Calendar

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Although very similar to Tasks, the Calendar is meant to help you with scheduling and keeping your appointments. The Calendar View, used for setting each appointment, lets you schedule for a day, a week, a month and a year. To remind you of your appointments, the PAC Mate Omni will play a sound and open a dialog box with your appointment information. You can choose to dismiss the appointment or be re-notified within a time interval that you can set. Appointments for the day can also be accessed on the Today screen.

The Calendar is easy to use. You can access the Calendar from the Today Screen or directly from the Start Menu (WINDOWS Key), press C to move to Calendar and then press ENTER. Once you have opened Calendar you are in the Agenda list view, which lists the appointments you have created. If you have not created any appointments, you will hear "No Appointments." From the list view, you can preview your daily appointments for any particular day by pressing the LEFT or RIGHT ARROWS to view the appointments for the previous or next day.

If you have scheduled any appointments as all day events, they are displayed in the All Day Events list view which is accessed by pressing TAB or SHIFT+TAB from the Agenda list view. Press TAB or SHIFT+TAB again to return to the Agenda list view. If there are no all day events scheduled, this list view is not available. However, if an all day event is scheduled for a particular day, you can move to the All Day Events list view from any day even though no all day events are scheduled for that particular day. In this case, the list will be empty.

If you are in the Agenda list view and you move to a day that contains an all day event, you will be placed into the All Day list view. Similarly, if you are in the All Day Events list view and you move to a day that only has a regular timed appointment scheduled, you will be placed into the Agenda list view. Otherwise, you will remain in the currently open list view.

Additionally, press ALT+S followed by a number 1 through 7 to jump to a specific day of the week. Appendix A lists all the commands for jumping to each day in the week. You must be either in the Agenda or All Day Events list view in order for these commands to work.

Creating or Editing an Appointment

To create an appointment, press F2 and press ENTER on New Appointment. The appointment details page initially opens with the Subject edit combo box active. You can type in the subject of your appointment or use the arrow keys to use one of the items in the combo box. When you are done press ENTER to move out of the edit combo box. Next, press DOWN ARROW to move to the next edit field. Press ENTER again, but this time to move into the edit field. When you are done typing the appointment information, press ENTER again to move out of the field and press DOWN ARROW to move to the next field. You enter information about an appointment by using this command sequence of ENTER and DOWN ARROW.

When you move to the "Start" and "End" items, press ALT+D to open the Date Selector. For more information on the commands associated with the Date Selector, please see Calendar, Using the Calendar View.

To change the time in the "Start" and "End" items, press ENTER on the item and type in the new time or use the arrow keys to select a time.

To add additional information about your appointment, press CTRL+TAB to move to the Notes page. When finished, press the CLOSE button (ESC) to save the appointment and return to the Agenda list view.

Note: When entering a time, you can type military and abbreviated time forms, such as 2300 (becomes 11:00 PM), 913pm (becomes 9:13 PM), 911 (becomes 9:11 AM), and 9p (becomes 9:00 PM).

To edit an appointment, select it in the Agenda list view and press ENTER to open the Appointment. Use the arrow keys to move through the list of fields. Press ENTER to edit an item. When you have finished, press ENTER to return to the appointment page. Once you have made the necessary changes to the appointment, press the CLOSE button (ESC) to return to the Agenda list view.

Viewing Appointments

To see a list of available actions for an appointment, select the appointment in the Agenda list view and press the APPLICATIONS Key.

To view the details of an appointment, select it in the list view and press ENTER to open it. If you have both an all day event and one or more regular appointments scheduled on the same date, press TAB to move between the two list views.

Note: To quickly access your appointments for the day, press the WINDOWS Key and press ENTER on Today.

Creating an All Day Event

Appointments can span an hour, several hours, all day or even all week. Those that span all day or all week are considered an All Day Event. Examples include trade shows or training seminars. To schedule an all day event, follow the steps above to create an appointment or select and open an existing appointment from the appointment list. From the list of fields, press DOWN ARROW until you hear, "All Day." Press ENTER and use the arrow keys to select Yes. You can also schedule a birthday or anniversary as an all day event. However, for this you will want to press DOWN ARROW to move to the Status combo box, press ENTER and use the arrow keys to select Free. This way the time will not show as busy in your calendar.

When you close the appointment details, you are placed into the All Day Events list view which displays your appointment. Press TAB to move to the Agenda list view.

Making an Appointment Recurring

Appointments that occur on a regular basis, such as a weekly team meeting can be entered once and set with a recurring pattern. To do this, follow the steps above to create an appointment or select and open an existing appointment from the appointment list. From the list of fields, press DOWN ARROW until you hear, "Occurs." Press ENTER and use the arrow keys to select a pattern. If the default patterns in the list are not what you need, select <edit pattern…> to create your own pattern using the wizard.

