CompassAir Web Basic User Guide
This guide is intended to serve as an introduction to CompassAir (web version). It is one of a series that show the many useful features of CompassAir (web version).
Where it is felt that additional training would be beneficial, bespoke packages can be provided for both individual users as well as groups. Please contact solutions@thinkcompass.io for more information.
Index
1 CompassAir Messages Window (Home)
2 Composing Messages
3 Messages – Internal or External
4 Composing Messages – Multiple Windows
5 Pasting Recipient Addresses from Excel
6 Message Attachments
7 Moving the Message Editor
8 Composing Messages – Minimising and Maximising
9 Message Signatures
10 Message Send Delay
11 Printing Messages before Sending – Creation Date/Time
12 Reply, Reply All or Forward
13 Reply to Messages with a Meeting Request
14 Composing Messages to Recipients of Multiple Messages
15 Amending Text when Replying to Messages
16 Copy All Recipients
17 Quick Starting the Message Editor using Attachments
18 Notifications (alerts when sending and receiving messages)
1. When composing messages, a user can choose from whichever addresses (mailboxes) have been made available by the System Administrator (e.g. “Chartering” department) from the drop down menu
2. Options include delivery and/or read receipts, each from the dropdown menu (effective only if the recipient allows this in their own settings)
3. Messages can be sent as either HTML or Plain Text, via external mail or kept internal to the organisation
4. Messages can be created within a new window if preferred, and/or printed (also using ctrl+P)
5. In addition to a range of formatting options, images can be inserted from files, tables created, links added and colours of text and background changed
6. Keywords, Vessel names and Deal details can be associated with each message for future reference and ease of searching (none of which are visible to the recipient)
7. Hovering over a recipient in the message editor allows the option to copy the email address to the clipboard
8. “Circulars” inserts a pre-prepared list of bcc recipients (see 10 CIRCULARS)
9. Documents can be inserted from Google Drive or DropBox and message signatures added if required
10. The completed message can be sent either immediately or its despatch delayed, the default timing being selected from Settings
1. When composing a message, if it is being sent to colleagues within an organisation there is an option to send either externally (i.e. via conventional message) or to keep the message internal. If External, addresses from Contacts are auto suggested
2. If the choice is Internal, only contacts from within the user’s own organisation are suggested
3. All CompassAir users have an internal address, even if they do not have their own external address (i.e. where they can only use a departmental mailbox, for example, chartering@abc.com). Messages can therefore be sent to all users, individually, within an organisation
4. Using internal mail gives some protection from a message being seen by someone outside of the organisation. Internal messages can however be forwarded to third parties, achieved by selecting “Forward as Email” from the drop down menu
1. When composing a new message, the Message Editor can be opened as a new tab, rather than being “attached” to the main CompassAir window. This allows the CompassAir window to be fully visible (rather than being partially obscured). Alternatively, clicking on “Compose” whilst pressing Ctrl opens the editor in a new tab (which, as with
any tab, can then be dragged to create a new window)
2. Once open in a new tab or window, the Message Editor allows multiple messages to be composed at the same time. This is useful when, as an example, a lengthy circular is being composed and the user is interrupted by the need to respond quickly to an incoming message
1. One or more addresses from an Excel spreadsheet can be copied and pasted directly into the recipient fields when composing a message. First, highlight the cells to be copied, right click then select copy
2. In the message editor, right click on the recipient field (e.g. “To”, “cc” or “Bcc”), then select paste
3. The addresses will appear in the message field
4. Striking Enter immediately will result in a pop-up window asking the user to confirm that these addresses are to be added to the recipients field
5. Accepting the addition results in the addresses appearing in the normal format in the chosen recipient field
6. The same procedure applies to addresses copied from Word documents
1. CompassAir allows certain attachment file types to be opened in an external browser in order that the user can preview or edit them. Some file types will be opened in a Chrome Office Viewer (this does however require the Chrome extension to be installed – see settings). These include doc, docx, docm, xls, xlsx, xlsm, ppt, pptx and pptm files. Other file types will open in a second Chrome browser, these include html, mp3, mp4, ogg and pdf files
2. To preview the file click on the “open in new window” icon. Alternatively the attachment can be downloaded to the user’s local drive, or saved in Dropbox or Google Drive
3. For those files opening in a normal Chrome browser, a pdf for example, the user has the option to download or print the file
4. For those files that open in the Chrome Office Viewer the file can then be edited. It should however be noted that the user is not editing the original file attached to the incoming message, and will need to save the file to retain any changes. As can be seen in this example, the file can be saved as a Google doc, downloaded or shared
1. When using the Message Editor within the main CompassAir screen (as opposed to in a separate window), it can be dragged using the arrow cross icon to any part of the screen, thereby making the remaining parts of the screen fully visible. The message window itself can be resized by dragging any of its borders.
2. Double clicking anywhere within the internal message editor causes it to fill the screen, leaving only the task bar visible – useful when working on a smaller screen. Double clicking again causes it to return to its original size
1. Whilst composing a message, and the need to see the full CompassAir screen arises, the Message Editor can be minimised
2. Simply clicking on the message box maximises the Message Editor when required
3. Alternatively, the Message Editor can be maximised from its usual size, thus filling the CompassAir window except for the side Toolbar. This allows access to other buttons which, if used, cause the Message Editor window to immediately minimise
4. Similarly, to return to the original Message Editor window size, click on the “Messages” button on the side Toolbar
1. New signatures are created via the Settings menu from “Signatures”, existing signatures being visible in the viewing panel, showing which are active and which is the default. They can be selected and edited as required
2. Clicking on “New Signatures” enables additional customised signatures to be created
3. A description of the new signature is made under “1 General” and can now (or later, when edited) be set as active/inactive, default or not
4. The content of the signature and its format are created in the viewing pane, for consistency using the same formatting that is made available when composing messages
5. A summary of the content and characteristics of the new signature is displayed by clicking on the “Finish” button. Alternatively the content can cleared and re-entered, or the creation of the signature cancelled.
