Praize Help - Email Support

This email system contains all of the standardized online email functionality, as well as some added features which helps our service stand out. Many of you will no doubt be familiar with a lot of these abilities, but we will nevertheless bring you through the program step by step, so that you can see how they work within our system. We will begin with the core, the Inbox, and work our way out from there. Altogether, we will be covering the following components:

The Inbox is the folder into which new, unfiltered mail will arrive. It will most likely be the first place you check when coming to your mailbox. The Inbox folder appears as a table of information, as do all other mail folders. The characteristics of the Inbox apply to all other mail folders as well.

The top row of the table consists of the Location Bar. This top row will appear on every page within the email software and identifies the current location/function. In the Inbox, this will appear as:

Other folders will use the same format, and functions such as Add Filters will have a title in its place. This is to ensure that you never gets lost or confused during your visit.

Below the Location Bar, there are two tab buttons - [Check Other Mail] and [Delete Trash]. You will note that identical tab buttons appear at the bottom of the page as well.

[Check Other Mail]
Clicking on the [Check Other Mail] button will run a check of any other mail sources the user has set up. You have the ability to have the email you would normally receive at another source filtered into this service instead, allowing you to consolidate your email. This is covered in more detail in Other Pop3.

[Delete Trash]
Quite straightforward, clicking the [Delete Trash] button will empty your Trash folder. As the folder gets more full, it may cause run-times to slow down, therefore it is advised that you keep your Trash folder trimmed down.

Account Status
Account Status, appearing at the top-right of the Inbox (and all other folders) lets you know the status of your account. All accounts will have certain restrictions to the amount of space (Kb) that you can use. This also lets you know how many messages you have (both read and unread) and how many folders you currently have in use.

Deleting Mail
Directly below the [Check Other Mail] tab, there is button marked [Delete Mail]. This works in conjunction with the checkboxes running down the left side of the Inbox. Filling in the checkbox for one of the emails and then pressing the [Delete Mail] button will move that email to the Trash folder. You will note that at the bottom of the table, there are two text links, "Check All" and "UnCheck All". If you want to mass-delete email, you can select "Check All" to select every email in the folder. Conversely, if you change your mind, you can "UnCheck All".

Flagging Mail
Next to the [Delete Mail] button, there is a drop-down menu with a button next to it marked [Flag Mail]. Flags exist to help you keep your email organized. They add small, colored flag icons next to the Subject of an email and in doing so, group emails of a common flag together. For instance, all work-related emails could be flagged blue, while emails from loved ones could be flagged red. To add a flag, you need only select an email by filling in the checkbox next to it, choose a flag from the drop-down menu, and then click [Flag Mail]. A colored flag will appear next to the subject of the email under the Flag column.

Moving Mail
Along the same row, the final element you will see will be the Move Mail option. This consists of a drop-down menu and a button marked [Move Mail]. The drop-down menu consists of all folders available - both the default folders (Inbox, Trash, Sent) and any you may have created.

To move an email from one folder to another, you need only select the email(s) in question by using the checkboxes next to them. After selecting the destination folder in the drop-down menu, clicking [Move Mail] will transport your mail to the new location.

The next row of the table consists of the column names. These eight columns allow you to sort your email in multiple ways:

1. The first column has a plus/minus symbol at the top. Pressing this link will toggle the email from descending to ascending order, changing the direction the emails are listed in. Beneath the plus/minus symbol are mail icons. If a message has not been read yet, a "closed envelope" icon will appear, and if the message has been read, it will change into an "open envelope" icon. Also, if the email has been replied to, the envelope icon will contain a purple arrow; if it has been forwarded to anybody, the envelope icon will contain a blue arrow; and if it has been both replied to and forwarded to someone, the envelope icon will contain both a purple and blue arrow.

2. The second column is made up of the checkboxes that allow you to select one or more emails on which to perform tasks.

3. The third is the Flag column. Underneath the small, transparent flag icon will appear any colored flag that you have added to your mail.

4. The fourth is the Subject column, which will list the subject of the email that has been sent to you. Clicking on the Subject (which appears as a link) will open up the message so that it can be viewed.

5. The fifth is the Sender column, which lists the source of the email. How this appears will depend on how the sender has their mail confi gured. It may appear as the name of the sender or simply their email address.

