The forums should be the first place that we go to ask a question. It is designed so that it helps everyone get what he or she wants. You post your question and hopefully you get an answer very quickly. Normally just one person does not have that question. Right now the forums do not seem like much, but as time goes on there will be more and more questions there to search through. If you are looking through the questions and you have a comment or you know the answer by all means post your answer or comment.

Ok Lets get started. Our first step is to get to the BAI forums. http://www.bai-map.com/forums

Your first time here you will see that you are not a registered member. Click on Want to Register?

If you agree to the terms click on the Agree button.

Don’t let the registration form scare you. The only thing that you need to fill out is your user name, password, and email. The rest is optional. If you put your birthday down it will show up on the birthday list on the calendar. Once you have submitted everything you wish too then click on the submit button.

You are now a member and can start posting and viewing. For this example we will use the BAI Main Forum. Click on the link to the BAI Main Forum.

Here you see all the posts that are present in this particular forum. If you notice there is a Replies and a Views for each post. This lets you know if anyone has replies to that particular post. If you want to add a new question to this list then just click on the New Thread button.

For your subject type a short question. Then in the message field type your message. If you want to get an email when someone replies to your message make sure that you choose Email Notification. If you have created your signature you can check show signature (we will discuss signatures later in this document). If you need to attach a file then choose to do so here. When done choose Submit New Thread. This takes you to your post. If you wish to reply to a topic click on the Post Reply button. If you wish to be notified every time someone posts a message to a particular topic then you should choose subscribe to this forum. What this does is this: For example lets say you subscribe to Accounts Payable. Each time someone posts a message to the Accounts Payable board you get an email letting you know. This can be very beneficial because BAI will be posting messages from time to time.

Once you have found your way around the boards you may notice that some posts have color on them. Or they have a picture by their name. And so on. We will discuss this in this part of the document. The first thing is your signature. If you wish to sign the bottom of all your posts then I suggest you use a signature. You do not want to have to type the same thing in all the time. To get to the add signature field you need to click on the User CP button.

From this screen we can do a couple of things. Lets look at the Signature first. Click on Edit

Profile.

In the Signature section you can type whatever text you would like to show up on your signature. You can use vB code in your signature if you want too. VB code can also be used throughout the forums. Here are a couple things that you can use. For bold text use [b]text[/b]. For colored text use [color=blue]text[/color]. If you want the text to be bigger use [size=3]text[/size]. A few more are [I]text[/I], [u]text[/u] and you can use more than one per word. For example if I wanted to make the text "look at this" be blue and bold I would do this: [b][color=blue]look at this[/color][/b]. If I want a link to a website in my signature I can do it two ways. If I want it to look like www.bai-map.com all I have to do is [url]www.bai-map.com[/url]. Or If I want to get fancy and have it look like "Click here to see my website" I need to do this: [url=www.bai-map.com]Click here to see my website[/url]. Once you have your signature the way you like it then you can click on Submit Modifications.

Now for adding an Avatar. Click on Edit Options. And scroll to the bottom of the page.

Click on the Change Avatar button.

You are going to see a bunch of pictures. You can go through all of them if you want. Or you can upload one of your own. If you want to choose one of the ones that are here just click on one and scroll down and choose Submit Modifications. This will place this picture beside all of your posts. If you wish to upload one then do not click on one of the pictures. Just browse your hard drive and upload it. Once done click on submit modifications.

You can also add people to your Buddy list. This just shows you if they are on line and so on. You can Private Message people that are on the board. This is a way of you talking to someone without everyone else seeing it. You can send email to people from the bulletin board. If you wish to do any of these things click on the persons username that you wish to communicate with.

You will see a contact username on to the right you will see Click here to email or Send username a Private Message. Both screens are self-Explanatory. At the bottom of that screen you will see add username to your buddy list.

If you wish to have you text within a post be a list and have bullets you need to use the following code.

[list]

[*]first item text

[*]2^nd item text

[*]and so on

[/list]

From here you can email, view their homepage, Find posts from that person, see when they joined, see how many posts they have made and if you click on their name you will get more information.

If you click on the Calendar Button:

You will be able to see if there are any public events. You can also add a private event by clicking on the Private Event button. Only you can see your private events. You will also see all the birthdays (for those who put it in) throughout the calendar.

If you have any further question on the forums please ask them in the BAI Main Category. They will be answered as quickly as possible.