Buenaventura Section: vtools for Meetings 2011

Transcription

1 Meeting Management with IEEE vtools IEEE HQ has put a lot of work into making meeting organization easier using the vtools suite. Setting up a meeting with vtools pre-populates the L31 form and enables free registration services. Meeting registrants receive notification and links to calendar reminders. Filing the L31 is a one-click + final attendance count transaction. Last, the upcoming paid attendance via PayPal feature for Sections in the Concentration Banking program (as is BV Section) will make it easier to charge attendance fees. The quick guide below walks through a simple setup and update for a meeting in vtools, and shows how to register to attend. The last section illustrates how to load a vtools meeting onto a personal calendar. About the vtools System Links to meeting are visible to members and non-members alike. For the created example meeting below, see no login on the IEEE site is required. The example below is not exhaustive. The meetings tools have an extensive help site, so it s not repeated here. The help site shows step-by step instructions and includes information about how to save time by using one meeting to fill in the blanks for another especially helpful as we have standardized meeting locations and times. Other features Create menus and name tags for registrants Fill in L31 reports from meetings in vtools Register attendees, both IEEE and public Additionally, vtools has a simple HTML feed that displays upcoming meetings in an embeddable HTML table. For example this link shows all BV Section meetings in the vtools system for the coming year. It is as easy to insert this into a web page/wordpress page as the Gmail Calendar Page. The vtools technical wiki explains how to embed meeting information into web pages using various technologies. A sample RSS (really simply syndication) feed on our Section home page (lower right) appears. This was installed in under five minutes using the RSS widget that comes with WordPress. Finally, please refer to the excellent demonstrations at the help site: 1

2 Create a Meeting Creating a meeting uses a fairly self-explanatory form at The time to complete the task is about minutes if the officer or volunteer has the meeting information at hand (cut and paste is your friend). Log onto the vtools Meetings site using your IEEE web account. Bookmark this site if you haven t already. Choose Schedule a Meeting. 2

3 The form is self-explanatory. Fill in the meeting title, select the Event Category (technical, nontechnical, administrative), and add descriptions, keywords, and agenda, if desired. Note: fields labeled in red are required. The system will check upon submission for required fields and insist they be filled in. Scroll down to the Region portion. 3

4 Note that the Region and Section are already filled out, based on your login. Select the organization unit, either a chapter or (section). Note that PES isn t showing up yet (3/30/2011). 4

5 Set the meeting times, location. The meeting system has a built-in registration system to open, close, and limit registration. See the discussion about it in a subsequent section for an example. 5

6 Set the contact address , typically Section or Chapter person responsible for organizing the meeting. If the meeting has speakers, select the button to add them. 6

7 Speaker information includes topics, picture for the speaker, and so forth. NOTE: always fill in the Display Name field. The input form does not flag this as a required field but the system seems to return an error if this field is empty. For Chapter and Section Administrative meetings, fill in this field with Officers and Chairs, Officers and Volunteers, or something similar. 7

8 Finally, select the visibility button and publish the meeting. Note that the meeting may be cancelled at a later date by selecting the checkbox. 8

9 The meeting is created. Select the meeting name link to view the meeting details. 9

10 Changing an Existing Meeting Once the meeting is in the system, it can be edited to add detail such as an agenda. On the meeting details screen, select the Edit link to update the meeting, if desired. 10

11 Shown here: updating the Agenda with current items 11

12 Once changes are complete, scroll down and select Change to update the meeting. The option to Cancel the update is also available. 12

13 The system indicates it has accepted the meeting update. 13

14 Registering Attendees Anyone may register to attend a meeting. An IEEE number is unnecessary. The meeting organizer may print sign-in sheets for registered attendees, name badges, etc. Log onto the vtools Meetings site using your IEEE account. Choose Schedule a Meeting to make a new meeting with registration or View Existing Meeting to edit an old one to add registration. In this example, we add registration to the existing meeting created above. 14

15 Edit the meeting and scroll down to the Registration fields. Registration opens on the start date and closes on the Deadline date. Set the start date to the current date/time to begin registration immediately. Otherwise, registration opens at the specified date and time. Registration deadline (closing) can be as late as the start of the meeting. Recommendation is to close registration 1 day in advance. NOTE: BE SURE TO SET THE TIME ZONE CORRECTLY. Would be nice if the time zone were auto-set to the Section s time zone. 8^) Set the maximum number of registrations if a limit is desired. For open Chapter technical meetings, leave it at zero. Save the meeting by clicking the Change button (if editing an existing meeting) or Create button if starting fresh. 15

16 Once registration is enabled and the registration window opens, the View Meeting page displays a Click Here to Register link. 16

17 Select the link and fill in the form. NOTE: in this example, the user is not an IEEE member and has no Member Number. Multiple guests can be added on the same registration. Click Register to complete. The system acknowledges registration. 17

18 Registrants receive an receipt of their registration. 18

19 Copying a vtools Meeting to a Personal Calendar In this example, we copy a vtools meeting entry to a personal calendar. The vtools system downloads an Internet-standard calendar entry. These entries may be uploaded into a calendar tool or sent over the network as an embedded mail item or other document. ical and vcal files contain ASCII text so are safe to hand with standard file editors and programming tools. Download an ical entry by selecting the ical (2.0-ical) link 19

20 Open the Section Calendar, and pick the Add pull down in the lower-left corner. 20

21 Choose Import Calendar from the list. 21

22 Choose the.ics file just downloaded from vtools 22

23 Normally found in the Downloads folder under Windows 23

24 Choose Import to load the item 24

25 The item is loaded onto the calendar. Close the dialog box. 25

26 Verify the calendar entry is on the calendar at the right date and time. Select Edit event details to view all information about this event on the calendar. 26

27 Full details, including the agenda, appear on the meeting detail screen. NOTE: in this example, Google Calendar has added the location as part of the agenda. 27

28 Version History Version Author/ Date Reason 1.0 Karl Geiger 30 Mar 2011 Initial 28