Lesson #130
Setup – System Preferences function
General system preferences
As the name implies, these are preferences for features that span more than one module or are basic to the system, like log in.
Email is integrated into many MR9 functions. If you will be sending emails from MR9, this is the one system preference that you are required to customize by entering your primary company email address settings. Other preferences can be customized at any time.
The Email preferences panel lists any email addresses already entered with the main email address selected as the default sender address for MR9 email. You can:
- Add email addresses.
- Change the default sender address.
- View, edit, delete, or test any listed email address.
- Export this list of email addresses that can be used systemwide as an Excel or CSV file to save, share, print, or use in other applications.
When entering a new email address, you can designate that it use either the default email protocol or Microsoft 365 Office email protocol. If using the default email protocol, you must include the email server address and you can add security measures like SSL encryption of your email and SMTP authentication. If using a Microsoft 365 email account — instead of manually entering SMTP settings — you simply verify the account and grant MR9 permission to send emails on that account’s behalf.
The rest of the email setup is the address, user name, and any Bcc email addresses to include in emails by default; plus you can create a signature using formatted text, images, hyperlinks — even tables — that appends automatically to the end of your emails. You can edit your signature in the default WYSIWYG word processor environment or as HTML markup.
After setting up an email address, you can test it within this same function to see if you have the correct settings for sending emails within MR9 from this address. You can also view the sent email to see if you want to make any changes to the signature.
General vs. personal email addresses
You do not have to enter every user’s email address in System Preferences. If your staff should use their own address when emailing from MR9, they can set up their email address in User Preferences (preferences that affect their MR9 account only, not the entire system). Then in most instances, their address will be the sender address when they send an email through MR9.
If you have a small staff and want to have users share addresses, enter the addresses in System Preferences, not User Preferences. Then they can use the default company email address or choose any of the other addresses as the sender when sending an email.
Email & MR Connect
Another reason to set up email accounts in System Preferences is if you have MR Connect. All MR Connect communications will be sent from the email account listed as the default in the System Preferences.
Or you can designate one of the other General email addresses as the source for automatic response emails sent to clients regarding MR Connect requests. This is so in case a client responds to the auto confirmation email they receive, their response needs to go to a validated email account. Set this up in MR Connect General Preferences.
Forgot Password Email
If one of your users forgets their MR9 password, they can request a new password from the sign-in screen. MR9 will automatically send them an email from the default email address so they can reset their password. You can change the default text of the header and body of this email.
You can automatically insert relevant MR9 data with contextual data fields for who requested the reset, when they requested it, and the link to reset their password. You can also customize the appearance of the body of the email with text formatting, images, color, hyperlinks, and tables.
License Info
In these section, find information about your MR9 licenses and other product information. It contains:
- Your MR9 product code
- Your current number of paid-for user licenses, which you can increase or decrease here at any time. When you change the number, MR9 displays how much your account will be credited or debited for the current month.
- Your MR9 system URL
- Date your MR9 licenses will expire if not renewed
- Web address of your MR9
- Entity your MR9 is licensed to
- Amount in gigabytes of storage you are currently using for your MR9 repository
- Number of files in your MR9 repository
- Any plug-ins you currently subscribe to are checked in the Active column of this pane (you can export this list as an Excel or CSV file to save, print, share, or use in other applications)
- Any MR9 custom programming you have is listed in this pane (you can export this list as an Excel or CSV file to save, print, share, or use in other applications)
- Billing information including history, individual invoices, and your credit card(s) you have authorized to pay your MR9 subscription with. You can also pay overdue invoices and any prorated amount for increased user licenses here.
Login
MR9 follows general security rules for business application user log-ins. You can change some of these security features. In System Preferences, you can:
- Protect user accounts from hacking attempts by selecting a set amount of incorrect login attempts before MR9 locks out the user. Single-system users can select the “Never locked out” option.
- Require complex passwords that contain a number, lowercase letter, capital letter, and symbol.
- Force users to reset their password periodically. You can set the duration to every 30, 60, 90, or 180 days before MR9 users must change their password.
- If you require users to change their password periodically, you can allow them to keep the same password when they update their password.
- Use email addresses as the log-in name for all of your user accounts, instead of custom log-in names. With custom log-in names users can change their log-in names — but everyone must have a unique log-in name. They do not have that option with email addresses.
- Allow users to sign in using their Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, or Microsoft credentials.
- Require users to verify their identity upon MR9 sign-in with a second factor in addition to their user name and password. A verification code will be sent to the user’s preferred method of communication, which they must then enter into MR9 before accessing the site. Authentication is per device, and users can decide to authenticate a device once or every time they sign in on that device.
Notifications and Messages
You can select 30, 60, 90, or 180 days for how long MR9 will keep old messages in the Sent Message and Trash folders in the system’s message center before deleting them.
Session Timeout
Because MR9 is web based you can work anywhere you have a web browser and internet connection. However MR9 stores sensitive data — including information about your business units, accounting, contacts, and records — so it will automatically log you off after staying inactive for a set period of time to deter prying eyes from compromising any sensitive data. It is exactly like how online banking sites sign you off after a predetermined length of inactive time.
The default is that you are automatically logged out of MR9 after 20 minutes of inactivity. You can change the session timeout to a time between 5 and 60 minutes in 5-minute increments. Your changes will take place the next time you log in. Since this is a system preference all users will be affected — including contacts and others who use MR Connect, the next time they log in.
Since MR9 does not automatically save your information when it logs you out, it’s a good idea to set an interval that balances security with your work processes — and to let other users know what the interval is so they remember to save their work periodically.
System Time
Set your MR9 clock to the time zone that your company is in. Users can select a different default time zone for jobs they schedule in User Preferences.
You can also set the system to automatically adjust the clock for Daylight Saving Time.
TL;DR: Set preferences for aspects of MR9 that impact multiple modules or the entire system in General preferences. Some preferences can be overridden by individual users in User Preferences.
MR9 concepts in this lesson
Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately, such as branch offices, other companies you own, affiliates, and profit-sharing operations.
Contact: Person who works for a firm you do business with.
MR Connect: Online repository, orders, and access to your office for clients and others. More >
Repository: MR9 has 9 repositories where you store files for safekeeping and quick retrieval. When you store files in a case, they are in MR9’s Case Repository; when you store files in a part, they are in MR9’s Part Repository; etc. If you have MR Connect, you can give clients access to specific repository files.
Users: You and your staff who directly access MR9.
