Chatboard

Chatboard

What is the Chatboard?

The Chatboard is a place where volunteers and staff can exchange information and discuss topics with each other. The Chatboard consist of forums (chats) which groups messages about related topics. Example of forums would be “General Discussion,” “Help using iCarol,” or “Social events”. 
  1. Chats can be available to all workers or be restricted to a smaller set of people. (ex. phone workers, Admins, trainers, board members). Anyone who has access to that specific forum can post or respond to a message on that forum.
  2. One forum can have multiple messages which are conversations about the topic. The three most recent new messages will appear on the home page, and will be shown to people based on their role and permissions in iCarol. For example, only board members would see new messages from the Board Discussion highlighted on their home page.
  3. Supervisors and Admins have authority to create Forums (Chats).  
  4. Documents (called Attachments) can be posted by Admins, Board members and Trainers.  They can be viewed or downloaded by anyone who has access to that forum.
Idea
Did you know the News and Events features have been updated with the New Homepage?  
Visit the "New iCarol Home Page/ News/Events" for details. New Chatboard coming soon. 

Enable/Disable the Chatboard Feature

  1. If not used by the agency, Admins can choose to turn on or off any of the available communication features such as Chatboard, Events and News.
  2. Once a feature has been removed it will no longer show up on the left-hand menu for all of your users. If the feature had items they will remain in the system and show up again if you later choose to turn on the feature.
Steps to turn on or off communication features such as Chatboard, Events and News:
  1. Click on "Admin Tools" on the left hand menu.
  2. Click on the "Tools" tab.
  3. Scroll down to Communication Features section
  4. Check mark those features you want to keep or un-check those you want to remove (chatboard, event calendar, news)
  5. Click on "Save all settings" at the top of the page

Create Chatboard Forums

  1. Admins can create Chatboard forums which enables a new topic for discussion amongst general or specific users.
  2. Advanced Settings allow you to grant permission to each worker to access the Chatboard and respond to forums.
  3. Forums can be made available to everyone, board members only, Board and Admins only or Admins and Supervisors only.

Steps to create a Forum:

  1. Click on Chatboard on the left hand menu
  2. Scroll down and click on the "New Forum" button
  3. In this screen you can now define a 
    1. name (title) for the forum,
    2. give it a description,
    3. decide on the priority (1-100, the higher the number the higher it will show up on the page),
    4. specify who should have access to this forum (to view and create messages).  
  4. Click on "Save" to create the forum or on cancel to leave this screen without saving anything.

Add a Message to a Chatboard Forum & Add a Reply to a Message

After a Chatboard Forum has been created, all users with permission to do so can add messages to a specific Chatboard forum. 

Steps to create a new chatboard message:

  1. Click on Chatboard on the left hand menu.
  2. Look up and click on the forum that you want to add a message to.
  3. (Forums are listed in bold. Underneath each forum you can see how many messages each forum has, when the last message was posted and a short description of each forum).
  4. You can now see a list of all messages that were created in response to this forum.
  5. Click on "New Message" and fill out the
    1. Subject (heading) which is what will appear in the list of messages for that forum. It will also appear on everyone’s home page, as long as it is one of the three most recent messages
    2. The detailed text of your message
    3. Attach a file. Note, only Admins, Board members and Trainers have special privileges to post file attachments to the message. These attachments, though, will be available to anyone who can use that particular forum.
  6. Click on "Add" to save your message or on "Cancel" if you want to leave the screen without making any changes.

To add a 'Reply' to an existing message

View an existing 'Message' and at the bottom of each message you'll see an area to 'Post your reply'. Any user with permission to post messages to the Chatboard can enter text in this area, and then click 'Add' to post a reply. 
Notes
Note: If users enable the setting on the 'Notifications' panel in their vols-staff profile under Email Notifications for ''My chatboard message' emails', they'll receive email notifications whenever a 'Reply' is posted to any Chatboard Messages they originally posted.
If an Admin level user enables the setting on the 'Notifications' panel in their vols-staff profile under Email Notifications for ''All chatboard message' emails (Admins only)', they'll receive email notifications whenever a 'Reply' is posted to any Chatboard Messages, regardless of who originally posted it. 