6. Once the user is satisfied with the content and format, the new signature can then be saved for future use
1. When a new message has been composed, the option exists to then delay sending it. This is done using the drop down menu, found next to the red “Send” button. This is useful where, for example, further relevant information needs to be checked or received. It also allows the message to be revisited after a short delay, if that is considered necessary. Delayed messages are then stored in the “Pending” View and are available for editing by the user until immediately before despatch
2. The default delay, if any, can be selected under “Messages” in Settings, from “No Delay” to “Send in 24 Hours”
3. When a message is sent (and transferred to “Pending”) a blue box immediately pops up allowing the user to view the message in the pending view, achieved by clicking on “View Pending”
4. There it can be edited, cancelled, deleted or dispatched with a different delay.
5. The message can also be cancelled by clicking on the “Cancel” button on the green bar, on which there is also a timer, counting down the time to when the message is sent. This is useful where the user has a number of pending messages, needs to edit one or more and hence needs to prioritise
1. Messages can be printed prior to sending (before or after they have been saved as Drafts) by clicking on the print icon
2. When printed, the hardcopy will display the date/time the message was created. This feature can be useful if the message is saved to drafts and then accessed at a later date
3. As can be seen by the padlock icon, the message is locked for editing other than by the user who created the draft
1. The drop down menu allowing the user to Reply, Reply All or Forward a message is found above the message
2. Alternatively the same options can be found when scrolling to the bottom of the message preview panel
3. The same two alternatives are available when using the horizontal message split
1. Instead of replying to a message in the normal way, the option exists to reply to the sender and cc’s with an invitation to a Meeting. Using the dropdown menu above the message, click on “Reply with Meeting”
2. An appointment (then change to a Meeting request) is created in the user’s calendar using the message subject as the Meeting subject (which can then be edited by the user)
3. The Meeting details are populated with the start of the sender’s message, for ease of reference, and to which the user can add more narrative
4. All recipients of the message are included in the invitation by default. Each can be deleted, new invitees added as well as “requires response” being selected, as necessary
5. Finally, when complete, the invitation can be sent to each address in the same way as any other meeting request
1. A message addressed to the recipients of a number of messages can quickly be composed in the following way. First, select the messages with the required recipients by ticking the boxes next to relevant messages
2. In this example the selected messages were addressed to Tony Stark with cc’s to Loki and Thor
3. On selecting more than one message in 1 above, the right hand pane immediately opens to offer the user a number of options. Click on “Send to All Recipients”
4. On doing this, the message editor appears, automatically populated in the same way as were the recipients of the two messages, i.e. addressed to Tony Stark with cc’s to Loki and Thor
1. When replying to messages, CompassAir by default prevents the user from amending the text of the original message
2. To remove this protection, hover above the original message and click on the blue dots. The user will then be able to make changes to the content of the original message
1. “Copy All Recipients” is a great way to save time for those users who send messages regularly to the same group of recipients. Click on the ellipsis at the top of the screen to open a drop down menu. From there select “COPY ALL RECIPIENTS”.
2. When composing a new message, open the drop down menu from “INSERT” at the top of the message, and then select “PASTE RECIPIENTS”.
3. The user is then given the option to select any of the recipient addresses that have been copied, or to select them all.
4. It is also possible to copy the recipients from more than one message. To do this select the messages from the message list and a pop-up window appears offering various options, one of which is again “COPY ALL RECIPIENTS”. Please note that this feature is only available for external messages, i.e. not those sent internally. Hence the warning appears in this example that one of the four messages selected was in fact an internal one, therefore the recipients being copied are only in respect of the other three.
5. In addition to composing new messages, this feature also works when replying, replying to all and forwarding messages.
1. When an attachment from an existing message needs to be forwarded to a third party (but without including any reference to that first message, i.e. by not using the conventional “Forward Email” method), the Message Editor can be opened by first dragging the attachment to the “Compose” button
2. Hovering above the “Compose” button will immediately open the Message Editor
3. Once open, the Message Editor window is ready to receive the file to be attached
4. Without dropping the file, it should be dragged immediately back to the Message Editor. The window will turn grey and the file is then dropped. The message is then ready to be composed
1. If a user needs to know when a reply arrives in response to an email they are sending, a notification can be set up using the “Options” drop down mention when composing the message. Providing “Show notifications” has been ticked under your phone’s Application Settings for CompassAir, and CompassAir is running minimised, a pop-up message will appear on your phone upon receipt
2. Alternatively, if the message has already been sent, the same option appears in the drop down menu that appears after clicking the ellipsis at the top right hand corner of the message
3. If the same option is selected as for 2 above for an incoming message, a pop up notification will again appear on your phone when a reply is sent from within your own organisation (i.e. from mailbox that you share). If a reply is sent by the user who selected the “Notify Me” on the incoming message, then a notification will not be generated