To create a new occurrence pattern:

From the occurs combo box, Press ENTER on Edit pattern.
On the first screen of the wizard, press TAB to move to the Duration Edit combo box and specify the length of time between the start and end times. Changing this value will automatically change the time in the Ends field.
Press ENTER on the Next button to move to the next screen.
In the Select type of occurrence field, choose whether this task occurs daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly then press TAB to move to the next control.
If you use braille, note that when you navigate between the options in this field, the braille highlight (enabled by default) is used to indicate the selected item instead of the cursor. You must ignore the location of the cursor when navigating in this field. If you have turned off the Highlight option in the Braille Settings dialog box, pressing INSERT+UP ARROW (the Say Line command) will read the currently selected item. You can also press the cursor router on the display associated with the particular option to select it.
The remaining options you see on this screen depend on the type of occurrence you chose. Make the necessary selections then press ENTER on the Next button to move to the Next screen. If you are asked to select specific days of the week, such as Sunday or Monday, use the arrow keys to navigate through the days and press the SPACEBAR or ENTER to select the ones you want.
Use the various controls on the last screen to specify when this pattern starts and ends. After making your selections, press ENTER on the Finish button to complete the wizard.

Setting a Reminder for an Appointment

You can set a reminder for an appointment by following the steps above to create an appointment or by selecting and opening an existing appointment from the appointment list. From the list of fields, press DOWN ARROW until you hear, "Reminder." Press ENTER and use the arrow keys to select Remind me.

You can change how many minutes before the appointment you are reminded. To do this, press ALT+T to access the Minutes combo box and use the arrow keys to make a selection. In addition, you can press ALT+I to modify the reminder interval from the default of minutes to hours, days, or weeks in advance of the appointment.

Note: To set a reminder for all new appointments in the calendar, press F2 in the appointment list, move to Tools and press ENTER. Press ENTER on Options and select "Set reminders for new items."

If you want to be reminded about your appointments using a distinctive sound, go to the Start Menu (WINDOWS Key) and press ENTER on Settings. On the Personal tab select and press ENTER on Sounds & Notifications. Press CTRL+TAB to move to the Notification page. Press TAB until you hear, "Play Sound check box," then press the SPACEBAR to check this box. Last, press TAB again to move to the combo box that lists all the sounds available on your PAC Mate Omni.

Adding a Note to an Appointment

You can add additional information about an appointment if necessary.

To add or edit a note, in the appointment list, select and press ENTER on the appointment.
Press CTRL+TAB to move to the Notes page.
Type in the additional information you want to include for that particular appointment.
Press the CLOSE button (ESC) to close the notes page and return to the Agenda list view.

Later, when you open your appointment, the additional information is available for you to read.

Sending a Meeting Request

Use Calendar to schedule meetings with people who use Outlook or Inbox. When attendees receive a meeting request, they can accept or decline the meeting. If they accept, the meeting is automatically added to their schedule. In addition, their response is sent back to you, and your calendar is updated.

Note: Before you can send a meeting request, you must enter e-mail addresses for the Contacts you want to include in the meeting and set up Messaging to send and receive messages.

From the Appointment list you can either create a new appointment or edit an existing appointment.
In the Appointment page enter or edit the information, then press DOWN ARROW until you hear, "Attendees" and press ENTER
When the Attendees dialog box opens, you are in the Required Attendees list box. Press ENTER on Add Required Attendee to add a required attendee to the list. If you want to add an optional attendee, press TAB to move to the Optional Attendees list box and press ENTER on Add Optional Attendee to add an optional attendee to the list.
After you choose to add a required or optional attendee, a list of those contacts containing e-mail addresses is displayed. Use the arrow keys to move to the contact in the list view you want to invite and press ENTER to select it and add it to the Required or Optional Attendees list box. If the selected contact has more than one e-mail address, you will be prompted to select the address you want to use.
Since you can only add attendees one at a time, follow the steps above until you have added all of your attendees.
When you are done press F1 to return to the Appointment details page. To close the Appointment details page and return to the Agenda list view, press the CLOSE button (ESC).
Before you return to the Agenda list view, you will be asked whether you want to send an e-mail to inform the attendees of the meeting. Press ENTER to activate either the Yes button or No button.

Messaging automatically creates a meeting request along with any textual notes entered in the Notes page and sends it to the attendees the next time you synchronize with your PC.

Note: If you cannot synchronize with a PC, then you can send the meeting request through a connection to an ISP or the network. Press F2, move to Tools and press ENTER. Move to Options and press ENTER again. On the Appointments page, move to the "Send meeting requests via," combo box and select the account you want to use to send the meeting request.

Changing Appointment Options

You can change Calendar options such as the first day of the week or the date and time you want to be reminded of a new appointment, etc. To enter the Options dialog box, press F2, move to Tools and select Options. Choose the settings that you want for your Calendar.

Note: The PAC Mate Omni does not support Appointment icon indicators.

Using the Calendar View

The Calendar View is a traditional style calendar in which you can easily check for appointments. The commands for Calendar View are listed in Appendix A.

When navigating by the smaller date changes, if the month, year or day of week changes, that component of the date is spoken. The PAC Mate Omni announces when a date has an appointment associated with it.

Press ENTER, TAB, or SHIFT+TAB while in the Calendar View to return to the Calendar list view on the new date.

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