You will encounter these two options in all the searches found in the online planner. The difference is how the search results will be formatted. For example, if you are searching on poster presentations and would like to see in your search results each individual presentation, you would select the “display as presentations” option. The search results for this are shown below:

Conversely, if you want to see the results as the actual sessions that the presentations reside in, you will select the “display as sessions” option. The search results for this are shown below:

Why did I get zero results from my search?

When running a search, you may get the message shown below:

You will receive this message when your search parameters have no match within the system. The best thing to do in this case is to broaden your search by using less parameters or changing the keywords that you are using to search. The more specific your search, the more likely you will receive no search results.

How can I find when and where my committee meeting will be?

The quickest way to find this information (but not necessarily the only way) is as follows. First, click on the browse button at the top menu. This will take you to the screen shown below:

From the list of session types, click on Committee Meeting. You will be taken to a list of the committee meetings shown below:

Click on the committee meeting that you are inquiring about and you will see the screen below that lists the time and the location of that committee meeting.

How can I find all the sessions and posters that address a specific topic such as electronic health records?

In the top menu bar, there is a basic search box that will allow you to search on common phrases found throughout all the different presentations. The box looks as follows:

From this box, you can search on keywords. A couple notes on basic search:

- The basic search does a LIKE search on your phrases, so it looks for any word from you phrase that matches. If you would like to do an exact match on the whole phrase, you need to encase the phrase with quotations. So to find only the exact phrase “electronic health records”, you would need to encase the whole phrase in quotations as I did in this current sentence.

- Always try to limit the specificity of your search. Searching on a phrase such as “electronic health records” will probably not return anything due to how specific the wording is. You might want to try “electronic health” or “electronic” or “health records”.

How do I find when and where a colleague’s presentation will be?

The listed steps are just one of the ways you can accomplish this search. First, click on the Advanced Search functionality of the top menu. You will be taken to the screen shown below. From this screen, you will enter the last name of the colleague you are searching for in the “Author (last name)” search box.

If you are searching on a common last name, you will need to delimit your search above with more information such as their institution and possibly any abstract keywords that you might know of. The search results are down below (you must display as presentations).

We can see that there are two “Smith”s in the system. Click on the session title which holds the presentation that is given by your colleague (The session title is highlighted above). You will be taken to the session detail in which you will be given information as to when and where your colleague is presenting.

NOTE: The presenting time is shown in the red box below, but some presentations do not have a presenting time (such as posters) and therefore you must go by the session time.

I heard that the Abstract Book will not be published in paper form for MLA ’08. How can I browse and select the section programming sessions I want to see?

The quickest way to find this information (but not necessarily the only way) is as follows. First, click on the browse button at the top menu. This will take you to the screen shown below:

Click on the Section Program link under the session types and you will be taken to a screen that lists out all the section program listings by presentation. Select the section program from that list to view detailed information about that program.

How do I create a personalized schedule and edit and print it?

As you search throughout the program planner through the searching functions, you will see checkboxes and buttons throughout the site that look as follows:

You will use these buttons to add presentations and sessions to your itinerary. Once you have added these selections, you can click on the “My Itinerary” button at the top menu to view your itinerary. Upon first clicking on this menu item, you will be taken to a login screen. You will need to create a new account if this is your first time creating an itinerary. THIS IS NOT THE SAME LOGIN/PASSWORD COMBINATION AS YOUR ABSTRACT SUBMISSION.

Once logged in, you can view your itinerary and print using the “Printable Itinerary” function at the top of the screen.

How can I enter a meeting or dinner date that is not listed in the program planner to my saved schedule?

Click on the “My Itinerary” button from the top menu and login to get to the main itinerary page. You will see an option at the top of the page labeled “Add a Personal Note”. Click on this option.

You will be led to the following screen. From this screen, enter your meeting or dinner date with the date, time, location, and any personal notes that go with this engagement. Click on “Add Personal Notes” to add this to your itinerary.

Will program planner flag time conflicts?

Program planner will flag potential conflicts. The most common conflict you will see is when a presentation ends at 5pm, for example, and the next presentation starts at 5pm. The program planner lists this as a potential conflict since at 5pm there are essentially two presentations overlapping. This is called an adjacent conflict. When you are at the itinerary screen, you will see a warning if there are conflicts in your itinerary.

Click on the “Click here to view the details” and you will be taken to this screen.

From this screen you can suppress certain session types from being included in the conflict report. You can also suppress adjacent conflicts since they are normally false positives. Once you select your options, click on Continue.

If there are any true conflicts, they will be listed in the screen that is above. In this case, all the conflicts were adjacent conflicts and thus there were no real conflicts.

How do I view and print my schedule on site?

Please go to any Internet enabled computer at the meeting, access www.MLANET.org and navigate to the Program Planner. Enter your user name and password. Then you can view program and send it to the printer.

At the Chicago Hyatt, attendees may go to the Internet Cafe, (view only, no printer). The Internet Cafe offers free WI-FI, for wireless users. Instructions for viewing and printing are found in the FAQ Contents above.

The Hyatt Business Center offers Internet access and printing for a fee.

Will my schedule automatically update for room and other schedule changes?

If MLA makes any changes to the data in the system, the program planner will automatically update with this information (except for the basic search functionality which gets updated once per day of the meeting). You must notify MLA to make changes in the system data if you want them to be reflected in the program planner.

How can I email my schedule to a colleague?

This cannot be accomplished within the system. If you have PDF printing capabilities, you can follow the instructions listed in this document with regards to printing your schedule, and print this as a PDF that you can email to your colleagues.

How do I download my schedule to my PDA?

Click on the “My Itinerary” button from the top menu and you will be taken to the itinerary screen.

You will then click on the “Transfer to a Personal Data Assistant (PDA)” link. The following screen will open.

This screen will give instructions on how to use the OASIS data with the AvantGo PDA program. Because this program is not a part of our system, we cannot give any support for this third-party program. Please contact Avant-Go with any specific questions.

What if I forget my password?

Click on the “My Itinerary” button from the top menu.

Click on the “Click here if you have forgotten your password” link indicated above. This will step you through retrieving your password.