6. The sixth is the Date column, which lists the date you received the email. This is often the most useful sorting technique, as it assures that new emails will be spotted immediately at either the top or bottom of the list.

7. The Size column lists the size (in kilobytes) of the message. This information is most useful when you are approaching your size limit and need to get rid of some older/less relevant email. You may be able to get rid of just one or two large files to clear up a lot of space. Also noted next to the size of the email is whether the email contains any attachments or user notes (see Notes below). If there is an attachment with the email, a small "paper clip" icon will appear. If you have left a note, then a small "thumbtack" icon will appear.

8. The last column is the Priority column. As with most online email programs, people are able to assign a priority rating to an email that they are sending to alert the recipient as to whether the email is of high or low urgency. The reverse also works; so if you receive an email that was sent with a certain priority rating, then the priority rating will appear in this column.

The bottom of the Inbox folder is a mirror of the top, with the Flag Mail and Move Mail options as well as the [Check Other Mail] and [Delete Trash] tabs. The "Check All" and "UnCheck All" links are also found here, but their function has already been covered above.

Pressing on the [Folders] tab will bring you to the main display page of all your email folders. The Location Bar across the top of the table places you in:
"Folders for: memberusername@yourdomain"

On the left hand side of the screen will be a list of all present folders, along with information on how many emails can be found inside each folder - both read and unread. There are four default folders that will always be present. They are:

Mass Mail - the Mass Mail folder will store any incoming mail that the software identifies as possible junk mail, otherwise known as "Spam". There are many people on the Internet who send unsolicited email, something which irks many web surfers. The reader can then look it over on their own time and weed out what they want to keep without having their Inbox flooded with unsolicited Spam.

On the right side of the page are instructions on how to "Create a Personal Folder". The four folders mentioned above may not be enough for you, so you have the option of creating your own personal folders. All you need to do is fill a name for the new folder into the text field and then click [Create Folder]. It will then appear at the bottom of the folder list on the left.

Below the "Create a Personal Folder" section is the "Edit a Personal Folder" section. This consists of a drop-down menu listing all folders you have already created. After selecting a folder you have two options - represented by the two buttons beneath the drop-down - [Rename] and [Remove]. [Rename] will open up a Java prompt asking you to assign a new name to the folder you have selected from the drop-down. [Remove] will move all contents of the folder to your Trash, and delete the folder itself permanently.

Below the Location Bar there are four buttons - [Reply], [Reply All], [Forward] and [Delete]. n These are basic functions of any email program. Clicking [Reply] will open up a "Compose Mail" window that already has the sender's contact information filled in the "To:" slot. It keeps the same subject but includes an "Re:" before it, which stands for Reply. The original message will be quoted in the content area.

Clicking [Reply All] works in the same way as [Reply], except that it will send a reply not only to the original sender, but also anyone to whom the email was sent as a Carbon Copy (cc). Using [Reply All] will send it to every email listed as the main sender or a cc.

Clicking [Forward] will quote the entire email (header, message, signature) and send it forward to a third party determined by you.

Directly beneath these buttons is the header - consisting of the "To:" and "From:" fields, as well as the "Subject" and "Date" of the email. The email addresses are all clickable and open up a "Compose Mail" window if clicked on.

To the far right of this table row you can find more tools to help you keep track of your email. There is a link back to the Inbox if you want to access another message, and a [Move] function that allows you to transfer a message to another folder.

Beneath these are two interesting features represented by text lin ks. They are "Add Addresses" and "Read/Add/Edit Notes". The former will open the "Add Contact" page of your Address Book with the basic information already filled in - including email and name.

Clicking the "Read/Add/Edit Notes" link will open a new window named "Add/Edit Notes About This Email". This window functions as a type of notepad for you to leave your remarks about an email. It could be something you need to remember to say when you reply, or some information about the discussion taking place.

This page looks just like the Message page, except that a large text field has replaced the message, with two buttons underneath - [Save Changes] and [Cancel]. To leave a note, you need only type the note into the text field and click [Save Changes]. The next time you click on "Read/Add/Edit Notes", you will see what you wrote for that particular message. You can make any changes you want and click [Save Changes] again. Otherwise, you can click [Cancel] to return to the Message.

Once a note has been added to a message, a small "thumbtack" icon will appear next to its size in the main folder listing.

