Managing Incoming Internet Service Requests

Start by logging into OurTown2000 and bringing up the "Manage Incoming Service Requests" screen as shown below:

When a new message is entered via the website, it will be stored as an email on a POP3 server. This works just like retrieving email from most dial-up ISPs. You must check your mail to see any new messages. This should be done at least once a day. To check for new messages coming in from the website, click the button with an envelope in front of a globe at the bottom of the screen .

In our example, two new messages from Anthony Piselli have come in.

We want to move these requests to the master database. Start by clicking the blue "Transfer to Master File" button . This will bring up a small window with options for trying to locate this individual within the database. This works much like when a new service request comes in and you use the "First" button to try and locate the record associated with the individual.

Select whichever option you think is most likely to locate the matching record. In this example, I select "Name" and click the "Next" button.

No, we didn't find it. The closest match is William Pistello. We don't want to add this service request to his record, so we can either click the "close" button to try and locate the record by another parameter (phone number, address, or business name) or click the "new" button to create a new record with this individual's contact information. Let's just press the new button and create a new contact record.

The above dialog box lets us know that the new record has been created and the service request has been added to the record.

The date on which we transferred this record to the master file now appears in the box between the blue "Transfer to Master File" button and the black "Details of Message" button as shown above. Now that this record has been added, procede to the next record. It is also from Anthony Piselli.

As above, click the blue "Transfer to Master File" button and select "Name" as the search parameter again.

This time the computer locates our first record. Instead of creating a new constituent record, we simply want to add the service request to this record, so we click the "select" button to say, "Add this request to the selected record".

Again, we get the "Record has been transferred message and today's date is added to let us know when the record was transferred.

Now close the "Manage Incoming Service Requests" window and open the "Constituent" window as shown below.

The "Constituent" window will open on the last constituent record to which a service request was added, in this case Anthony Piselli.

The first service request we entered is number 001 and the second is 002. From here the services can be printed and edited the same way as if they were entered manually.