About FirstClass Personal
Installing FirstClass Personal
Starting FirstClass Personal
Your offline Desktop
Setting up your offline conferences
Reading and responding to messages offline
Sending messages offline
Configuring FirstClass Personal
About your Personal post office
About FirstClass Personal
Normally, you must be connected to a server to work with the objects on your Desktop. Over expensive communication links such as long-distance telephone connections, this can become costly. For this reason, we provide a FirstClass Personal application that lets you do many of the things you normally do, without being connected to a server full time.
Note
You can only use FirstClass Personal if you are classed as a Regular User. If you are classed as a Remote User, you cannot use this application. If you are unsure whether you can use FirstClass Personal, contact your administrator.
FirstClass Personal creates copies of the following in a Personal post office on your computer:
•	your Mailbox
•	your personal calendar
•	conferences and public calendars that you want to see offline
•	the Directory information you want to see offline.
FirstClass Personal connects to your server at the times you specify. When connected, this application replicates new information.
Tip
If you have an expensive connection, check your FirstClass Personal configuration to make sure you will not connect more frequently than you want.
What you can do with FirstClass Personal
These are the things you can do with FirstClass Personal:
•	create messages, using the normal message forms
•	read messages and other conference items
•	attach files to messages, and save files attached to messages
•	search your Mailbox or conferences
•	send and retrieve messages
•	use calendaring
•	create and use an offline address book and a Bookmarks folder
•	upload files directly to offline conferences and to your offline Desktop.
These are things you cannot do with FirstClass Personal:
•	participate in chats
•	upload files directly to folders
•	create personal conferences.
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Installing FirstClass Personal
FirstClass Personal is not installed by default with the client. If you do not have FirstClass Personal installed, you can download it from the Conferences/Software Libraries section of FirstClass Online or the Downloads section of our web site.
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Starting FirstClass Personal
If you are currently connected to a server
To start FirstClass Personal:
1	Choose Collaborate > Work Offline > Connect Offline.
2	Supply the settings file, user ID, and password that you want to use to connect to the server when working offline.
3	Click Login.
If you are not currently connected to a server
To start FirstClass Personal:
1	Start FirstClass.
2	Supply the settings file, user ID, and password that you want to use to connect to the server when working offline.
3	Click Work Offline.
If this is the first time you have used FirstClass Personal
The Registration form opens when you start FirstClass Personal, showing the settings file and user ID with which you logged in. Ensure that this is how you want to connect to the server when working offline, then type your password.
The first time you work offline, FirstClass Personal may take several minutes to replicate information.
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Your offline Desktop
Your offline Desktop looks much like your online Desktop. It may contain offline versions of your Mailbox and personal calendar, plus an Offline Conferences folder containing copies of the conferences and public calendars you set up for offline work.
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Setting up your offline conferences
To save disk space, FirstClass Personal does not automatically show all the conferences to which you have access when you are connected to your server. You must tell FirstClass Personal which conferences you want to work with offline. You will have the same permissions for a conference offline as you do online; if you are not allowed to post to a conference online, you will not be able to do so offline.
After you have specified your offline conferences, the next time you work offline, FirstClass Personal replicates any unread messages that are in these conferences. Within the offline version of your Offline Conferences folder, you will only see those conferences that contain unread mail. FirstClass Personal only creates these conferences offline when they contain unread mail.
Note
You can set up offline public calendars just as you do conferences.
Specifying offline conferences
To tell FirstClass which conferences to show offline:
1	Log into your server.
2	Choose Collaborate > Work Offline > Open Offline Conferences, if you have not yet started FirstClass Personal.
The Offline Conferences window opens, and the Offline Conferences folder is placed on your Desktop, if it is not already there.
3	Select a conference that you want to access offline.
4	Choose Collaborate > Add to Desktop.
5	Drag the newly created link from your Desktop to the Offline Conferences folder.
6	Continue adding links to your Desktop and dragging them to your Offline Conferences folder until you have specified all the conferences you want to work with offline.
Removing offline conferences
If you no longer want to access a conference offline, delete it from both the offline and online versions of your Offline Conferences folder.
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Reading and responding to messages offline
You can read, save, print, forward, or reply to messages offline just as you would when working online.
You receive new mail when FirstClass Personal connects to your server. At that time, copies of unread messages are replicated. After replication, the online copies of these messages are no longer flagged as unread.
Note
When you read a message using FirstClass Personal, that message's history just indicates that the message was routed to you.
Deleting a message from your offline Mailbox or an offline conference does not affect the online copy of the message.
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Sending messages offline
You can send messages offline just as you would when you work online. When you are addressing messages to users rather than to conferences, you can use your offline Directory as an aid.
Note
Names that appear local when you work online look remote when you work offline. For example, Lou Kosta becomes Lou Kosta,HuskyPlanes in your offline Directory.
Your new messages are sent when FirstClass Personal connects to your server. To deliver a message immediately, choose Collaborate > Work Offline > Replicate Now.
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Configuring FirstClass Personal
FirstClass Personal installs with default settings that you may never need to change. These defaults control:
•	connection information
•	when to connect to the server
•	what to replicate
•	how long to keep offline messages
•	how to handle addresses for mail you send.
To change FirstClass Personal defaults:
1	Go to your offline Desktop.
2	Choose Collaborate > Work Offline > Configure Offline.
3	Update the FirstClass Personal Settings form as required.
If your password changes
If your password changes on the server, you must update the password on FirstClass Personal, or you will not be able to connect to the server using FirstClass Personal.
To update your password on FirstClass Personal, type the new password at "Host password" on the Connection tab of the FirstClass Personal Settings form.
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About your Personal post office
All your offline information is contained in the Personal post office folder. This folder is called PPO (Windows) or Personal Post Office (Mac OS).
It is important that you not make any changes directly to this folder or its contents, or FirstClass Personal may stop running. In this case, you might have to reinstall FirstClass Personal.
Do not:
•	rename the folder
•	move the folder, unless you also move the FirstClass folder to the same location
•	change, delete, or move anything within the folder
•	add files to any subfolders within the folder, unless instructed to by your administrator.
Backing up your Personal post office
Be sure you back up your Personal post office on a regular basis. We recommend at least once a week. This is a safeguard against losing your messages and offline Directory information in the event of hardware failure or data corruption.
The easiest way to back up your Personal post office is to copy the Personal post office folder to a diskette.
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