The Office Computer
We use the computer in our lobby as our primary means of communicating with students- to confirm standing appointments and to offer open appointments to students from the Waiting list. Office managers also communicate these missives to Lab instructors by forwarding student confirmations or declinations. Basic computer instructions: turn on the computer, and log on using your own user name and password. Then click on the Outlook Express icon and login using the general lab user name and password as listed in the Office Manager manual. Once you are logged into the office account, you will find three form letters you will use to communicate with students.
Outgoing E-Mail
The first letter is the "Writing Lab Appointment Reminder" letter, which we send to students who already have standing appointments. Office managers on each shift will send reminder letters to the students scheduled for the next day. For example, when Daniel works on Thursday morning his responsibilities include emailing our reminder letter to students scheduled for Friday morning.
To complete this process, it is easiest to take the Log Book to the bulletin board and write down the students' names, usernames, the date and time they're scheduled, and what instructor they're assigned to meet. Come back to the computer and open the "Reminder" letter by clicking on it. In order to personalize a letter, click on the "Edit" button on the navigation bar. From here, you'll need to edit in four places. First, change the "To:" from our Lab address to the username of the student. Second, delete" student" from the greeting line and insert the student's given name. Third, delete "time and date" from inside the letter's first set of brackets and insert the time and date of the student's designated appointment. Then, delete "instructor" and insert the name of the Lab instructor the student will visit. Finally, click on "Send." You will repeat this process for every student on the list. Once you finish, click on the "X" box in the upper right-hand comer of the window to return to the New-Mail Folder.
The second letter is our "You missed your appointment!" letter. BEWARE: this letter should only be sent at the discretion of Lab instructors! If a student is a no-show, you may ask the relevant instructor if he or she would like you to send this letter to the student in question; if he/ she thinks that's a good idea, then proceed to edit this letter by filling in the student's username and inserting her given name into the greeting line. Click, of course, to send.
The third letter should be used to offer students appointments that have opened, usually because of cancellations. PLEASE NOTE: if a last-minute cancellation has suddenly opened a spot on an instructor's schedule, you should first communicate this to the instructor. If the instructor requests that you fill the slot, you should first CALL likely candidates from the Waiting List rather than email them. Last-minute offers have proven difficult to fill if we depend only on email to contact wait-listed students. Otherwise, if time permits, scour the Waiting List for the first student who has requested the open time, list this student in the Log Book, and email our "Offer" letter to the student. As you do with the "Reminder" letter, first "Edit" this letter in order to personalize it and give specific information about the date, time, and instructor. Once again, click to send.
Incoming E-Mail
During each shift, office managers will also handle all incoming messages from students from whom we've requested confirmations. The procedure for communicating these confirmations or declinations is as follows.
Click on the incoming letter, then translate its contents to the Log Book. You might write, for example, "Heather Robb confirmed for 4:15 on Thursday with Claire." Then click on "Forward" to direct the confirmation/declination to the relevant instructor to inform him/her of the goings-on of his/her schedule. Delete the student letter once it's been logged and advanced to the instructor, and move to the next incoming letter.
If the student's letter declines an offer or cancels an appointment, repeat the process of offering the opened spot to someone on the Waiting List.
Finally, if your shift ends at noon, close the "New-Mail Folder" and close the Netscape Communicator window; if your shift ends at the close of our day, you can, further, shut down the computer.
