Quality Education for a Healthier Scotland Using “News Alert” Function For Appraisers, Administration Teams & Appraisal Advisers

The “News Alert” Function This function allows you to contact groups of Appraisees, Appraisers, Local Admins, etc within SOAR – depending on your user role Administration Teams and Appraisal Advisers can send messages to various groups by selecting the specific user roles and Health Boards Appraisers can only send News Alerts to: – Their Appraisees – Admin team in their Health Board – Local Appraisal Adviser in their Health Board – Responsible Officer in their Health Board

Sending “News Alert” messages Login to SOAR: 1.Click on “ Send a News Alert ” from the menu 2.Click on “ Select Group ” and choose the group(s) you wish to send the News Alert to Take care to select the group(s) of your intended recipients The groups you are able to select will vary depending on your role 3.Give the message a subject heading All headings are prefixed with “SOAR – ” when sent 4.Write the message 5.Click “ Send ”

Once a Message is sent… SOAR will send an notification to the selected user(s) with the full message Received messages can be viewed through “ Received Alerts ” from the menu on the left Sent messages can also be reviewed through “ Sent News Alerts ” Recipients cannot reply to a message sent by the “News Alert” function through SOAR – Alerts sent via – Replies will go to

Rules and Guidance addresses are NOT displayed in the messages If you want your recipients to reply to you, you need to include your address in the message – e.g. “Please to register your interest” or “ for further Once sent, an will be sent to the recipients – but they won’t know who else received the message If sending group messages, as good practice, you should consider beginning your message with something like: – “This message has been sent to all Primary Care Appraisees in NHS Fife” – “This message has been sent to all Secondary Care Appraisers in NHS Grampian” etc

Previously sent News Alerts can be reviewed from the “ Sent News Alerts ” button Received News Alerts can be read by clicking on “ Received Alerts ” To start creating a new News Alert click on “ Send a News Alert ”

Click in Subject line to add News Alert Subject Click in Message box to start typing message Click “ Select Group ” button to choose recipients of message

Under the tab “Appraisees”, select users group(s) in your Health Board And/Or: Click “ Groups ” to choose more specific groups in and outwith your Health Board (this function not available to Appraisers) Select Group(s) by role and Health Board Click “ OK ” once group(s) chosen

Number of recipients is displayed, but no addresses are Click “Send” to send News Alert to selected group(s)

Further support Medical Appraisal Scotland website: – – Resources, FAQ and other useful sections Local Administration teams: – Contact details on Medical Appraisal Scotland SOAR Helpdesk – Black “Help” box on right when logged into SOAR; – or Due to capacity issues we are unable to offer telephone support – You can request a call back via the Helpdesk – but we need detailed descriptions of the issue(s)