Below this top row section is the actual message of the email. This is where the user will be able to read and look over the email they have received. Bottoming out the page is a mirror reflection of the top menu items, complete with [Reply], [Reply All], [Forward] buttons, etc.

An attachment is a file that can be sent along with an email. It "piggybacks" along on the back of the email and can be downloaded on the receiving end. It can be a text-based file or an image. If you have received an attachment along with your email, then there will an added section that appears just before the bottom of the Message table. It will consist of another smaller table, made up of four columns - File Name, Content-Type, Size and Content-Transfer-Encoding. It is also possible that image attachments may show up in the body of the email as well as be listed in the bottom grid.

Content-Type - will list what kind of content has been sent as well as its type (i.e. image/gif)

Content-Transfer-Encoding - lists what sort of encoding was used on the file in order for it to be sent as email. This final element is of little importance to you.

Clicking on the File Name of the attachment will open it up in a new window, where you can save it.

Once a note has been added to a message, a small "thumbtack" icon will appear next to its size in the main folder listing. Clicking on the icon will open up the note.

Address Book
At the top of the page is a link to your Address Book. You can use the Address Book to send an email to anyone you have listed inside. Selecting a listing will present you with three boxes underneath the contact person's name: "To", "CC", and "BCC". Selecting any one of these with a checkmark will automatically fill in the related email address into the appropriate field of the email you are composing.

Subject - is the subject of the message that you are composing; you can choose whatever you feel is appropriate to suite the contents of the email.

CC - short for Carbon Copy, it allows you to send a copy of the email to other people besides the main recipient. The various recipients' email addresses will all be included in the email, and depend ing on the method that the recipients use when replying to the email, the reply might be sent to everyone.

BCC - short for Blind Carbon Copy, it allows you to send a copy of the email to other people besides the main recipient (just like CC), except that the email addresses of the secondary recipients will not appear in the header of the email; they will be invisible to the main recipient and other recipients. And if any of the recipients reply to the main sender, the reply will not be sent out to everyone. This is a more private way to send out a group email.

Below the address header, there is a checkbox that you can fill in if you want to save a copy of the outgoing email to your Sent folder. This is useful if you want to keep records of your correspondence. If you do not check the box, you will not have a copy of the email for yourself.

Directly below this is a large text field where you can enter the message you want to send. Below the text field, you will see two drop-down menus:

You can add your own attachments to an email by selecting the [Attach File] button. Pressing the button will open a pop-up window containing five fields with [Browse] buttons next to each. Pressing [Browse] will open a window to navigate your personal files. You must navigate to the location on your computer that houses the file you wish to attach, select it with your mouse, and click "Open".

You can repeat this process for the following field if you need to attach more than one file to the email. Once you are done browsing your files, you must simply click on the [Upload Attachments] button to complete the process of attaching all of the selected files to your email.

At the very bottom of the window there is a group of buttons. These are: [Send], [Spell Check], [Preview], and [Cancel]:

[Send] - will email your message to the recipient and close the Compose w indow.

[Spell Check] - runs a check of the message's content, checking for misspellings.

[Preview] - will show you what the final message will look like - including the Signature if you included one.

[Cancel] - will close the Compose window without saving any changes or sending the email that was in progress.

We have gone to lengths to include a lot of functionality in the address book. You are able to list people by various means, and search through your listings for accurate information. When displayed, the Address Book contains alphabetical links to its listings, as well as a link for "All" and for "Search". In addition, while you are writing an email on the Compose page and click on the link to your address book, "To", "CC" or "BCC" will appear under each contact person's name. If you select any of the three, the email address of the person will be inserted into the appropriate field of the email ("To", "CC" or "BCC") directly from the address book.

You will see a button called [Add] in the top right corner. This will open a new Contact Sheet, which contains various fields for information. You can enter as much information as you choose and then complete the process by clicking [Save Contact] at the bottom of the page.

Editing/Managing Entries

Select a page from the address book - for example, clicking on the letter "A" will give a listing of all individuals in your address book that have a last name beginning with that letter. In addition, other pieces of information will be listed (if the you have entered them). These are First Name, Company, Email, Home Phone, and Work Phone. These all appear as menu items that are clickable. By clicking on them, you can sort according to each. For example, by clicking on Company, the listings will be sorted alphabetically by the company names listed.

You can also choose to send an email to one of these individuals by clicking on their email address - which will open up an email box.

