Creating Recurring Items Using Auto-Date


The GroupWise Auto-Date (Recurring) feature enables you to send recurring appointments, tasks, or note messages. Auto-Date enables you to send one message that applies to many different days. For example, you can use an appointment Auto-Date to schedule a staff meeting that occurs every Wednesday at 9:00 a.m., or you can use a task Auto-Date to make sure staff members turn in a report on a certain day each month. You can also send a note configured with Auto-Dates to remind employees which day is payday.

There are three different ways to create Auto-Date messages:

  • By dates

  • By example

  • By formula

For the most part, the by-example method makes the by-formula method obsolete. Therefore, we do not discuss the by-formula option.

By Dates

The by-dates Auto-Date method is the easiest to use and understand. When you choose this method, a calendar opens for the current year, and you click the dates on which you want the appointment, task, or note to appear. You can click the Year button to advance the calendar to the next year.

To create an Auto-Date Calendar entry using the by-dates method, follow these steps:

1.

Open a new appointment, task, or note message.

2.

Fill in the To, Subject, and Message fields.

3.

Click the Actions pull-down menu.

4.

Select Auto-Date. The Auto-Date dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 7.7 (the Dates tab is active by default).

Figure 7.7. You can use the Dates tab of the Auto-Date feature to set up recurring appointments, notes, or tasks.


5.

Click all dates when the appointment, task, or note should appear. They become highlighted.

6.

Click OK.

7.

Click Send to send the message.

The by-dates method of setting recurring calendar items is the most flexible and easy to use of the three methods.

By Example

Use the by-example Auto-Date method when you want to send appointments, tasks, or notes for dates that follow a regular pattern. For instance, a by-example Auto-Date could be used to schedule a meeting that occurs on the third Tuesday of every month.

The by-example Auto-Date requires some experimenting to get the hang of it. The following example should help you get a sense of how it works.

One of the most common ways people use Auto-Date is to create personal notes reminding themselves when it's payday. The following steps show how to use Auto-Date to create a personal note for a payday that occurs on the 1st and 15th day of every month, unless the payday falls on a weekend. If the 1st or 15th falls on a weekend, the payday occurs on the preceding Friday. Here is what you would do:

1.

Navigate to your calendar.

2.

Double-click in the Reminder Notes field to open a new posted reminder note message.

3.

Click Actions.

4.

Click Auto-Date.

5.

Choose the Example tab.

6.

In the Start field, enter the date when the Auto-Date period should begin.

7.

You can either define how many occurrences of the item there should be or an end date. In this example, change it to End by clicking the arrow next to Occurrences and selecting End. Enter the date when the Auto-Date period should end.

8.

Click all months in the Months field to indicate that the paydays occur every month.

9.

Click the drop-down list box named Days of the Week and select instead the Days of the Month setting. The dialog box changes, enabling you to specify certain days in the month for the note.

10.

Highlight Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to indicate that the note should appear only on a weekday.

11.

Choose On/Before from the drop-down list located below the days you have highlighted. The On/Before option tells GroupWise that the note can appear only on or before the day you specify. For example, if the 15th of the month falls on a Saturday, the note should appear on the previous Friday.

12.

Click 1 and 15 in the calendar to indicate the dates when the note should appear. Figure 7.8 shows how the Auto-Date dialog box should look at this point.

Figure 7.8. The Payday note will create a note in recipients' calendars for the whole year.


13.

Click OK.

14.

Fill in the remaining message fields in the reminder note and click Send.

A note appears in your calendar on each day that meets the Auto-Date criteria during the period you specified in the date range fields.

When you send an appointment message or note created using Auto-Date, The GroupWise system creates and sends one message for every date that meets the Auto-Date criteria. If you send an Auto-Date appointment message that occurs every Friday during a year interval, 52 separate appointments will appear in each recipient's mailbox. The recipient will be given the option to accept all instances at once or to accept or decline each message individually.

The Online Help system includes a guide for using the Auto-Date feature. To access the guide, follow these steps:

1.

Choose Help, User's Guides.

2.

Choose the GroupWise Basics option.

3.

Select the Schedule a Recurring Event guide.

The by-example method allows you to create regularly recurring calendar items.




Novell GroupWise 7 User's Handbook
Novell GroupWise 7 Users Handbook
ISBN: 0672327899
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 213
Authors: Eric Raff

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