User Guide

• Introduction
  • Features overview
  • Purpose of this guide
• How to use this user guide
  • Structure of this document
• Quick start
  • User interface
  • Try it out!
• Features
  • Command Format
  • Command Parameters
    • ADDRESS
    • DATE
    • EMAIL
    • HELP_TOPIC
    • INDEX
    • KEYWORD
    • NAME
    • PHONE
    • QUERY
    • REMARK
    • TAG
    • TIME
    • VENUE
  • Managing a client
    • Adding a client: add
    • Editing a client: edit
    • Deleting a client: del
    • Adding a remark to your client: rmk
    • Appointments
      • Adding an appointment: aa
      • Editing an appointment: ea
      • Deleting an appointment: da
      • Updating completed appointment: ma
      • Undo marking of completed appointment: ua
    • Tags
      • Tag Naming Conventions
      • Using tags: tag
  • Managing your client base
    • Listing all clients: list
    • Sorting all clients: sort
    • Searching for clients: find
    • Clearing all entries: clear
  • Others
    • Viewing help: help
    • Viewing statistics
    • Exiting the program: exit
    • Saving the data
    • Editing the data file
• FAQs
• Command summary
  • Contact Management
  • Appointment Management
  • Tag Management
  • Navigation
  • Other Commands
• Glossary

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Introduction

Welcome and thank you for downloading FAST! Are you a financial advisor having troubles managing your contacts on your phone? Do you find existing contact management software troublesome and not intuitive to use? Do you want a free alternative compared to those paid contact management software? If you answered “YES!” to any those questions, then FAST is for you!

FAST stands for Financial Advisor Smart Tracker (FAST), and as its name implies, we strive to be the fastest, and most efficient when it comes to managing your contacts. FAST is a free and open-source desktop app for Financial Advisors to manage their contacts. More importantly, FAST is optimized for those who prefer to work with a Command Line Interface (CLI) while still having the benefits of a Graphical User Interface (GUI). If you are a Financial Advisor that can type fast, FAST will get your contact management tasks done faster than traditional GUI apps!

Features overview

Here is an overview of the features FAST offers:

• Keep track of your client’s information (i.e. Name, Phone number, Email address, Home address, and Remarks) in our all-in-one app!
• Record and keep track of your client’s appointment dates. Never miss another appointment date again!
• Tag your clients with the insurance plan they have purchased or are interested in.
• View built-in analysis of your client base to better understand your portfolio.

Purpose of this guide

This guide aims to help new users to be familiar with FAST. After reading this guide, new users will be more familiar with the different features available in FAST. This guide also serves as a reminder for existing users to quickly search for specific information if they are unsure of how to use certain features, by clicking on the links, to jump to the section where the information which they are looking for exists.

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How to use this user guide

We recommend first time users to read the user guide in the order that is written. Throughout the user guide, we include links in blue like this which will jump to the corresponding section of the user guide. These links allow you to quickly navigate this document. This guide follows the structure as stated here.

We also use special formats to highlight information that will be important or useful to you. These include:

Cautions

Messages that appear in these boxes are important to take note of, as not knowing them might harm your user experience.

Tips

Messages that appear in these boxes can help you to more effectively use FAST.

Useful information

Messages that appear in these boxes will be useful in helping you to understand how to use FAST.

Technical Information

Example technical information

Messages that appear in these boxes indicate that the text is of a more technical nature, such as user input.

Structure of this document

To help you make the most of your time, we have added a multitude of features to FAST, which will help you efficiently manage your contacts. As such, this user guide has been structured to help you find what you are looking for.

In How to use this user guide, you can learn how to most effectively read through this guide.

In Quick start, you will find simple instructions on how to quickly begin using FAST.

In Features, you can find documentation on how to use the features available in FAST.

In FAQs, you may find answers to questions or problems you might have while using FAST.

In Command summary, you will find a summary of the commands available in FAST.

In Glossary, you will find useful descriptions and meanings of terms used in this document.

