E-Mail Update Request Instructions

The E-mail Update Request utility will send an e-mail to all or selected agencies with information about the agency’s programs listed in a form.  The agency can then make any necessary changes to the information and e-mail it back to you. The E-mail Update Request can be run from either the Agency Data Report or the Program Data Report.

Before sending out requests, we suggest you do a test by sending one program to yourself to check the layout and information requested, see "How Do I" instructions below.  If you would like to modify your email template, please call or e-mail IRis Technical Support.

            Reports Menu:  Resource Reports

            Navigator Bar:  Report Options/Resource Reports

NOTE:  All requests will be sent to the Controlling Agency's email address.

Agency Data Report

1. Select either All Agencies or Selected Agencies
2. Select desired Sort option
3. Under Other options check Create E-Mail Update Requests to these Agencies.
4. Click the Do Report button.
5. You will get a message that says: “There are update requests stored in the Main IRis directory\LETTERS\directory.  These files will need to be deleted before continuing.  Delete now?”  Select Yes.     *Please see NOTE regarding saved update requests below.
6. E-mails will be generated to all those agencies selected that have an e-mail address.

Program Data Report

1. Select either All Programs or Selected Programs.
2. Select desired Sort option
3. Under Other options select Create Update Request to Agency; check Send Request Via E-mail.
4. Click the Do Report button.
5. You will get a message that says: “There are update requests stored in the Main IRis directory\LETTERS\directory.  These files will need to be deleted before continuing.  Delete now?”  Select Yes.
6. E-mails will be generated to all the agencies with an e-mail address that are associated with the selected programs.

 Before Generating E-Mails:

It is a good idea to disable your e-mail program’s automatic send and receive function before generating the requests.

How Do I?

Q: How do I disable the send immediately option in my email software?

            In Outlook Express:

1.       Open the program, and from the “Tools” menu select “Options”.

2.       Under the “General” tab, uncheck the box “Check for new messages every xx minute(s).”

In Outlook:

1.       Open the program, and from the “Tools” menu select “Options”

2.       Under the “Mail Delivery” tab,  uncheck the box “Check for new messages every xx minute(s).”

In Lotus Notes (6.0):

1.       Open the program and from the “Files” menu, select “Preferences” and then “User Preferences”.

2.       From the left hand side, select “Mail” and then “General”.

3.       On the right hand side, under the heading “Receiving”, uncheck the box “Check for new mail every xx minutes.”

Q: I want to compare the original e-mails with the ones I got back so that I can see what changes they made.  How do I do this?
A: Once the e-mails have been sent out, a copy of these files has been stored in the LETTERS folder in your main IRis location.  If you want to use these to compare against files you receive back from the agency, it is recommended that you copy these files to a new location.  (All files in the LETTERS folder will be deleted during the next update request.)  The filenames for the update requests are the same as the agency id number in IRis, with a .rtf extension.  These documents can be opened in Microsoft Word and many other word processing programs.  The following steps are written based on Microsoft Word 2000, and the steps may be different depending on your software and version.

To actually compare the files:

1. Save the updated file to your hard drive under a different name.
2. Open Microsoft Word, and locate the original document, the one that was sent out.
3. From the “Tools” menu, select “Track Changes” and then “Compare Documents”
4. In the window that appears, select the new document (the one that you received.)  Word will open this document.
5. Changes to the original documents will be shown in a color, usually red.  You can right click on one of the changes and choose to accept or reject a change.

Q: I want to get the new information from the updated request into IRis.  How can I do this?

A: Use the following steps:

1.       Open the returned document in your word processor.

2.       Open IRis, and select “Agency Records” under the “Resource Management” area of the navigator.

3.       Use the Search feature to locate the agency record with the id number that matches the name of the file.  (This ID number is also at the top of the document.)

4.       Edit the agency record.

5.       You can now copy and paste all of the new information into the appropriate fields.

6.       To work with the program records, simply move to the appropriate tab on the agency page and double click on the listed program to open that program for editing.  Continue copying and pasteing until you have finished updating the records.  Make sure to change the last formal update.