General Communications (GC)

To view the register, start by navigating to the left-hand expandable menu and select Registers followed by General Communications: 

All GC's within the contract will be listed here, with the latest communicated event appearing at the top.

In order to open a GC, select it from the register and a new window will appear, showing its detail.

When an event is in DRAFT status, only Users from the Party that created it will be able to view it. Draft GCs will appear at the top of the register. Any voided drafts will appear grey and struck through at the bottom.

Both the Employer and the Contractor are able to view all communicated GCs, unless it has been marked as private.

If the GC is private, then the title will be labelled as private and the private column will have a tick.  It is not possible to open this GC unless you are listed as a recipient:

GCs coloured in red indicate that they have a ‘reply by’ date and the reply is now overdue.

To learn how to use the columns and filter options in the register, please review our article here - Event Register

The purpose of creating a GC is to communicate information that may not be related to a particular module, that you wish to retain within CEMAR. GC's can be sent to individuals and groups, both within CEMAR or externally.

To create a new GC navigate to the left-hand expandable menu and select Create New followed by General Communication.

This will open a draft edit form in which you may enter the details of the GC.

Please note that 3 of these fields are compulsory and you cannot send the event without these being completed. These are;

i) Recipients (at least one User from the opposite Party will need to be added here)

ii) Subject

iii) Reference

If sending this GC to an external body, the tick box Include this new General Communication as an attachment to the email should be selected, as this will allow the external recipient to view the event without having to access CEMAR.

If attachments will be attached to this event, ensure that the tick box Include other attachments uploaded in CEMAR as attachments to the email is also selected.

If you wish for this event to be private, select the tick box labelled Mark as Private below the recipient’s field. Only the listed recipients will then be able to view this event.

Please note that all PDFs created (even those marked as private) will be available should the contract’s communications archive be downloaded by a Superuser via the admin panel.

If a reply is required for this event, select the Reply Required tick box on the right-hand side and use the drop-down menu to select a date for which the reply is due.

Once all the relevant details have been completed, select Send/Progress and the event will then be communicated to all recipients in the recipient’s field and will appear in the reminders page.

Once a GC has been communicated it will appear in the reminders page in 1 of 2 menus.

- GCs in the General Communications (no reply requested) menu will be displayed in black writing.

- GCs in the General Communications (awaiting reply) menu will display either red, amber or green (RAG status) depending on the amount of time remaining for a reply.

By default, when a GC has been communicated that does not require a reply, it will have the Show in Reminders box selected. Once the GC has been read, it is good practice to un-tick this box, however, please note that by un-ticking this box the reminder will stop showing to all Users within your Party:

Start by opening the event and navigating to the top right-hand corner of the window, then select Reply To…

You will then be presented with the option to reply to one of the following;

- Sender

- All

- New Recipient

Selecting one of these will create a new draft which will automatically be associated with the original event.