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Quick start

1. Ensure you have Java 11 or above installed in your Computer. FAST can be used on any operating system including Windows, macOS or Linux

2. Download the latest FAST.jar from here.

3. Copy the file to the folder you want to use as the home folder for your FAST.

4. Double-click the file to start the app. The GUI similar to the below should appear in a few seconds.

   

5. When you first start up, FAST will contain some sample data for you to explore the different features.
6. You are now ready to start managing your clients!

User interface

Referring to the image above, the Menu bar at the top is where you can access the Help page, Stats page and exit FAST.

Next, the Results display is where FAST gives you feedback to your commands. For example, if you make a typo in your command, FAST will inform you here!

Following that, we have the Client information cards. Each client is represented by a card, which contains all the information of that client.

Lastly, the Command box is where you can type in all your commands!

Try it out!

We recommend that you play around with FAST to get a better idea of the features and their usages. Don’t worry, these are all sample data! Here are some commands you can try to see what they do:

1. Add a contact named “Matthew Shen” to FAST
   • add n/Matthew Shen p/91087657 e/matthew@example.com a/511 Seletar Road 12
2. Delete the 3rd contact in FAST
   • del 3
3. View all your saved contacts
   • list
4. Try searching for a high priority client!
   • find pr/high
5. Try setting an appointment for him.
   • aa 1 d/2021-12-12 t/14:30 v/Buona Vista

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Features

Command Format

All the commands used in FAST application follows these notations!

• Words in UPPER_CASE are the parameters to be added in by the user.
  
  • e.g. for add n/NAME, NAME is where you would replace it with the actual client’s name such as in add n/John Doe.
• Items in square brackets are optional.
  
  • e.g. if you see n/NAME [t/TAG], this can be used as n/John Doe t/friend or as n/John Doe.
• Items with …​ after them can be used zero or more times.
  
  • e.g. if you see[t/TAG]…​, it can be t/friend, t/friend t/family or just left empty.
• Parameters can be in any order. (This excludes parameters without a prefix.)
  
  • e.g. if the command uses this format: n/NAME p/PHONE_NUMBER, you can also input p/PHONE_NUMBER n/NAME.

Command Parameters

In this subsection, you can see all the parameters used in FAST at one place. These parameters are used for all our features usage.

ADDRESS

• The address of your client
• Can take any value (should not be blank)
• Should not be more than 100 characters

DATE

• The date of an appointment with your client
• Should be in this format: yyyy-mm-dd
  • e.g. 2023-05-15
• Should be a valid date (cannot be a date in the past) where:
  • yyyy (year): should be a positive 4-digit number
  • mm (month): should be a valid calendar month between 01 and 12
  • dd (day): should be a valid calendar day between 01 - 31 (might be less than 31 depending on the month)

EMAIL

• The email address of your client
• Should not be more than 100 characters
• Should be in this format: local-part@domain
• local-part:
  • should only contain alphanumeric characters and these special characters excluding parentheses (!#$%&’*+/=?{}|~^.-`).
  • should not start and end with special characters,
• domain:
  • must be at least 2 characters long.
  • each domain label must start and end with alphanumeric characters
  • each domain label is separated using hyphens (if any)

HELP_TOPIC

• The Help topics available in FAST:
  • Quick Start
  • Add
  • Appointment
  • Edit Appointment
  • Delete Appointment
  • Mark Appointment
  • Clear
  • Delete
  • Edit
  • Find
  • List
  • Help
  • Remark
  • Sort
  • Statistic
  • Tag
  • Investment Plan Tag
  • Priority Tag
  • Misc

INDEX

• Refers to the number shown in the displayed client list
• Must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​

KEYWORD

• The condition to sort your client list
• There are currently only 3 KEYWORD available: name, appointment, priority.
  • name will sort all clients in alphabetical order from A to Z.
  • appointment will sort all client by appointment date from the earliest date to latest.
  • priority will sort all client by priority tag from the highest to the lowest priority.

NAME

• The name of your client
• Should not be more than 50 characters
• Should only contain alphanumeric characters and spaces (should not be blank)

  FAST does not allow duplicate names, but you may use numbers to differentiate between 2 clients with the exact same name.
  

