Preparedness Toolkit

Introduction

The Phonebook within an exercise provides a centralized location to store the names and contact information of exercise participants, as applicable. Specifically, the Phonebook is used as the source for all event originators and recipients in the MSEL.

Phonebook Entities

Create Entity

Before an entity can be created in the Phonebook, the MSEL must be created. Once the MSEL is created, a Create Entity button will appear in the gray toolbar at the top of the Phonebook. Select this Create Entity button to create an entity in the Phonebook.

Since entities in the Phonebook are designed to capture exercise participant information, fields are provided to capture exercise specific information, to include role, exercise email, and exercise phone number. This allows a person's real-world information to be kept separate from exercise information.

When creating a new entity in the Phonebook, the following fields are provided:

• Entity Name: The name that will be used to identify the entity throughout the exercise.
• Published: This feature is not fully active. In a future release, entities can be made visible in a player view of the Phonebook if this switch is set to Published.
• Role: The role of the entity in the exercise.
• Simulated: If the Simulated toggle is turned on, the Exercise Email Account field will be activated and an email account setup in the Mail area can be assigned to this Phonebook entry.
• Exercise Email: The email address used for the entity throughout the exercise. This may or may not be the participant's real-world email address.
  • (Note: One of the email fields must be populated if the entity is to be used as the originator or recipient of any email injects in the MSEL. If the entity is to be used as the originator of any email injects in the MSEL, this field must be populated with a simulated email address.)
• Exercise Phone Number: The phone number used for the entity throughout the exercise. This may or may not be the participant's real-world phone number. (Note: This field must be populated if the entity is to be used as the originator or recipient of any phone injects in the MSEL.)
• Organization: The organization the entity represents. This may or may not be the participant's real-world organization. This may be a participating or simulated organization.
  • Organization names and details are stored centrally in PrepToolkit to be used across multiple exercises in the system. When populating this field for a specific Phonebook entity, you are really referencing an organization's details that are centrally stored in PrepToolkit. If the target organization is not found as you begin typing in this field, select the New button to create the organization centrally in PrepToolkit so it can be used for your entity.
     

• Notes: Any relevant notes regarding the entity.

Edit Entity

To edit an entity in the Phonebook, select the edit icon beside the name of the entity you would like to edit. Selecting this icon will launch a popup window in which the entity information can be edited. This edit window mirrors the fields and layout of the window used when creating the entity.

Delete Entity

A single phonebook entity may be deleted or multiple entities may be deleted at once.

To delete a single entity from the Phonebook, select the delete icon beside the name of the entity you would like to delete. Once the icon is selected, a confirmation message will appear, confirming you would like to delete the entity. Note that you will be unable to delete a Phonebook entity if it is referenced in a MSEL event.

To delete one or more entities from the Phonebook, check the boxes beside the entities to be deleted, as shown below. After selecting the appropriate entities, select Actions > Delete Selected Items. Alternatively, delete all entities in the phonebook (not only those that are checked) by selected Actions > Delete All Items. In both cases, a confirmation message will appear, ensuring you would like to delete the target phonebook entities.

Note that you will be unable to delete a Phonebook entity if it is referenced in a MSEL event. If an entity is chosen that is referenced in a MSEL event, the entire delete operation will be ignored.

Phonebook Groups

Phonebook entities can be grouped into a Phonebook group. This feature serves the same purpose as contact groups or distribution lists when emailing. In PrepToolkit, these Phonebook groups allow you to send a MSEL event (particularly MSEL email injects) to multiple entities without having to add multiple entity names in the To or CC fields of the MSEL event.

Create Group

Before a group can be created in the Phonebook, the MSEL must be created. Once the MSEL is created, a Create Group button will appear in the gray toolbar at the top of the Phonebook. It is best to create entities in the Phonebook before creating a group, so members of the group (i.e., entities) may be added to the group upon creation. When you are ready to create a group in the Phonebook, select the Create Group button in the gray toolbar.

Recall that Phonebook groups are just a grouping of existing Phonebook entities. Group data is split across two tabs on the Create Phonebook Group popup window--General and Members.

• General Tab
  • Group Name: The name that will be used to identify the group throughout the exercise.
  • Published: This feature is not fully active. In a future release, groups can be made visible in a player view of the Phonebook if this switch is set to Published.
  • Notes: Any relevant notes regarding the group.
• Members Tab
  • Entity Name Field: Begin typing the name of an existing Phonebook entity to dynamically search for that entity in the Phonebook. Choose the desired entity from the resulting search findings and select the "plus" button to add the entity to the group. If the target entity is not found as you begin typing in this field, you may save the Phonebook group as it is, create the entity, and later edit the Phonebook group to add the newly created entity.
  • Delete Existing Member: To delete a group member that has already been added, select the delete icon beside the name of the group member you would like to remove. (This will not delete the entity from the Phonebook but will only remove the entity from being a member of the current group.)

Edit Group

To edit a group in the Phonebook, select the edit icon beside the name of the group you would like to edit. Selecting this icon will launch a popup window in which the group information can be edited. This edit window mirrors the fields and layout of the window used when creating the group.

Delete Group

A single phonebook group may be deleted or multiple groups may be deleted at once.

To delete a single group from the Phonebook, select the delete icon beside the name of the group you would like to delete. Once the icon is selected, a confirmation message will appear, confirming you would like to delete the group. Note that you will be unable to delete a Phonebook group if it is referenced in a MSEL event.

To delete one or more groups from the Phonebook, check the boxes beside the groups to be deleted, as shown below. After selecting the appropriate groups, select Actions > Delete Selected Items. Alternatively, delete all groups in the phonebook (not only those that are checked) by selected Actions > Delete All Items. In both cases, a confirmation message will appear, ensuring you would like to delete the target phonebook groups.

Note that you will be unable to delete a Phonebook group if it is referenced in a MSEL event. If a group is chosen that is referenced in a MSEL event, the entire delete operation will be ignored.

Phonebook Configuration

Exercise Managers and Exercise MSEL Managers have permission to configure the Phonebook. To configure the Phonebook, select Actions > Configure on the top-right side of the Phonebook. The resulting pop-up screen is divided into two sections.

Published Entity Properties

This feature is not fully active. In a future release, selected columns can be made visible in a player view of the Phonebook.

Visible Entity Columns

Only Selected fields will be visible as columns in the Phonebook. Select a field in the "All" list and select the right arrow to add it to the "Selected" list. Choose fields in the "Selected" list and select the left arrow to remove them from the "Selected" list. Use the up and down arrows to reorder the columns that will be displayed.

Available columns include Name, Role, Organization, Person, Email, Phone, Location, Notes, Events with Item as "From," and Events with Item as "To." The last two optional columns are intended to provide a viewer of the phonebook with quick access to MSEL events to be released or received by that entity.

If all columns are removed from the Selected list, the Name field will still appear as a column in the Phonebook. While it can be removed from the Selected list, it will always be shown on screen.