The Forum server

This Help section describes the kind of issues that users in your zone may report and that require assistance from a manager in order to solve.

Users whose browsers have disabled cookie acceptance experience problems logging in. For example, they need to log in every time they access a new page in a workspace. Or, they may receive error messages about being an anonymous user even after they have logged in.

If this happens, the user must use the browser menus to set the browser to enable cookie acceptance and notification.

The multi-file upload applet is a signed Java applet. If your company does not allow the use of such applications, inform users that this feature is not available.

The multi-file upload applet requires the client machine to have a significant amount of virtual memory. Otherwise, users might encounter an error in which the applet appears to function but the attachments never appear in the entry. To correct this problem, increase the paging file size on the client system.

To allow a file larger than 32 MB to upload correctly, you must change the Java Runtime Parameters:

1. From the Start menu on the client machine, click Settings, then click Control Panel.
2. Double-click the Java Plug-in icon.
3. On the Java Plug-in Control Panel, click the Advanced tab.
4. In the Java Runtime Parameters text box, enter:

   -Xmx64m

   where 64 is a value larger than the size of the file to be uploaded. Other values can be 128, 256, or 512. For example, if you want to upload a 100 MB file, you should set the value of this parameter to:

   -Xmx128m

5. Click Apply.

When you first use a Forum applet such as the multi-file upload applet, the Sun Java Runtime Environment is enabled by default. To use eMeeting application sharing, or any applet from another vendor that requires the default Microsoft JVM, you must disable this setting:

1. From the Tools menu in the browser, click Internet Options.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Scroll down to the "Java (Sun)" section and clear the "Use Java..." checkbox.

If users are not receiving e-mail notifications, Forum may be having difficulties contacting the SMTP e-mail server. If Forum fails to contact this server after approximately 24 hours, an e-mail error log is created.

To check for error logs:

1. Access the zone-management menu.
2. View the "Advanced management tools" section.
3. Click View e-mail error logs.

You can choose to delete an e-mail error log or resubmit the e-mail message.

Forum is designed for optimal use by registered users. There is one Anonymous account. Managers determine whether anonymous users can access Forum. Typically, managers allow anonymous users to read information but do not allow them to create new entries.

Because Forum features are optimized for registered users, anonymous users may experience limitations in the discussion forum and on the workspace page:

• If there are multiple users using the Anonymous account, the actions of one user can affect the others. For that reason, certain features are not available for anonymous users. For example, in a discussion forum, anonymous users cannot sort entries using the column headers.
• Forum features that are "sticky" (features that save your settings and apply them again when you next log in) are disabled for anonymous users. For example:
  • In discussion forums, when anonymous users click the Next unseen toolbar item, Forum displays a login box, because users must log in to use this feature.
  • Anonymous users cannot use user filters.
  • When an anonymous user clicks on the Close button (which relies on the context of an individual user), Forum may not always return to the expected page or may produce an error message.

SiteScape recommends that you emphasize to users that the Anonymous account is not designed for extensive use. Extensive and complete use of Forum features requires registration and use of a username.

When using Internet Explorer, if the vCalendar file type is not configured correctly on your computer, you may be unable to export Forum calendar appointments to your Microsoft Outlook calendar. To correct this problem:

1. Open Windows Explorer on your computer.
2. From the Tools menu, choose Folder Options.

   The Folder Options window appears.

3. Click the File Types tab.

   A list of registered file types appears.

4. Scroll down and click VCS vCalendar File.
5. Click the Advanced button.

   The Edit File Type window appears.

6. Click the Edit button.

   The "Editing action for type: vCalendar File" window appears. In the "Application used to perform action" text box, your local path to Outlook appears.

7. At the end of the line that describes the path to Outlook, add this text, making sure to include a space at the beginning:

     /vcal "%1"

   An example of the complete path looks like this (including the quotation marks):

   "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\OUTLOOK.EXE" /vcal "%1"

8. Click OK on the "Editing action for type: vCalendar File" window.
9. Click OK on the Edit File Type window.
10. Click Close on the Folder Options window.

    You can now export appointments to your Outlook calendar.

When using Internet Explorer, if the vCard file type is not configured correctly on your computer, you may be unable to export e-mail addresses from Forum calendars and user profiles to Microsoft Outlook as "contact cards." To correct this problem:

1. Open Windows Explorer on your computer.
2. From the Tools menu, choose Folder Options.

   The Folder Options window appears.

3. Click the File Types tab.

   A list of registered file types appears.

4. Scroll down and click VCF vCard File.
5. Click the Advanced button.

   The Edit File Type window appears.

6. Click the Edit button.

   The "Editing action for type: vCard File" window appears. In the "Application used to perform action" text box, your local path to Outlook appears.

7. At the end of the line that describes the path to Outlook, add this text, making sure to include a space at the beginning:

     /v "%1"

   An example of the complete path looks like this (including the quotation marks):

   "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\OUTLOOK.EXE" /v "%1"

8. Click OK on the "Editing action for type: vCard File" window.
9. Click OK on the Edit File Type window.
10. Click Close on the Folder Options window.

    You can now export e-mail addresses to Microsoft Outlook.

Using Microsoft Access or Microsoft Excel, when you import data generated by the Report Writer, you may find groups of keywords spread across multiple columns. This occurs if any of the Forum entries contain multiple keywords.

The Report Writer automatically places quotation marks ( " ) around multiple keywords in the text-file report, so you can fix the problem by specifying quotation marks as a text qualifier when you import the file.

In Microsoft Access:

1. From the File menu, click Get External Data, then click Import.
2. Locate the text file on your computer and click Import.
3. Complete the Import Text Wizard. On the second page of the wizard, choose the quotation marks from the Text Qualifier drop-down menu.

In Microsoft Excel:

1. From the File menu, click Open.
2. Locate the text file on your computer and click Open.
3. Complete the Text Import Wizard. In step 2, choose the quotation marks from the Text Qualifier drop-down menu.

When using Netscape 4.7 to download a Java applet, you may occasionally see an error:

java.lang.NullPointerException

To correct this problem, exit and restart the browser.

The first time you try to run a Java applet using Netscape 7.0, you are prompted to download and install the Java Plug-in. After installing, you must restart Netscape 7.0 before you can use the Plug-in:

1. Close all Netscape browser windows on your desktop.
2. Use the Task Manager to stop the netscape.exe process.
3. Restart Netscape 7.0 by opening a new browser window.

Using Internet Explorer Version 7.0, if you download a file whose name includes spaces (for example, "business plan.doc"), the browser replaces the spaces with underscores ("business_plan.doc"). If the user downloads a file from Forum using IE Version 7.0, modifies the file, and uploads it back into Forum expecting it to create a new version of an existing file, the user will likely be surprised when Forum saves the modification as a new file.

Complicating this situation is the fact that, when a filename is an underlined link, it is very difficult to determine if the original filename included spaces or underscores. If the user clicks a link and views the file, the browser displays the filename in the URL toward the top of the browser window. Users may have to check the original filename by viewing the file before attempting to save it to disk for modification.

You may want to release a memo to your organization, use the "Message of the day" feature, or use some other communications method to warn users about this behavior.

The Forum server