PHONE

• The contact number of your client
• Should only contain numbers
  • for numbers with an area/country code e.g. +65 80081355, you can just enter 6580081355
• Should be at least 3 digits long and at most 20 digits long.

QUERY

• The term used to search for clients in FAST
• Can be any value
• Cannot be left blank

REMARK

• Extra notes given for your client
• Should not be more than 45 characters

TAG

• A label given to your client
• There are 3 types of TAG in FAST:
  1. Normal Tags: should not be longer than 20 characters
     • no prefix
  2. Priority Tag: either one of the 3 priorities (low, med, high)
     • prefix: pr/
  3. Investment Plan Tag: either one of the 7 plans (health, invest, life, motor, property, save or travel)
     • prefix: ip/
• To use Priority or Inventment Plan Tags, you need to specify the prefix, or it will be treated as a Normal Tag.
• Refer to Tags to find out more about each tag

TIME

• The time of an appointment with your client
• 24-hour format
• Should be in this format: HH:mm
  • eg. 10:30 represents 10.30am
• Should be a valid time from 00:00 to 23:59 where:
  • HH (hour): should be between 00 and 23
  • mm (minute): should be between 00 and 59

VENUE

• The location of an appointment with your client
• Should not be longer than 20 characters long
  

Managing a client

FAST allows you to easily manage your clients. Just like a contact in your phone’s Contact Book, you can use FAST to save your client’s Name, Phone Number, Address, Email Address and Remarks. In addition, you can also add in appointment dates and tag your clients all within FAST.

In this user guide, we will showcase commands related to Clients first followed by sections on Appointment and Tags. After this section on clients, you can also learn more about managing your client base, or view our other utility features.

Adding a client: add

You can use this command to add a client to FAST.

Format: add n/NAME p/PHONE_NUMBER e/EMAIL a/ADDRESS [t/TAG]…​

Parameters:

• NAME
• PHONE_NUMBER
• EMAIL
• ADDRESS
• TAG

Examples:

• add n/John Doe p/98765432 e/johnd@example.com a/John street, block 123, #01-01 will add a new client called John Doe, who has phone number of 98765432, has an email address johnd@example.com and stays at John street, block 123, #01-01.

  

• add n/Betsy Crowe t/friend e/betsycrowe@example.com a/Newgate Prison p/1234567 t/criminal will add a new client called Betsy Crowe, has a phone number of 1234567, has an email address betsycrowe@example.com, stays at Newgate Prison and is tagged as both a friend and criminal.

Editing a client: edit

You can edit an existing client in FAST. This can be used if the client’s information has changed, or if you entered an incorrect entry previously.

Format: edit INDEX [n/NAME] [p/PHONE] [e/EMAIL] [a/ADDRESS] [t/TAG]…​

• Edits the client at the specified INDEX

Parameters:

• INDEX
• NAME
• PHONE_NUMBER
• EMAIL
• ADDRESS
• TAG

Examples:

• edit 1 p/91234567 e/alexdabro@example.com Edits the phone number and email address of the first client to be 91234567 and alexdabro@example.com respectively.
• edit 2 n/Betsy Crower t/ Edits the name of the second client to be Betsy Crower and clears all existing tags.

Deleting a client: del

You can delete the specified client from FAST. This is useful when a client has stopped using your services.

Format 1: del INDEX [INDEX]...
Format 2: del INDEX-INDEX

• Deletes the client(s) at the specified INDEX.

Parameters:

• INDEX

Examples:

• list followed by del 2 deletes the second client in FAST. If Bernice Yu is the second client on the list, his entry will be deleted.
• find Betsy followed by del 1 deletes the first client in the results of the find command.

• del 2 4 6 8 10 deletes the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th person in FAST.
• del 3-5 deletes the 3rd, 4th and 5th person in FAST.

Adding a remark to your client: rmk

You can add a remark to an existing client in FAST, or update the current remark if they already have one.
This is useful for adding additional client notes such as their preferred meeting timing, allowing you to better serve your clients!

Format: rmk INDEX [r/REMARK]

• Adds a remark to the client at the specified INDEX

Parameter:

• INDEX
• REMARK

Examples:

• rmk 1 r/loves to eat pizza adds a remark loves to eat pizza to the first client.
• rmk 1 removes the remark from the first client.
  

