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The operator finds out he has some new messages to answer by looking at the 'Communication Summary' panel (bottom left corner of the screen). There, in the 'Queues' section, the line that says 'MSG' shows the number of messages that need to be answered. Clicking on the number in this line opens the 'Message Queue' section of the Operator Terminal (an alternative way to access this section would be to click on the 'Communication Overview' tab and to select 'Message Queue' there). The 'Message Queue' displays all the messages received from the site visitors in one stream.
To reply to a message, the operator needs to open the 'Visitor's Profile' dialog of the visitor to whom he wants to answer.
Clicking on the email address in the header of the necessary message ('Message::Posted by Username (username@example.com)') opens the 'Visitor's Profile' of the visitor who posted the message (namely, the 'Messages' tab of the Visitor's Profile dialog). The central area of the 'Messages' tab (also called the 'Message board') displays the history of communication with the visitor, including his newest unanswered messages. Please note that the headers of the messages which have not been answered are colored light blue (the closed messages have grey headers).
To create a message that will be sent to the visitor, the operator needs to:
1. Use the 'Email' drop-down box to select the email address to which the message needs to be sent.
If the needed email is not in the list, select <add email>, enter the email into the input box that will appear and click OK. The new email address will be added to the list of the visitor's email addresses.
To send the message to all the available email addresses of the visitor, select <all emails>.
2. Enter the subject and the body of your message into the appropriate fields. If necessary, use a 'canned' message.
Selecting a ‘canned’ message
3. Click Send. The message gets sent to the email addresses selected in the 'Email' box and gets added to the list of messages in the 'Message board'.
After the operator replies to a visitor's message, he should mark this message as 'closed' not to reply to it a second time. To close a message, the operator needs to select the check box in the message header (Notice that when a tick appears in the check box the color of the message header is changed from blue to grey.) The operation of closing a message is reversible: if necessary, you will be able to unclose any message by clearing the before-mentioned check box and confirming the operation.
If the operator does not want to send any email messages, but just wants to create a note for himself about the visitor whose profile is opened, he can take the same steps as in the process of creating an email message, but select <don't send> from the' Email' drop-down box. The note created in such a way will appear in the 'Message board' along with the other messages, but it will not be sent to the visitor.
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