July 17th, 2020 Newsletter

Announcements

The next newsletter will be on August 14, 2020

Coursera's full course catalog open to CU through 2020

Maintenance Emails

All maintenance emails, sent from the UCCS OIT Help Desk, will now direct readers to uccs.info. No further information will be provided within the email body. Effective September 1, 2020, the UCCS OIT Help Desk will no longer send maintenance emails, in an effort to reduce the email campus receives. 

Sign In/Out Board

IT Personnel - Friendly reminder to please use the sign in and out board so your fellow team members are aware of your whereabouts.  This will better allow us to know who is coming into campus, and also be respectful of when you are out of the office. If you have questions about this, please touch base with Katherine. Thanks!

The UCCS OIT Help Desk, located on the first floor of the El Pomar Center, will continue to be open during the Fall semester, Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. as the campus is open, but with modified procedures. 

• OIT checkout equipment lockers will continue to be utilized  

  • To check out or return equipment, please use the Self-Service Portal by selecting Device Checkout or Return Request, under Personal Computing.   

  • Your Technician may also coordinate a contactless return with you through these lockers.  

• Help Desk will be open for appointments only, which must be scheduled via phone call(719-255-3536) to the desk. 

• Staff will wear gloves when handling customer equipment  

• Equipment that is not actively being worked on will be placed in a 10-day quarantine. 

• A maximum of 2 students will be operating the Help Desk on-site, additional Help Desk students will operate the switchboard/call center remotely.  

• Two self-service kiosks will be installed outside the OIT Help Desk Window to allow Patrons to get information or schedule appointments  

• All three windows will remain closed unless a scheduled patron needs physical help with equipment.   

• Patrons will be asked if they have completed the daily health assessment today. If not, they will be provided with directions for completing the assessment.  

• Patrons will be instructed that they cannot be served until they have completed the assessment  

• The Help Desk has the right to refuse service to anyone not wearing a proper face mask.  

• Signage will be placed on the floor to maintain 6ft distance for self-service kiosk  

OIT will continue to monitor the situation and modify their procedures, as necessary. Assistance is always available after hours, weekends, and during school closures through chat, by calling 719-255-3536, or by utilizing the Help Desk Knowledge Base. 

OIT has developed its plans for returning in the fall.  The plan is focused on the safety of our staff and students.  Some of the highlights:

• Help Desk will be available by appointment only

• Staff will be well under 50% on-site and mainly working remotely – this also includes staggered leadership staffing. 

• Computer labs will only have 50% capacity across campus

• Printers will be moved in labs to accommodate social distancing

If you would like to see this plan, please reach out to Greg Williams.

Your space for the latest need-to-know updates for Office 365.

• Cortana Briefing Emails
  • The Briefing email helps you stay in control of your calendar and be intentional about your day. Within the first two hours of your workday (as set up in Outlook), you’ll get an email about any relevant items to help you better prepare for the day ahead, including:
    • Outstanding commitments, requests, and follow-ups to and from other collaborators in an email, that might have fallen through the cracks.
    • Documents related to today’s meetings that you might want to review beforehand.
    • Suggested focus time you can schedule to help get independent work done.
  • Users do have the ability to unsubscribe to this feature. 
• Microsoft Teams
  • Beginning August, 1, Teams will no longer be supported on devices running Android 4.4. 
  • Cortana voice assistance will be available in the Teams iOS and Android mobile applications, mid-August to September. Cortana will allow users to perform communication, collaboration, and meeting related tasks, such as "Call Megan" or "send a message to my next meeting". 
  • Reimagining virtual collaboration for the future of work and learning - this article, by Microsoft, reviews some exciting new features that are coming to Teams including Together Mode, video filters, and live reactions 
• Increase from 15 GB to 100 GB for a maximum single file size for OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online.
  • For the best performance, it is recommended to upload very large files by using the OneDrive desktop client. 
• OneDrive
  • Ability to turn off comment notifications for individual files.