Communication and Equipment

Think ahead about what equipment you may require to work remotely. Consider monitors, a docking station, mouse, keyboard, etc. Whether you intend to use a university-managed computer or a personal device, be sure to test and update your digital resources in advance if possible.

If you need access to your computer and don’t have one at home, you can take your office computer, with your supervisor’s approval. Be aware that if your office computer is a desktop, rather than a laptop, it may not have a wireless network adapter, so to connect to your home network, you would need to do one of the following:

  • Connect your computer to the ethernet port on your home cable modem or router. You would need an ethernet cable to make this connection from the back of your computer to the router or cable modem.
  • Purchase a USB wireless adapter for your desktop, which would allow your device to connect wirelessly to your home network. These can be purchased at Best Buy or ordered on Amazon. To charge this expense to Willamette, you will need to have your supervisor’s approval.

If your office computer is not a laptop, WITS may be able to loan you a laptop from the WITS Help Desk. It will have a wireless network adapter, which should make it easy to connect to your home network.

If you don’t have access to the internet, several internet providers, including Comcast, Spectrum Charter Broadband, and others, are offering some free internet services during this period.

Find contact information for faculty, staff, and students in Workday or the Campus Directory.

You can have your office desk telephone forwarded to your cell phone or home phone. Just fill out this simple Service Request, and WITS will quickly configure that for you.

You can access voicemail messages from off-campus by calling the voicemail access number at 503-370-6500. You will be asked for your mailbox number and PIN. You can get more information on voicemail operation on this Voicemail webpage.

You can also request to have your voicemail delivered to your email by submitting a Service Request. This converts your voicemail messages to an audio file delivered to your email, which you can play on any device with a speaker.

https://services.willamette.edu/servicedesk/customer/portal/8

To ensure your computer remains free of a virus or malware, it’s important that your operating system and anti-virus are up to date. If the computer you’re using at home is owned by the university, WITS will automatically update the operating system and anti-virus, as needed. If you’re using your own personal computer, this is your responsibility, and you can refer to these instructions for preventing virus infection and getting anti-virus software

Never open an email attachment or click on a link in an email, unless you are certain the email is from a trustworthy source and you were expecting it. Watch for phishing scams and don’t take the bait.  

Don’t store university data on your computer’s hard drive, because if your computer gets a virus, the data can be stolen and lost. Follow these data storage guidelines and remember that network drives, which are departmental file shares and your personal share (H:drive), are available from home by using our Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection and then map the drives using these instructions.

Portals and Apps

Most of our administrative software, such as Workday, Colleague Self-Service and Slate, is cloud-based and can be accessed from any machine, with the appropriate Login credentials. Just login as you normally would.

Some software, including Colleague UI, Informer, and SYSTAT, require use of our Virtual Private Network VPN to access. Once the VPN is installed, just login as you normally would.

Some software, including EMS and the OnBase Unity client, require a virtual machine to install correctly. For virtual machine access, fill out a Service Request, identifying the software you need to access.

If you need remote access to your group files, departmental file share, or personal share (H:drive), use our Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection and then map the drives using these instructions.

Access your university email account on the web at wumail.willamette.edu. For more information, access this Email resource on the website.

Formerly known as Google Apps, G Suite allows current university students, staff, and faculty to work with Google applications from the web. It also offers cloud storage and easy-to-use collaboration tools. It provides Docs for documents, Slides for presentations, and Sheets for spreadsheets. As part of G Suite, Google Drive is a file storage service that allows access from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. You can get more information on our Google Apps webpages.

Please access Workday, which is the university’s timekeeping tool.

Willamette University provides all faculty, staff, and students with Zoom Pro accounts that can be used for audio and video conference meetings. Zoom may be run from a web browser, a downloaded Zoom application, and via the Zoom app for iOS and Android mobile devices.

To begin, go to https://willametteuniversity.zoom.us. For further instructions on using Zoom, reference our WITS Zoom pages.


Back to Top