ERS CONNECT SECURE PC CHAT PROGRAM
WHAT IS ERS CONNECT?
ERS Connect is a program that enables you to securely send and receive "instant" text messages to and from other users on the network. This network includes ERS and all credit unions using ERS Connect. Unlike most instant messaging programs, such as Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, MSN and email, ERS Connect uses strong AES-256 bit encryption, so it is a safe way to communicate over the network without fear of outsiders seeing the text of your message. ERS Connect also provides searchable message history of all your messages. The message history is likewise encrypted using AES-256 encryption.
INSTALLING ERS CONNECT
LOGGING IN FOR THE FIRST TIME
Each user of ERS Connect is known by their first name and last initial.
DAILY LOGIN
By default ERS Connect will run and login when you login to Windows. If you ever find that ERS Connect is not logged in, simply click on the Login menu and the Login command. Leave the New User field UNchecked, fill the Username and Password in if it’s not filled in, and click OK.
THE MAIN WINDOW
The Main Window shows all of the users for your credit union and their current statuses. When a particular user is logged in to ERS Connect his or her username will appear in bold font. Otherwise they will appear in a non-bold font.
Your current status will be displayed on the bottom status area, showing as “linda – Available” in the above image.
When ERS Connect is running, a small yellow smiley face will be placed within the lower right area of the Windows desktop known as the tray, as shown in this example, along with a few other sample tray images:
If the program is active and you want to display the Main Window, double- click the mouse on the yellow smiley face and the Main Window will be displayed.
If the program is not active, double-click on the Desktop Icon to open the Main Window.
SETTING OPTIONS
To personalize the program settings click on Tools at the top of the Main Window and choose Options. The following window will appear. You can adjust any of the settings above the black line. Click OK to save your changes.
CHANGING YOUR STATUS
To change your status, click on the Status
icon at the top of the main window 
or click on the bottom of the Main Window where your name and status appear.
You will see a drop down menu that allows you to choose one of the predefined status phrases, or click New Custom Status to define your own. Several of the custom statuses you create are saved and will be available for you to use again without retyping.
When you change your status, your new status will be displayed beside your name in the Main Window of all of your local logged in users.
CHATTING WITH ANOTHER USER
To chat with another user, double-click the mouse on their Username in the Main Window. This will open a chat window for you and the user you selected. You may then begin typing messages in the bottom input pane. When you want to send the message, click on the Send button or press the Enter key. After you send the message, your message text will appear in the top output pane. When your chat partner sends you messages, they will also appear in the top output pane. All messages will appear in the time order in which they were sent.
FONT ATTRIBUTES
Chat windows have several features that make chatting more useful and fun. The B, I, and U buttons are for Bold, Italics, and Underline text attributes. Color, and font face and font size are also available, shown above as the palette, Comic Sans MS and 14
When you are typing text, the text attributes will always be set to whatever the current B, I, U, color, and font settings are. A given message that you enter may have different text attributes.
If you want to change the text attributes of some text you already typed in (but haven’t sent yet), you can mark the text by click the mouse on the first character of the section you’d like to change, and dragging the mouse (while holding the mouse button down) over all the characters you want to change. This will cause the text to be “highlighted” indicating it is “marked.” Then you can change the text settings, B, I, U and font to something else.
EMOTICONS
Several emoticons are available by clicking on the smiley face.
When you select an emoticon, it will insert the text codes into your message that represent the emoticon. For example, the first smily emoticon will cause (a) to be place into your message. When you actually send the message, it will show up in the top output pane as the graphical emoticon. You may directly type in the text code for emoticons, such as :) .
SPELL CHECKING
To check spelling before you send a message, click on the Check button. You will be notified of any words that are not found in the ERS Connect dictionary. You may also add your own custom words to the dictionary.
If you would like to have spelling check automatically (without having to click the Check button every time) you can specify this in the Options window. (See General Options section.)
SENDING A MESSAGE TO A USER WHO IS NOT LOGGED IN
When you send a message to a user that is not logged in to ERS Connect, the message will be stored for later retrieval by the user when the user does log in. These messages are referred to as offline messages by ERS Connect. When the user does login, any offline messages will be delivered as if they were just sent.
WHEN YOU RECEIVE A MESSAGE FROM A USER
When you receive a message from a given user, the message will be output to the current window that you have open with this particular user, or else a new chat window will be created and the message output there. You may then proceed to chat with the user using that window.
MESSAGE HISTORY OPTIONS
ERS Connect maintains a message history of your chat conversations. You can configure the message history as follows:
VIEW, SEARCH, PRINT MESSAGE HISTORY
Users Click on the user whose chat history you wish to view
Dates Click on the date for which you wish to view chat history
-OR-
Click on Search First.
Enter a keyword that is part of a subject for which you wish to search.
In the example below I was searching for a chat that I had with Don about ATM.
Click Search Next to search backward for the previous instance where your keyword appears until you find the entry you want.
PRINT HISTORY