Appointments

You can also store and keep track of appointments with your clients all within FAST! You may save the date, time and venue of an appointment.

Adding an appointment: aa

You can add a scheduled appointment with the client. An appointment includes a date, time and venue. This allows you to keep track of all your clients’ appointment dates all within the same app. You can also edit, delete, mark as completed, or undo marking of completed appointment for an appointment.

Format: aa INDEX d/DATE [t/TIME] [v/VENUE]

Parameter:

• INDEX
• DATE
• TIME
• VENUE

Examples:

• aa 1 d/2022-03-27 adds an appointment with date 27 Mar 2022 to the first client in FAST.
• aa 3 d/2022-03-27 t/18:00 adds an appointment with date 27 Mar 2022 and time 1800hrs to the third client in FAST.
• find Stuart Brown followed by aa 3 d/2022-03-27 t/18:00 v/Velocity adds an appointment with date 27 Mar 2022, time 1800hrs and venue Velocity to the third client in the results of the find command.

  This command will not work if the client has already been assigned an appointment. You will have to use the edit appointment command.
  

Editing an appointment: ea

You can edit a scheduled appointment with your client. This command is useful when your appointment has been rescheduled or has a change in location.

Format: ea INDEX [d/DATE] [t/TIME] [v/VENUE]

• Edits a scheduled appointment with the client at the specified INDEX if the appointment exist.

Parameter:

• INDEX
• DATE
• TIME
• VENUE

Examples:

• ea 1 d/2022-03-28 edits the appointment date to be 28 Mar 2022 of the first client.
• ea 3 v/ t/18:00 edits the appointment time to be 1800hrs and clears the appointment venue of the third client.

Deleting an appointment: da

You can delete a scheduled appointment with your client. This command should be used when the appointment has been cancelled with a client.

Format: da INDEX

• Deletes a scheduled appointment with the client at the specified INDEX if the appointment exist.
• Existing details will be deleted.

Parameter:

• INDEX

Examples:

• da 1 deletes the appointment of the first client.
• find Ben followed by da 3 deletes the appointment the third client in the result of the find command.

Updating completed appointment: ma

You can mark the appointment with your client as completed. This also allows you to keep track of the number of completed appointments with your client.

Format: ma INDEX

• Update the completed appointment count with the client at the specified INDEX if the appointment exist.
• The marked appointment will be deleted!

Parameter:

• INDEX

Examples:

• ma 1 updates the completed appointment counter of the first client.

• find Matthew followed by ma 3 updates the completed appointment counter of the third client in the result of the find command.

Undo marking of completed appointment: ua

You can reduce the appointment count of your client as needed.

Format: ua INDEX

• Decreases the completed appointment count of the client at the specified INDEX by 1, if no appointment is currently scheduled with the client.
• The current appointment count has to be greater than 0.

Parameter:

• INDEX

Examples:

Before undo:

• ua 1 decreases the completed appointment counter of the first client by 1.

• find Matthew followed by ua 3 decreases the completed appointment counter of the third client in the result of the find command by 1.

Tags

You can use our Tagging system to label and categorise your clients. Tags are a quick way for you to organise your contacts, and recall their key characteristics. In FAST, we have three main types of tags:

1. Normal tags, which you can customise according to your needs.

   Tip: Tags should be used to categorise clients; use short names for normal tags that you may be able to use for other clients as well!

2. Priority tags, which have fixed names and help you to remember which contacts you need to focus on first.

   Tip: A client can only have 1 priority tag , but they can have other non-priority tags alongside the one priority tag.

3. Investment plan tags, which help you recall the plans that each contact has bought.

   Tip: A client can have more than 1 investment plan tag, but they may not have more than 1 of the same investment plan tag.
   For example, a client may have both Savings and Investment concurrently, but not 2 instances of Savings at the same time.

Tag Naming Conventions

You can refer to the table below to quickly learn about how to use these three tags.

