Kavi Help CenterGetting Started with Kavi Software
| Chapter 2. Getting Familiar with Kavi Product User Interfaces | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
|
|
Table of Contents
All Kavi products have tools composed of forms presented over a series of steps. For the most part, all the forms look and behave similarly regardless of which product you're currently using. This page will familiarize you with the common elements found on many Kavi product forms and provide tips to help you become an expert user of the Web site.
Like all good rules, user interface guidelines are made to be broken. Consequently, not every tool on this Web site will look or behave exactly as described here. The information and tips provided here should get you familiar enough, however, to be successful with most online forms and to be ready to adapt to the few special cases.
Reading is a Good Skill!
Most people don't read information on the Internet; they skim. This works very well most of the time, but can get you into real trouble when you're filling out a complex online form. This is especially true if you are an administrator or group chair.
Managing a complex membership organization's Web site is not easy. The online tools are powerful; many send email, control how information is published, and define how access to the Web site is granted. This can be tricky stuff! The good news: all it normally takes to be successful is to slow down and read the text on the page.
The online forms will tell you what they do and will often give you tips on how to use them. While you are getting familiar with these tools, taking the time to read the text on a page can save you from many an unfortunate mishap.
There is a menu of links for every major set of tools. Each Kavi product will have one or more menu of links available to users with different privileges. For example, KaviŽ Showcase has a menu for regular members, one for reports, one for administrators, and one for configuration.
Hidden Tools
Sometimes not all the tools in the product will appear in the application menus. Some tools are context-sensitive, meaning they only show up if the application is configured in a certain way or when working with a specific object. These context-sensitive links will appear on the "Manage" pages when appropriate. For example, extra links may appear on the Admin: Manage a User page in KaviŽ Members or the Kavi Showcase Manage Profiles page. Using the Manage pages ensures you have access to all available tools and can really streamline how quickly you accomplish tasks.
Tooltips
Kavi products are chock-full of tooltips. A tooltip is a piece of descriptive information that appears when you hold your mouse pointer over a link. If you hover your mouse over a link on a Kavi product menu, you will see a description of the page to which the link leads.
Tooltips are used in a lot of other places besides menus: they show the full description of documents in KaviŽ Groups, alternative text for images in Kavi Showcase, and all kinds of other interesting information.
Kavi forms have labels on the left, entry boxes on the right, and a button that you must click to proceed at the bottom. Required fields are always marked with an asterisk (*) and must be filled out before you can go to the next step. There is a life-saver Help button in the top right corner that, when clicked, will take you to help written specifically for the form on which you're working.
Parts of a standard form include:
- Help Button
The help button launches a new window to the Kavi Help Center where you'll find help specific to the form you're on and additional concept help that explains the theories of operation and best-practices for each Kavi product. The Help Center includes tools to search through all the help for more information about a specific topic and, if all else fails, a form to send email to support staff.
- Progress Bar
The progress bar in the upper-right corner of the page shows you where you are in a process and what steps you'll go through. Most of the time there is one form for each step in the progress bar, but occasionally a progress bar step will encompass multiple forms. Use the progress bar to get a feel for where you are in a process, see the options that are coming and know when you are done.
- Page Title, Description, and Icon
The name of the current page and a brief description are at the top of every product page. This page title will be the same on all steps of that process. If you need to contact support for help with a specific page, it's handy to include the page name in your request to assist the support person in targeting your problem efficiently.
- Form Fields
-
Form fields are typically arranged with the field labels on the right and the entry box on the left. Required fields are marked with an asterisk and must be completed before you can proceed to the next step. Many fields will also check to make sure you've entered information that conforms to an expected pattern. If you do something unexpected, a bright yellow message will show up explaining what the form wants so you can quickly edit your answers and continue.
Tabbing
When you're done entering information into the first field on a form, you can click the key to have your cursor automatically positioned in the second field on the form. Using the tab key to advance to the next field or button can really increase the speed with which you complete each form and will save you a lot of time if you regularly have to complete many forms. When you get to the final button in the bottom-right corner, click to submit the form.
Where to Click
When you're selecting one option over another, especially when you are on the 'Select' step of many forms, you can usually click anywhere on the text for that option to select the option. For example, the options on a 'Select' form are printed in horizontal rows that stretch across the width of the page. You can click on any text in the row to have the item selected; you do not have to click exactly on the little button on the right.
- Buttons
-
The buttons on most forms are at the bottom. For most Kavi products, the button to submit the form and proceed to the next step is on the right and the button to cancel is on the left. The Cancel button will exit the form without saving your information and return you to the nearest menu. The Back button will take you to the previous form. The submit button, which will have text on it specific to task at hand, captures the information entered into the form and sends it to the next step.
You must click the button to save!
If you're relatively new to working with forms on the Internet, you may expect any information you enter to be automatically saved just like it often is when you work with a word processor or your email on your computer. Web site software doesn't work that way. When you're entering information online, you have to click a button to send the information that you've entered to the Web site's databases. If you're working with a multi-step tool, you will need to click the button at the bottom of each and every form until you reach a form that says "Done" or "Success" at the top in order to save your work. Once you reach the Done step, you can safely click anywhere or even quit out of the Internet knowing your information has been saved.
Kavi products are full of data: information about an organization's members, documents, processes, and events can all be stored in the Web site's databases. Kavi products employ a standard way of presenting large lists of information designed to make it easy for you to quickly find and work with the information you need.
Lists of information are presented in horizontal rows with one item per row. The online lists look very similar to rows of information in a spreadsheet. The column names in the top row describe the information shown below, and can often be clicked to sort the information by that field. If you can select an item, or if there are links on the page to work with an item, these will be shown in the last column on the right.
Finally, long lists are always broken into several pages. This helps your computer display the list quickly since it doesn't have to wait for the entire list to travel across the Internet before it can show you results. Links to change how many items are shown on each page and to move through the various pages are at the top and bottom of the list.
If you're running a report, you may want to download the data in the report to your computer to work with offline. Most Kavi products provide a way for you to download data in one of three formats: comma-separated values (CSV), Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or pipe-delimited. Data in these formats can be worked with in a spreadsheet or imported into most database programs. You can also make reports print-ready, which will streamline the way the report is displayed so it will print nicely.
Back to top|
|
 |
|
| Chapter 1. Kavi Products and Supported Software |  |
Chapter 3. Role-Based Authentication |