1. Web Portal Training

2. The Bair Foundation has a PORTAL that is used by nearly all staff.

3. What is a PORTAL?
‘Portal’ means door, passageway, entrance.
‘A web portal is a site that provides a single function via a web page or site.’
You get there from your computer using your web browser, probably Internet Explorer. The web address is:

4. The Bair Portal is only for Bair staff to use
The Bair Portal is only for Bair staff to use. It requires a username and password which will be given to you by the Information Technology (I.T.) Department when they set you up as a new employee. If you log in but don’t actively use the Portal, it times out and will take you back to the login screen.

5. The Bair Foundation public website, which is different from the Portal, is

6. The Bair Portal is a central storage location for forms, policies, procedures and information. All staff can access it from their computer. It is a good way to provide everyone with current, standardized information.

7. You should always get a document directly from the Portal to be sure you have the most current version. Don’t save Portal documents to your hard drive and re-use them from there because, if a change is made, you won’t be using the new version.

8. You can save the Portal login page as your home page in Internet Explorer. If you don’t know how to do this, I.T. can help you. Call Trend at

9. Once you log in to the Portal, you will see the Portal Home Page
Once you log in to the Portal, you will see the Portal Home Page. From here you can do several things:

10. The Portal allows you to get your email from any computer that has an internet connection.

11. Access special Bair Foundation child care database programs, such as Carrot and CANS.

12. Report broken hyperlinks in Portal documents using the email address provided.

13. To get to the meat of the Portal, click on Employee Resources.

14. In June 2008 there were about 4,000 documents stored on the Portal
In June 2008 there were about 4,000 documents stored on the Portal. If you need a particular document but don’t know where to look for it, there is a Search capability on the Employee Resources page. Click on GOOGLE SEARCH and then type in a word or two from the title of the document. If no results show, try paring down your request. For example if you searched for ‘Action Sheets’ and didn’t find anything, leave the final ‘s’ off the word ‘Sheets’.

15. You can choose from two divisions:
General Employee Resources will take you to documents that apply to every Bair office.
Resources by State will allow you to access state-specific forms

16. By clicking on General Employee Resources, you will get a list of categories to choose from. For example, if you need an Expense Report form, click on ‘Accounting Forms’. If you want a policy, click on ‘National Administrative Manual’. Click on ‘Employee Handbook’ if you want to find out about dress code or benefits, etc.

17. Resources by State will take you to a list of states
Resources by State will take you to a list of states. Click on the state name to access the documents for your state.

18. You will see a list of categories and can click on the one you need
You will see a list of categories and can click on the one you need. That will give you a list of documents in that category.

19. Click on the document name or form number to open the form.

20. A screen will pop up asking if you want to save or open the file
A screen will pop up asking if you want to save or open the file. You can save it to your computer if you are going to work on it on the computer. Don’t fill it in on the computer and then click ‘File>Save’. SAVE AS to save to your computer first, then work on it. Or you can just open it & print it.

21. Only certain staff members have permission to put documents on the Portal. Usually, it is the state Administrative Assistant. If you notice something that needs to be changed or corrected in a document, talk to your supervisor or it to the State Admin.

22. FINDING DOCUMENTS

23. Sometimes the document lists are very long
Sometimes the document lists are very long. Once you get to the list your form is in, doing a ‘Find’ can help you quickly find what you want. Click on ‘Edit’ on the menu bar and then ‘Find On This Page’ or press the Control & f buttons on your keyboard to get a little screen where you can type in the word you’re looking for on that screen.

24. Hyperlinks appear in a document as blue, underlined words
Hyperlinks appear in a document as blue, underlined words. They actually contain a hidden web address. You may see them in Portal documents. They are shortcuts that make it easy for you to get to the listed document by clicking on them.

25. Sometimes a document will only contain a hyperlink
Sometimes a document will only contain a hyperlink. If the form needs to be in more than one place on the portal, the actual form is put in one place and a hyperlink to it is put in the other places. That way if a change is made to the document, there won’t be other outdated versions of it still on the Portal.

26. We are working towards having a footer in every Portal document with a form number that indicates where on the Portal it came from.

27. On the left side of the footer, you should see TBF-PA, TBF-TX or TBF-OH or TBF>GenRes. This clues you into which main area this form is stored in. TBF means it is a Bair form. You would go to Resources by State for Texas or Ohio (if you were looking for the examples above). When you see GenRes, you would go to General Employee Resources.

28. On the right side of the footer there should be a form number indicating which category it will be found in. For example I-01 would be in Intake. O-07 would be in Ongoing Forms.

29. Make It Easy…

30. You’ll find there are certain documents you’ll use frequently
You’ll find there are certain documents you’ll use frequently. You can save a shortcut to them on your desktop. This will always pull up the current version of that form, so it is much better than saving a form to your hard drive to re-use. Follow the instructions on the next slide to save a Shortcut:

31. When you’re logged into the portal and looking at a document list, right click on the one that you use frequently and want to be able to get to quickly. On the menu that appears, left click on ‘COPY SHORTCUT’. Go to your computer desktop then and right click again. On the menu that appears, left click on ‘PASTE SHORTCUT’. After it appears on your desktop, you can click on it and move it around to a convenient location on the desktop. Then whenever you need that document, fresh and new - straight from the portal, just double click on that little shortcut. The document will open up for you. You can make as many shortcuts on your desktop as you want to.

32. You can review this training at any time by going to the Portal>General Employee Resources> Training>Portal Training.