Tag type	Prefix	Term
Normal	No Prefix	Your preferred tag name, that contains at most 20 alphanumeric characters and no spaces
Priority	pr/	low: Low Priority med:Medium Priority high:High Priority
Investment plan	ip/	health: Health Insurance invest: Investment life: Life Insurance motor: Motor Insurance property: Property Insurance save: Savings travel: Travel Insurance

In general, append the term to the prefix when referring to a priority or investment plan tag. Normal tags do not have prefixes, so simply type in the desired tag name.

More examples of how to use these will be given in the following section.

Using tags: tag

You can add or delete the tags of a specified client.

Format: tag INDEX [a/TAG] [d/TAG]

• Use a/ to add a tag, and d/ to delete a tag.
• To add Priority or Investment Plan Tags, remember to add their prefixes!
• Does not affect any unmentioned tags, unlike edit.
• Delete operations are performed first before add operations, regardless of their order in the input.

Parameter:

• INDEX
• TAG

Examples:

• tag 1 a/family d/friends will delete the friends tag before adding the family tag.

• tag 1 d/pr/high a/pr/low will delete the HighPriority tag before adding the LowPriority tag.

• tag 1 a/ip/property will add a PropertyInsurance tag to the contact.

Managing your client base

In addition to changing individual client’s details, you can also perform commands which affects your entire client list. This allows you to easily navigate your client list and improve your efficiency!

Listing all clients: list

You can use this command to view your entire client list! This command is especially useful to return to viewing your full client list after a find command has been executed.

Format: list

Sorting all clients: sort

You can sort all your clients by a given condition, allowing you to keep your clients list orderly and well-organised. You also can use this command quickly sieve through large client lists. Currently, you can sort by name, appointment date, and priority tag.

Format: sort KEYWORD

Parameter

• KEYWORD

Example:

• sort priority Sorts all existing clients by their priority tag, from the highest priority to the lowest priority.

Searching for clients: find

You can use this command to find clients by their name, priority, tags or remarks. This is useful if your have many clients in FAST and wish to quickly find a specific client. To return to the full client list, you can use the list command

Format 1: find QUERY [MORE_QUERIES]
Format 2: find pr/PRIORITY [MORE_PRIORITIES]
Format 3: find t/TAG [MORE TAGS]
Format 4: find r/REMARK [MORE REMARKS]

• The search is case-insensitive. e.g. hans will match Hans
• The order of the queries does not matter. e.g. Hans Bo will match Bo Hans
• You can search by name, priority, tags or remarks using the formats shown above.
• Names with words starting with the query will match. e.g. Han will match Solo Hans.
• Any remarks containing the searched remark will match. e.g. r/piz will match likes pizza.
• Clients matching at least one search query will be returned (i.e. OR search). e.g. Hans Bo will return Hans Gruber, Bo Yang

Parameters:

• QUERY
• PRIORITY
• TAG
• REMARK

Examples:

• find John returns john and John Doe
• find alex david returns Alex Yeoh, David Li
  
• find pr/high med returns all clients with HighPriority and MediumPriority.
• find t/friends enemies returns all clients tagged with friends or enemies.
• find r/good returns all clients with remarks containing good.

Clearing all entries: clear

You can clear all clients from FAST. This command is useful to remove the default sample data in FAST.

Format: clear

Others

Viewing help: help

You can use the help command to open a new window that contains the command usage, and a quick start guide. In the help window, you can view all the command usages built-in right into FAST using the dropdown menu.

Format: help [HELP_TOPIC]

Parameters:

• HELP_TOPIC

Examples:

• help will just open the default help window
• help add will open the help window and directly navigate to the Add command help page.

Viewing statistics

You can view FAST’s built-in statistics and see and overview of your client’s data. To view the statistics, simply click the “Stats” menu item on the top bar or press F2. You should see a window open that looks like this:

Currently, FAST supports these statistics:

• Priority Tag Chart: View the breakdown of your client’s priority.
• Insurance Plan Chart: View the distribution of your insurance plans sold.

Exiting the program: exit

You can exit the program using this command.

Format: exit

Saving the data

You do not have to worry about saving the data manually! FAST automatically saves your data after any changes are made. This way, you can focus solely on serving your clients better!

