filter for keywords
  • Filter columns for names
  • Sort the columns 
  • Add columns from the chooser
  • Explain the 'All Parties' column and how that can be particularly useful if you know one or more of the parties involved in a message but unsure who was the sender and who just CC'ed
  • Toggle the preview
  • Select text from the preview and copy to clipboard with a CTRL+C
  • Double-click to open a message
  • Select multiple messages and right-click and send links


Explain that if they file to a location, the indexer will add that place to its list and will continually maintain a fast search index for them i.e. if colleagues file to the same places they will see their messages too.


Explain that other locations in the list will NOT be added to their search index until they either 1) file to the location or 2) force the indexer to add it to their list as follows:


Invite them to right-click on a tile where you know there are messages that you are happy for all of the staff in the training session to find. It needs to be a location that already has some messages in it.


Get them to filter the list by starting to type the name of the location at the top of the tiles. 

Get them to right-click the tile and select Search Location. Explain that this will:

  1. Start the search tool
  2. Set the location filter to the location they have selected
  3. If the location is new to them, it will be added to the indexer's list of places to search (they will see a dialogue box explaining this)

Adding locations

If the staff on this course will need to add locations on a Windows Files System themselves. Show them how they can create folders. Be sure to recommend that they create an 'email' subfolder to keep the messages separate from other files, then show how they can use the right-click option to Add Locations.

Explain that others who are loading the same Group will automatically be updated with their new location; typically within 15 minutes.

If you have time

You may want to show them how to use the right-click shell extension in Windows Explorer to send links to colleagues.

Accessing further help

Get them to pick the Help button at the top of the tiles. Encourage them to explore the help and point them to parts that you feel would be of particular interest.