Working Remotely

You and your supervisor may have arranged a plan for you to work from home. MCLA Information Technology is here to support you as you work remotely.

Here are some resources that you can use to make your work easier.

---

Cloud Resources

Many of MCLA’s IT resources are publicly available on the Internet and are hosted by the service directly. We consolidate most of these tools into the campus Portal found at: https://portal.mcla.edu Some of the services you will find there are: Office 365 (email, calendars, OneDrive etc..), Canvas, Dynamic Forms, TimesheetX, Handshake, SchoolDude.

VPN (Remote Access to Banner)

MCLA’s VPN (virtual private network) is software that “tunnels” your computer’s network traffic securely over the Internet, connecting you directly to the campus. This enables administrative users to access certain resources that are normally only available while connected on campus. One common resource that users need VPN access for while off-campus is Banner (Admin). To learn more about how to configure the required VPN client on your MCLA laptop, please refer to these instructions

Virtual Meetings

MCLA recommends uses Microsoft Teams to hold virtual meetings. Its the platform of choice for collaboration as it intergretes multiple Microsoft tools such as OneDrive, Telephony and Calendar integration. For an overview on how to schedule Microsoft Teams meetings, please [see more here]

Access to Telephone

MCLA uses Microsoft Teams as its phone system which offers the flexibility of answering your office extension and making calls through your laptop or cell phone from anywhere - no need to setup forwarding anymore. This is ideal when working remotely. For an overview of how Microsoft Teams telephony works, please refer to this site: Microsoft Teams Telephony

Voicemail

By default, MCLA’s voicemail system will send your voicemail to email and can also be reviewed in Microsoft Teams. [Read more here] about changing voicemail settings.

Timesheets

If you need to submit your time through the State’s HRCMS, you can visit https://mass.gov/masshr or locate the link in the Portal

OneDrive

As part of the MCLA community, you have the ability to store 1000GB of files in Microsoft’s cloud storage product, OneDrive. Any file in OneDrive can be shared with your team, just you, or the world. Read more

FindTime

When working remotely, finding time to meet or schedule groups of people becomes even more complex. Let the FindTime polling tool help you organize your group's next meeting. read more

Getting Help

You are not alone when you work remotely, MCLA’s HelpDesk is available to provide support during business hours and our on call staff will respond to emergency outages 7 days a week. Write helpdesk@mcla.edu, call (413) 662-5276 or click “Get Help” on the Portal page to contact us.