Clicking on the person's name will bring you to the Contact Sheet for that person. If any changes must be made, this is where to make them. Any of the fields can be edited and changed so long as the [Save Contact] button is clicked after all changes are made.

Clicking on the "All" link will list any and all contacts that you have entered into your address book, alphabetically.

Clicking on the "Search" link will open a pop-up window that contains a text field in which to enter the value that you want to search for. Then you must select one or more fields from the Contact Sheet to search in. As usual, there are the [Check All] and [Uncheck All] boxes to make things easier for you. Clicking on [Check All] will immediately select all contact fields, and clicking on [Uncheck All] will immediately deselect any that have checkmarks next to them. When you have filled in the term(s) that you need to search for and selected all fields that you'd like to search in, simply click the [Search] button at the bottom of the pop-up and your results will be displayed.

To delete an entry from an address book, simply find the entry to be deleted and go their Contact Sheet. At the bottom of the page there is a [Delete] button that must be clicked, and then that person's entry will be removed.

You can enter multiple signatures, perhaps for use in separate situations (i.e. business or personal). A signature is a personalized footer that is automatically added to the bottom of each email you send out. Only two elements need to be entered:

Title - a name for the signature that will appear in a drop-down menu whenever the user sends an email in order to choose a signature.

Signature - the actual signature text. This is any text that you want to use as a footer for your emails.

To save the entered Signatures, you need only click [Done] at the bottom of the window.

As a member, you are allowed to set up your email so that it will check other mail servers and download all their emails in one spot. Three pieces of information are required in order to do this, the Mail Account Server, the Mail Account Username and the Mail Account Password. You may need to contact the server that hosts your mail in order to get some of this information. There is also a checkbox that you can fill in if you want to leave a copy of the email in its original location.

Filters screen incoming email for keywords that you set up in order to better organize your email. It could be a filter targeted towards redirecting unsolicited advertising or emails containing sexual content into the trash folder, or it could be a filter used to automatically place a favorite weekly newsletter into a special, personal folder. The potential uses of filters are numerous.

To set a filter up, you must first select the [Filters] tab on the left side of the screen.

This new window allows you to enter multiple filters at once (maximum of 15). The important thing to make sure of is that no matter how many you enter, you have to scroll done and click [Done] when finished. It is also important that each filter that is to be used has a checkbox in its corresponding "Enable" box. If this is not filled in, then the filter will not work - it is "de-activated". This also allows you to toggle filters on and off if they so choose.

Priority - if an incoming email falls under the description of more than one filter, it is important to decide in advance which filters take precedence over the others. Each filter must be assigned a different number (i.e. since there are 15 potential filters, you'll notice that the drop-down contains priority 1 through 15 to choose from for each filter). "1" bring the highest priority and "15" being the lowest priority.

Filtered Text - this is the actual piece of text that you want the program to look for when filtering emails. It could be a sentence, a word, an email address, etc.

Text Source - this determines which portion of the incoming email is searched. Choosing "From" will search the incoming email addresses and choosing "Subject" will search the subjects (titles) of the incoming emails.

Matching Criteria - defines how the filter works. Does the Filtered Text have to be contained in the Text Source or must it not be contained in the Text Source? Or maybe it needs to begin with the Filtered Text, or end with it? Finally, the user can set things up so that only an exact match between Filtered Text and Text Source will result in a filtered email.

Move Matching Email To - this drop-down lets the user decide where they want the filtered email to end up.

If you h ave misplaced something and are not sure which folder it is in, the Search option is the way to go. There are several components on the Search page, so let's take a look at them…

Phrase or Word - the actual word(s) that you are searching for must be entered in this text field.

You can then set some parameters for the search to narrow it down and bring back more logical choices:

Restrict to Dates - You have the option of choosing "no restrictions" - and it will search through emails from any date, without any regard to date parameters.

Look In - you have to decide where you want to search. It's quite possible that you may only be looking for something you know is in your inbox, in which case you would only need to select that folder by filling in the checkbox next to its name. However, if you have no idea where the email you are looking for may be located, you will probably need to select more than one folder, possibly all of them. Selecting all folders is quite simple, as we have included a "Check All" link that will automatically select all folders. There is also a "Clear All" link that will remove all checkmarks, thus deselecting all folders.

Clicking [Done] will conduct the search and display the results in a "Folder" format.