Edit or Delete Chatboard Messages

  1. All users can edit and delete those messages that they have created.
  2. Admins can edit or delete all messages created by themselves or anyone else.

Steps to edit or delete a message:

  1. Click on Chatboard on the left hand menu
  2. You will see a list of forums. Click on the bolded text of the forum to see all messages posted to this forum.
  3. Click on the bolded text of the message that you want to edit or delete. Next to the messages that you are allowed to edit or delete you will see the the edit or delete text (in parenthesis) listed next to it.
  4. Click on the "edit" text if you want to edit the message and then click on "Save" to make your changes, or "Delete" if you want to delete this message or "Cancel" if you want you want to leave this screen without making any changes to the message.
  5. Click on the "delete" text if you want to delete the message and then click on the "delete" button if you want to delete it. The system will ask you to confirm your deletion before it will remove the message from the system.

Edit or Delete Chats (forums and messages)

Admins can edit or delete forums.

Steps to edit or delete a forum:

  1. Click on Chatboard on the left hand menu
  2. You will see a list of created forums, next to each forum you see the option to edit or delete each forum (in parenthesis).
  3. Click on the "edit" text if you want to edit the forum and then click on "Save" to make your changes, or "Delete" if you want to delete this forum or "Cancel" if you want you want to leave this screen without making any changes to the forum.
  4. Click on the "delete" text if you want to delete the forum and then click on the "delete" button if you want to delete it. the system will ask you to confirm your deletion before it will remove the forum and all its associated messages from the system.

Control who can add new messages to the Chatboard

Admin users can restrict other users to be able to add messages to the Chatboard in each volunteer or staff members profile.  The default setting is that these users can view and add messages to the Chatboard. Follow the steps below to disable this setting (to make it so that users with these advanced security rights cannot create or edit messages on the Chatboard).

For those users with trainee, standard or enhanced advanced security settings:

  1. Click Vols-Staff from the left hand menu
  2. Click a user's name who you wish to restrict being able to add messages to the Chatboard
  3. Click the Admin tab and click Advanced Security Settings
  4. Scroll to the bottom of the page under Other features and disable the setting "Can post to chatboard"
  5. Scroll back to the top of the page and click the "Save settings" button

To restrict the setting for a user with Supervisor advanced security rights:

The default setting is that these users can view and add messages to the Chatboard. Follow these steps to disable this setting (to make it so that users with these advanced security rights cannot create or edit messages on the Chatboard):
  1. Click Vols-Staff from the left hand menu
  2. Click a user's name who you wish to restrict being able to add messages to the Chatboard
  3. Click the Admin tab and click Advanced Security Settings
  4. Click the drop down box next to "Overall security level" and change it to a setting other than Admin or Supervisor
  5. Scroll to the bottom of the page under Other features and disable the setting "Can post to chatboard"
  6. Scroll back to the top of the page and Click the drop down box next to "Overall security level" and change it back to Supervisor
  7. Click the "Save settings" button
Notes
Users with Admin advanced security rights cannot be restricted from adding messages to the Chatboard.

How to Search the Chatboard

The Chatboard Search feature allows users with access to the Chatboard to search message subjects, posts and replies for keywords. When searching, users can also filter results by timeframe, forum, or by volunteers and staff who contributed.
Turn on the Chatboard Search feature by:
  1. Logging in as a Admin in iCarol
  2. Click on “Admin Tools” from the left menu
  3. Click on the “Tools” tab
  4. From the “Communication Features” section, click “Enable Chatboard Search”
Using the Chatboard Search feature

The Chatboard Search looks for all instances of the keyword, with any applied filters, in message titles or bodies. You will see the searched keyword highlighted in results, with results listed by forum.
  1. Click on “Chatboard” from the left menu
  2. Type a keyword to search in the “Search All Forums” text field
  3. Choose from the Auto-Suggest drop-down list, or click the “Search” button
  4. (Optional) To filter results by time frame, forum, or worker name, click on “Advanced Search” to display and select filters. Once filters are selected click the “Search” button.
Notes
Note: By default when the Chatboard is first accessed the search will “Search All Forums”, if a user navigates to a specific forum first, the search will only search within that forum. You can verify what type of search you are doing from the search bar label. 

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