April 2000

Members can post inquiries and comments about www.nysscpa.org by clicking on the Technical Problems and Website Suggestions links at the bottom of the homepage. The following are recent FAQs posed to website editors:

In the website's committee area, I read a notice about how committee members could communicate with their colleagues on the website. How do I do that?

Great question! We hope that many CPAs will make use of both the committee and the chapter forums and feel that they will become valuable tools for exchanging information and ideas among colleagues.

Forums are places on the website where committee and chapter members can post a message for their colleagues to see, ask a question for their colleagues to respond to, get other CPAs' opinions about relevant topics, or any number of other possibilities. The message-poster can choose to receive responses by e-mail or can check back periodically to see how their conversation topic has developed.

To get involved with a forum, select the Chapter Forums or Committee Forums item in the About the Society section on homepage's Find It Fast menu. You can also get there by clicking the appropriate forum link at the bottom of the homepage.

Once in the forum section, you can view all recently posted messages by clicking New Messages. To search for previously posted messages that contain a certain word or phrase click Search, and to post a completely new message (not in response to a previously posted message) click on New Thread.

When entering a new thread, which simply means a string of messages, you will need to select

1) the committee(s) or chapter(s) to which you want to direct your message and
2) a topic heading describing your message.
After entering this information and clicking OK, you will reach the message page, where you should enter your name and e-mail address, the subject of your message, and of course, your message. There also is a box you can check to receive e-mail notification of responses to your message.

When you are finished, you can preview your message before officially posting it. Click Post to allow other visitors to see and respond to your message.

Again, we hope that many people will use these forums. The more people using them, the more useful they become.

There is so much information available on the site, sometimes I get going and find I have trouble getting back to where I began. Any advice?

Sure. In addition to just repeatedly clicking the "back" button on your browser until you reach the place you started, you can always go directly back to the site's homepage by clicking on the NYSSCPA.org logo at the top of the page on the site.

Of course, some of the links on our site connect you with other organizations' and groups' sites, in which case the NYSSCPA logo will no longer be at the top of the page. One easy way to ensure that you can always get back to the homepage is to "bookmark" the page (or set it as one of your "favorites," depending on the Internet browser you use).

The website staff encourages members to send their questions and comments to staff@nysscpa.org or contact us via the main Society numbers, (212) 719-8300 or (800) 633-6320. *