site guide
Welcome to the Retail Enterprise Network.
This system is designed for the management and co-ordination of Equal funded projects. All sites run on the empower system allow for both a "public" and "private" area. The public area contains general information about the project, including partner information and news. The private areas are allocated to participants in the project, allowing them access to the communication functions within empower.
The many functions of this system include contact lists, message boards, activity planners, calenders, resource lists and links, timesheets and shared files.
Below is a brief explanation of some of empowers functions - more detail can be found in your briefing document.
Home Page
When you first visit the empower site, you are immediately able to view the “public” information – background on each of the projects (via the section tabs along the top), who are we?, links to partners, site guide, newsroom and downloads. These options are always available from the upper left menu.
Entering your username and password into the login box in the lower left takes you into the “secure” section of the website.
Section Menus
Main: This option takes you to the core empower menu of functions. This is the general project area where you can send emails to everyone that works on the project and, also discuss general project issues on the discussion boards.
Section / Subsection: Each allocated area has access to the general function list (menu at the top) and section-specific funtions (menu at the bottom).
Main Function Menus
Contacts – This allows a member of a group to send a group email to any other members of the same group. To send a message, click on the tick boxes of the people you wish to email, and write your message in the larger box.
Documents – Access to PC compatible documents, specific to the section. Clicking the document gives you the option to open or save the document to your PC.
Message Board – Each section has a section on the message board, allowing group members to share ideas.
Minutes and Agendas – Contains minutes and agendas for meetings related to the current section.
Calendar/Diaries – This section shows the whereabouts of key staff, as well as events and key dates relating to your project. The links at the top allow you to navigate week to week, month to month.
Resources – The resources section is a database of online and offline sources of information useful for project participants. Initially you will be asked for search criteria in case you are looking for a specific document. Leaving the search fields blank will return the entire list of resources.
Templates – Here you can download templates for writing minutes, agendas, memos and making powerpoint presentations.