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________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 119 ________________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 7: THE PHONE PAD SYSTEM Imagine the following scenario: You want to phone one of your clients, Bob Jones, so you get his number by going to HyperPAD's Phone pad and selecting Find from the command line, which takes you directly to the page for Bob Jones. Since you'd like to have a history of this call for billing purposes, you use the Track Call command to bring up the Outgoing Message Log for Bob Jones. If you have a modem and select the Dial command, HyperPAD places the call for you automatically and indicates the call's starting time on the Outgoing Message Log. As you're talking with Bob, you type some notes in the Call History area of the Outgoing Message Log, and when you hang up, you use the Stop Timer command to automatically record the call's elapsed time. A while later, Al Martin phones for Mary Johnson, whose calls are being forwarded to you while she's out of town. You access HyperPAD's Take Message pad, record the message right on-line, and print it out for Mary. As you may have gathered from the preceding scenario, HyperPAD offers not just a number of separate phone-related pads but an interconnected system of pads for managing phone-related tasks more easily and efficiently. In this chapter, you'll learn about the following pads: 0 The Phone pad: Lets you keep track of names, addresses, telephone numbers, and related notes; find information automatically; and print labels. 0 The Phone Dialer pad: Lets you dial phone numbers automatically if you have a Hayes-compatible modem. 0 The Track Call pad: Lets you record call histories (including starting times and elapsed time), leave messages, and take notes. 0 The Take Message pad: Lets you take phone messages on-line; automatically display a short message selected from a menu of commonly used messages; and type in longer messages and notes. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 120 ________________________________________________________________________ All the pads in the Phone pad system can be accessed directly by going to HyperPAD's Home pad, selecting the Go to a pad button, and then selecting the name of the pad you want from the Pads screen. Some of the pads in the Phone pad system can be accessed from within other pads in the system as well--a handy feature that, as you'll discover later in the chapter, saves you time and automates certain functions. Learning tip: You'll get a much better feel for how to use the various pads in the Phone pad system if you run HyperPAD and experiment with the features of each of these pads as you go through this chapter. THE PHONE PAD When you select the Phone button from the Pads screen, HyperPAD takes you to the Phone pad. Although, as you can see from the accompanying illustration, the Phone pad's screen resembles an ordinary page from an address book, there's nothing ordinary about the Phone pad's capabilities! ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ In this section of the chapter, you'll learn how to work with Phone pad pages, enter information into the fields there, find information recorded in your Phone pad, and print labels using selected information from its database. You'll also learn how to use the Phone Dialer and ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 121 ________________________________________________________________________ Track Call pads (discussed at length later in the chapter) in conjunction with the Phone pad. WORKING WITH PHONE PAD PAGES In this subsection of the chapter, we'll cover everything you need to know about working with the pages in your Phone pad, including adding new pages, deleting pages you no longer need, navigating from one page to another, and sorting pages into a specified order. ADDING A NEW PAGE The Phone Pad offers three ways to create a new (i.e., blank) page into which you can enter information: 0 Press the keyboard shortcut F3. 0 Select New from the command line (ALT+7). 0 Select the New Page command from the Edit menu (ALT+E, N). Regardless of which of the preceding methods you use, as soon as a new page is created, it's added after the last page in the Phone pad and you're automatically taken to it. Don't worry about the fact that new pages aren't inserted in alphabetical order. Later in this section, we'll explain how to automatically sort phone pages not only alphabetically but according to a number of other criteria as well. DELETING A PAGE To remove a Phone pad page, go to the unwanted page and then select the Delete Page command from the Edit menu (ALT+E, D). The page disappears, and the remaining Phone pad pages are renumbered accordingly. Be careful about deleting a Phone pad page, because once the page is gone, there's no way to retrieve it. MOVING BETWEEN PHONE PAD PAGES The accompanying table summarizes the methods you learned in Chapter 2 for navigating between pages in a pad. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 122 ________________________________________________________________________ Method: Result: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Select the left or right on-screen Takes you to the previous or next paging button. page. Press the PGUP or PGDN key. Takes you to the previous or next page. Select the Previous or Next commands. Takes you to the previous or next page. Press CTRL+PGUP or CTRL+PGDN. Takes you to the first or last page in the pad. Select the First or Last commands. Takes you to the first or last page in the pad. SORTING PAGES Earlier in this subsection, we told you not to be concerned about the fact that as you add new pages, they're accumulating in more or less random order at the end of your Phone pad. In fact, it takes only a few seconds to sort your Phone pad pages automatically, and you can do it as often as you like. To sort pages, select Sort (ALT+1) from the command line, which produces a pop-up of sort options. By selecting one of these options, you can arrange the pages in your Phone pad according to the information shown in the First name or Last name field, the Company field, or the City, State, or Zip fields. Once you select the desired sort option, the pages in your Phone pad are reshuffled accordingly and automatically renumbered. ENTERING INFORMATION INTO PHONE PAD FIELDS As you work with the Phone pad, you'll be entering information not only into the fields on the Phone pad screen (for First name, Last name, Title, etc.) but also into a scrollable field for notes, which remains hidden unless you access it in order to attach a note to a Phone pad page. In this section, we'll describe how to enter information into these fields. ENTERING INFORMATION INTO THE FIELDS ON THE PHONE SCREEN In Chapter 2, you learned how to work with the fields on a HyperPAD screen. Since those techniques are so essential for using the Phone pad, we've summarized them below. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 123 ________________________________________________________________________ To enter and type into a field: 1. To enter the desired field: With the keyboard: Press TAB or SHIFT+TAB until the field is highlighted, then press F2 to unhighlight the field so you can start typing. With the mouse: Point to the spot in the field where you want to start typing and click the left mouse button to place the cursor there. 2. To move the cursor around the text in the field, either use the arrow keys or reposition the cursor with the mouse; to delete text, press BACKSPACE. 3. When you're ready to move to another field, repeat step 1. ATTACHING A NOTE TO A PHONE PAD PAGE HyperPAD gives you the option of attaching a note to each page in your Phone pad, so you can have key information right at hand. Here's how to use this handy feature. To attach a note: 1. Go to the Phone pad page to which you want to attach the note. 2. Select Note (ALT+4) from the command line. A scrollable field appears. If the field is blank, the cursor is positioned at the start of the field; if the field already contains text, the cursor is positioned within it. 3. To enter new text, just start typing; to edit existing text, use the keyboard or the mouse to reposition the cursor and then start typing. Note: If you need more information about using scrollable fields, see the "Scrollable Fields" subsection in Chapter 2. 4. To return to the Phone pad page once you've finished your note, press ESC or select the ESC=Done button. "Note Attached" now appears to the right of the Fax phone field to remind you of the note's presence. Anytime you want to review or modify the note, you can reach it by pressing ALT+4 again. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 124 ________________________________________________________________________ FINDING INFORMATION If you want to track down information in your Phone pad and aren't sure where it's located, there's no need to rummage through the pages manually. Instead, you can use the following procedure to conduct an automated search of all the fields on the Phone screen for specified words, phrases, or numbers. To find information in the Phone pad: 1. Select Find (ALT+2) from the command line. A text box appears showing, by default, the last word, phrase, or number you searched for, if any--making it easy for you to continue searching for the same material. 2. Type the information you want to find into the text box. 3. Press ENTER or select <<Ok>> to start the search. If HyperPAD finds the word, phrase, or number, it highlights the entire field in which the material appears and sets the material itself off with a reverse highlight. If HyperPAD can't find the material, it displays a dialog box telling you so. Press ENTER to remove this message from your screen. 4. If HyperPAD finds the word, phrase, or number but it isn't the material you're after, press ENTER again to make HyperPAD highlight the next instance of that material, either on the same page or on another page. Keep pressing ENTER until you arrive at the desired information. You should be aware that when you use the Find command to search the fields on the Phone pad screen, HyperPAD highlights all places where it finds the specified word, phrase, or number, regardless of whether the material appears separately or within another word, phrase, or number. If, for example, you type "John" into the text box, HyperPAD spots not only "John" but also "Johnson" and "Johnstown." Knowing this can come in handy when you need to locate some information but are unsure of exactly how the desired material reads. In a case like this, you can try searching for some component of the word, phrase, or number that you're reasonably certain of. Let's say the client whose name you recorded somewhere in the Phone pad is either "Joe Cooper" or "Joe Cowper," and you realize your Phone pad contains quite a few names starting with "C" and quite a few instances of the name "Joe." You could ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 125 ________________________________________________________________________ zero in on the correct page by telling HyperPAD to find the information that you do know--namely, the final portion of the last name (per). PRINTING LABELS The Print command on the Phone pad's command line allows you to use selected information from your Phone pad database to print labels. If you haven't printed before, here's how to make sure your printer is set up properly: To check your printer setup: 1. Select the Printer Setup command from the File menu (ALT+F, U). The Printer Setup dialog box appears. 2. If the printer you're using isn't specified correctly after "Current printer," select the name of your printer from the Available printers list box. Note: If the name of your printer doesn't appear in the list box, select Generic Line Printer. 3. If necessary, change the setting in the Print to column. 4. When you're finished changing the settings, press ENTER or select <<Ok>> to close the dialog box. The following procedure takes you through the process of first specifying the kind of information you want to appear on your labels, the Phone pad pages for which you want labels printed, and the type of labels you'll be using--after which you give HyperPAD the Ok to print the labels. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 126 ________________________________________________________________________ To print labels: 1. Select Print (ALT+3) from the command line. A dialog box appears asking whether you want to print business or personal labels. (Personal labels include the first and last name, address, city, state, Zip code, and country. Business labels show the same information plus the person's salutation and business title.) 