Tech Topic: Tools for Working from Home
Date: November 1, 2011
To: UCOP Community
From: Shirley Bittlingmeier, Director, Infrastructure Technology Services
Subject: E-mail Etiquette
Many of you may be working from home tomorrow, due to the expected citywide strike in downtown Oakland. We'd like to remind you about some of the tools at your disposal for accessing e-mail and documents you may wish to work on from home.
- Outlook Web App (OWA). OWA enables you to use any Internet connection to do e-mail and to manage your calendar. You can access OWA by going to https://owa.ucop.edu and logging in with your standard UCOP computer username and password. More information about using OWA is posted on the TechDesk website.
- Note: With OWA you only can access e-mail stored on the server, which includes the In Box. You do not have access to e-mail you have moved into Personal Folders (or pst files), which are stored on your computer.
- Send Documents Home. You can take specific documents home to work on: You can (a) e-mail them to a personal e-mail address or (b) e-mail them to your UCOP account and access them via OWA.
- Note: Make certain you do not send home any confidential information, such as Social Security numbers.
- SharePoint Sites. Many UCOP departments use SharePoint for sharing documents and other information. SharePoint is accessible on any computer connected to the Internet. The UCOP SharePoint site is located at https://sp.ucop.edu, and you log in with your standard UCOP computer username and password.
- Note: When using the IE browser to log into SharePoint, you must include "ad\" in front of your username; for example ad\jsmith.
- ReadyTalk. The ReadyTalk conference call service is available for con calls and Web conferencing, provided you have a ReadyTalk account set up. The ReadyTalk dial-in number is (866) 740-1260.
If your job requires a lot of off-site work, you may already have a VPN connection, which is a secure network connection for working remotely and accessing UCOP resources. If you do not currently have a VPN connection, please note that, due to the short timeframe, the TechDesk will not be able to accommodate new VPN requests by tomorrow.
The TechDesk will be minimally staffed tomorrow and will try to assist you if you have any technical problems. Please contact them at TechDesk@ucop.edu or (510) 987-0457.