Editing the data file

FAST data is saved as a JSON file. You can find this at [JAR file location]/data/fast.json. If you are an advanced user, feel free to update your data directly, by editing that data file.

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FAQs

Q: How do I transfer my data to another Computer?
A: Install the app in the other computer and move your previous FAST data folder into the new FAST home folder. The data folder is shown below.

Q: How do I save my data?
A: You do not need to manually save any data, FAST automatically saves all your data for you when you exit the application.
Q: I edited my data file, and now when I start FAST all my contacts are gone! What happened?
A: It is likely that some of your changes to your data file caused FAST to be unable to read your data file. Double-check the changes you made, or revert them if necessary. If FAST is able to read the data file after you made the changes, all your saved contacts will appear on the next start.

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Command summary

The tables below provides you with a summary for all the available commands in FAST. You can use this section to quickly refresh your memory on the different command formats. The commands are categorised (based on their purpose) into 5 different categories:

• Contact Management
• Appointment Management
• Tag Management
• Navigation
• Other Commands

Contact Management

Action	Format, Examples
Add Contact	add n/NAME p/PHONE_NUMBER e/EMAIL a/ADDRESS [t/TAG]…​ e.g. add n/James Ho p/22224444 e/jamesho@example.com a/123, Clementi Rd, 1234665 t/friend t/colleague
Delete Contact	del INDEX [INDEX]... e.g. del 3 1 del INDEX-INDEX e.g. del 3-5
Edit Contact	edit INDEX [n/NAME] [p/PHONE_NUMBER] [e/EMAIL] [a/ADDRESS] [t/TAG]…​ e.g.edit 2 n/James Lee e/jameslee@example.com
Add Remark	rmk INDEX [r/REMARK]
Edit Remark	rmk INDEX r/REMARK OR rmk INDEX e.g. rmk 1 r/likes dogs

Appointment Management

Action	Format, Examples
Add appointment	aa INDEX d/DATE [t/TIME] [v/VENUE] e.g. aa 3 d/2021-03-27 t/18:00 v/Clementi Park
Delete Appointment	da INDEX e.g. da 1
Edit Appointment	ea INDEX [d/DATE] [t/TIME] [v/VENUE] e.g. ea 3 v/Clementi Town d/2021-03-27 t/18:00
Update Completed Appointment	ma INDEX e.g. ma 5
Undo Marked Appointment	ua INDEX e.g. ua 1

Tag Management

Action	Format, Examples
Edit Tag	tag INDEX a/[TAG] d/[TAG] e.g. tag 1 a/friend d/ip/life
Investment Plan Tag	Health Insurance: ip/health Investment: ip/invest Life Insurance: ip/life Motor Insurance: ip/motor Property Insurance: ip/property Savings: ip/save Travel Insurance: ip/travel
Priority Tag	Low Priority: pr/low Medium Priority: pr/med High Priority: pr/high

Navigation

Action	Format, Examples
Find	find QUERY [MORE_QUERIES] OR find pr/PRIORITY [MORE_PRIORITIES] OR find t/TAG [MORE TAGS] OR find r/REMARK [MORE REMARKS] e.g. find James Jake
Sort	sort KEYWORD
List	list

Other Commands

Action	Format, Examples
Help	help [HELP_TOPIC] e.g. help add
Clear	clear
Exit	exit

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Glossary

This section serves to provide a summary of descriptions and definitions of terms used throughout this User Guide. Familiarising yourself with this section will make the User Guide easier to read.

Term	Meaning
Graphical User Interface (GUI)	A GUI allows users to use graphics to interact with a device.
Command Line Interface (CLI)	A CLI allows users to use commands in the form of text as input to a device.
Java	Java is a runtime environment that allows applications such as FAST to be run on your computer.
Command	An instruction typed by a user, to be executed by FAST.
Parameter	A section of a command that requires user input to be entered.
Prefix	An identifier for a parameter to be entered right before the actual parameter of a command. Prefix’s end with a slash (/).
Priority	A label applied to clients, indicating the contact’s value to the user.
Tag	A label used to describe clients.