2. Select <<Business>> or <Personals> from the dialog box. The Label Printer dialog box, shown here, appears. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 3. Check the Copies text box and, if necessary, change the information there to indicate how many copies you want of each label. 4. Select the All option if you want to include every page in the Phone pad when labels are printed. If you'd rather print only specified pages, select the Pick button below the Pages option. When you select the Pick button, HyperPAD returns you to the Phone pad, where an Include this page option button now appears to the left of the paging buttons. 5. Press PGUP and PGDN to navigate to each page in the Phone pad for which you want to print a label and use the keyboard or the mouse to select the Include this page option button. 6. When you've picked all the Phone pad pages you want to include, select the return button or just press ESC. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 127 ________________________________________________________________________ The Label Printer dialog box reappears, and the numbers of the Phone pad pages you picked are now listed after the Pages option. 7. To tell HyperPAD whether you want the text on your labels left- justified or centered, select either Left or Center in the Align column. 8. If you want to use a label other than the one specified at the top of the Label Printer dialog box, select the Pick button on the right side of the "Label Type" area and indicate a different label. If you want to edit an existing label or create a new label, press F1 for Help. 9. Select Ok or press ENTER to print the labels. 10. After the labels are printed, select Cancel to return to the Phone pad. DIALING AND TRACKING CALLS You can use the Phone Dialer pad (if you have a Hayes-compatible modem) and the Track Call pad in conjunction with the Phone pad by selecting Dial (ALT+5) or Track Call (ALT+6) from the Phone pad's command line. When you select Dial, a pop-up appears that lets you specify whether you want to automatically dial the home, work, or fax phone number recorded on the currently viewed Phone pad page. Once you pick an option, the Phone Dialer pad appears. The selected number is already displayed, although you can type in a different number if you like. (If the phone number corresponding to the option you pick is blank, the pop-up simply vanishes and the Phone Dialer pad does not appear.) When you select Track Call, HyperPAD produces the existing Outgoing Message Log page for the individual whose name appears on the currently viewed Phone pad page. If there's no existing Outgoing Message Log page for that individual, HyperPAD produces a blank page headed with selected information from the currently viewed Phone pad page. Refer to the next two sections of this chapter for detailed information on how to use the Phone Dialer and Track Call pads. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 128 ________________________________________________________________________ THE PHONE DIALER PAD You can reach the Phone Dialer pad, shown here, either by selecting the Phone Dialer button on the Pads screen or by selecting the Dial command on the Phone pad, Track Call pad, or Take Message pad's command line. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The Phone Dialer pad allows users with a Hayes-compatible modem to automatically dial phone calls. If you access the Phone Dialer directly from the Pads screen, you can have HyperPAD dial whatever number you type in. If you access the Phone Dialer from one of the other pads in the Phone pad system, HyperPAD displays the phone number that appears on the currently viewed page in the pad you came from, saving you the trouble of typing the number in. Here's the procedure for placing a call with the Phone Dialer. To automatically dial a phone number: 1. Access the Phone Dialer, either from the Pads screen or from the command line on the Phone pad (ALT+5), the Track Call pad (ALT+2), or the Take Message pad (ALT+2). 2. The first time you use the Phone Dialer, check the Dial type and Modem port option buttons and change the settings if necessary. (The default settings are Pulse and COM2.) ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 129 ________________________________________________________________________ The options you choose will remain in effect for all future calls unless you change the settings. 3. Type in the desired number if the Number to call field is blank or you want to change the default number displayed there. 4. Type in the desired dialing prefix. Note: Later in this section, we'll give you some tips on filling out the Number to dial and Dialing prefix fields. 5. When the phone number and dialing prefix are shown correctly, select Ok to place the call. 6. Pick up the phone when HyperPAD displays a dialog box telling you to do so. Note: In order not to interfere with the dialing process, don't pick up the phone until HyperPAD gives you the Ok. 7. When the call is finished, simply hang up the phone. The following paragraphs present the tips on entering phone numbers and dialing prefixes that we promised you earlier. HyperPAD assumes that any number shown in parentheses at the start of a phone number is an area code and automatically inserts a "1" in front of it when dialing the call (i.e., there's no need for you to type in the "1"). If you're using a dialing prefix that requires an area code but doesn't require dialing a "1" in front of it, you can stop HyperPAD from inserting the "1" by deleting the parentheses around the area code. If HyperPAD displays a default phone number that includes an area code you don't need to dial from your current location, just delete the area code from the Number to dial field. Tip: To prevent HyperPAD from displaying default phone numbers that include an unwanted area code or parentheses, simply delete the unwanted material on the pad from which HyperPAD picks up the default number. The Dialing prefix field is used to enter any extra numbers you would normally have to dial before the actual phone number (such as "9" to get an outside line). ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 130 ________________________________________________________________________ THE TRACK CALL PAD You can reach the Track Call pad, shown here, either by selecting the Track Call button on the Pads screen or by selecting the Track Call command (ALT+6) on the Phone pad's command line. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The Track Call pad allows you to keep a log of your outgoing calls on which you can automatically record the starting time and the elapsed time. This pad also lets you type in notes during and after your calls and automatically display a short message selected from a menu of commonly used messages. When you access the Track Call pad directly from the Pads screen, the last Outgoing Message Log page you were working with appears. If that's not the page you want, you can reach the desired page by pressing PGUP and PGDN, using the on-screen paging buttons, or selecting Find (ALT+6) from the command line. (Since the procedure for using the Track Call pad's Find command is nearly identical to the procedure for using the Phone pad's Find command, see "Finding Information" in "The Phone Pad" section earlier in this chapter if you need further instructions.) If you haven't yet created an Outgoing Message Log page for the person you want to call, select New (ALT+5) from the command line to produce a fresh page and then fill in the heading fields. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 131 ________________________________________________________________________ When you access the Track Call pad from the Phone pad, HyperPAD automatically displays the existing Outgoing Message Log page for the person whose name appears on the currently viewed Phone page. If there is no existing page for that person, HyperPAD creates one and automatically fills in the heading fields for you. The following procedure shows how to record a call history using the Track Call pad. To track a call: 1. Access the Track Call pad, either from the Pads screen or from the Phone pad (ALT+6). 2. When the Outgoing Message Log appears, fill in or edit the heading fields if necessary. Note: If you'll be placing your call automatically, the Phone Dialer dials the number that's shown in the Phone number field. 3. Either place the call manually and start the timer yourself by selecting Start Timer (ALT+3), or place the call and start the timer automatically by selecting Dial (ALT+2). (For detailed instructions on using the Phone Dialer, refer to "The Phone Dialer Pad" section earlier in the chapter.) As soon as the timer is started, HyperPAD records the call's starting time in the Call History field. While the call is in progress, the elapsed time in minutes and seconds is automatically displayed above the Call History field. (This information is updated at one-second intervals.) 4. During the call, you can use the Call History field to make notes. Since the field is scrollable, you're not limited in the number of notes you can enter. 5. After you hang up, select Stop Timer (ALT+4). As soon as the timer is stopped, HyperPAD records the call's elapsed time in the Call History field and displays a menu of standard messages (e.g., "Not In," "No Answer," "Wrong Number") for you to choose from. 6. If you want to display one of the default messages in the Call History field after the call's elapsed time, select the desired message with the keyboard or the mouse. If you don't want to select a message, press ESC or click the right mouse button to remove the message menu from your screen. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 132 ________________________________________________________________________ You can edit any of the information that appears in the Call History field, including information that HyperPAD has recorded there automatically, such as call starting times, elapsed times, and messages. To obtain a hard copy of a page from the Outgoing Message Log, go to that page and select Print (ALT+1) from the command line. (If you need to set up your printer, see the instructions given in the "Printing Labels" subsection earlier in the chapter.) THE TAKE MESSAGE PAD The Take Message pad, shown here, lets you record messages on-line and print them out. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ To use the features of the Take Message pad, just follow the instructions below. To take a message: 1. Go to the Take Message pad by selecting the Take Message button from the Pads screen. 2. To get a fresh page, select New (ALT+3) from the command line. To find an existing page, press PGUP or PGDN or use the on-screen paging buttons. 3. Fill out the fields at the top of the message form. (By default, today's date is already shown.) ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7: The Phone Pad System 133 ________________________________________________________________________ 4. Use the Pick button if you want to display a menu of standard messages (e.g., "Wants to see you," "Returned your call"), which can be selected with the keyboard or the mouse. Once you select a message from the menu, it appears after "Message" at the top of the form. 5. If necessary, type a longer message in the scrollable field. 6. To obtain a hard copy of the message, select Print (ALT+1) from the command line. (For information on setting up your printer, see "Printing Labels" earlier in the chapter.) If you have a modem and subsequently need to call the person who left the message, go to the page that contains the message and select Dial (ALT+2). The Phone Dialer automatically dials the number shown in the Phone number field. (For detailed instructions on using the Phone Dialer, refer to "The Phone Dialer Pad" section earlier in the chapter.) CONCLUSION Now that you've finished this chapter, you should know how to access the Phone pad, the Phone Dialer pad, the Track Call pad, and the Take Message pad and how to use the main features of each of these pads. But your understanding shouldn't stop with just knowing how to operate the phone-related pads individually. You should also understand how to multiply the power of these pads by using them in conjunction with one another as an integrated system for simplifying and automating your work and increasing your productivity.