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Sending SMS Text Messages to Students from a Computer

February 23, 2011 by

Figure 1. The Site Index in myOleMiss

Instructors, advisors, and academic administrators – Are you having trouble getting the attention of your students? If yes, then here is a new communication method to try. Last fall, a new service was deployed in myOleMiss that allows you to send email and / or SMS text messages to students. That is, you can send your students a text message from your computer.

The easiest way to get to this service is to select “Ole Miss Today Administration” from the myOleMiss Site Index in the left-hand navigation panel (Figure 1). Once there, select “Send an Immediate Email or SMS Message” (Figure 2). You will be presented with a screen that includes target groups to send to at the top (Figure 3) and a place for you to enter your message at the bottom (Figure 4).

Figure 2. Send an Immediate Email or SMS Message

The target groups available to you are determined by your roles. If you are an advisor then you will see an option to send messages to all of your advisees. If you are an instructor then a list of your currently active sections will be presented. If you are a department chair or dean then you will see an option to send email to students enrolled in programs offered by your department or school.

 

Figure 3. Send an Immediate Email or SMS Message ~ Target Groups

To send a message, select the target groups, enter your email and text messages, and press “Send Message Now.”

 

Keep in mind that text messages only go to students who have provided their cell phone numbers and have “opted in” to receive non-emergency text messages in myOleMiss. Also, this method does not support any special text formatting or attachments. If you require those kinds of features or more control in targeting recipients then you should send your message using the standard Ole Miss Today Administration interface where you have a rich set of options but more “clicks.”

Figure 4. Send an Immediate Email or SMS Message ~ Enter Message

Email messages are delivered using UM’s in-house, centralized email platform, and text messages are delivered by means of a Web Service that connects UM’s SAP system with the text messaging vendor, 2SMS.com. Since November 2011, about 19,000 SMS text messages have been sent to students from about 200 different advisors and instructors.

Filed Under: Email, myOleMiss, UM Today Tagged With:

Faculty Activity Reports – The Rest of the Story

February 21, 2011 by

A couple of months ago, the new myOleMiss interface for creating activities to be included in Faculty Activity Reports opened. This roll-out included new tabbed layouts and numerous other small changes to simplify and make the process more user-friendly. (See the December 2010 TechNews Article.) Last week the rest of the interface for creating and editing your Faculty Activity Report was made available.

You may add research and creative activities all year long, but your report will only be available for editing during the spring semester. When you create your activities in the database throughout the year, it is like putting a file in a folder to be added to your report at a later time. Then once it’s time for the report, you pull out your file folder and add all those things into it.

Detailed Navigation menu
Once your activities have been added, building or editing your report is simple as the activities that you have already entered into the database will be automatically added your report, as well as your courses, advisees, theses and dissertations, and committees. On the Detailed Navigation menu on the left, under the Build Report folder you will find an Edit folder that expands to show the various categories. Once a category is chosen, you will see a page with a list of subcategories that can be expanded to enter information relevant to your report.

Some categories, like Research, have several subcategories where activities (such as journals and conferences) that you entered into the database will be listed. In these areas you have several options – viewing, editing, and omitting.

Expanded Subcategories
If you would like to see more information about one of the activities, simply select the linked title of the activity to expand information boxes, which are formatted to look as closely as possible to the final report. You will also notice that, once expanded, there is a link that will allow Editing of this particular activity. Please note that these activities will be refreshed automatically in your report if you make any changes.

The project dates on the activity determine whether the activity will be included in the report for a given year. That is, if the project start and end date for the activity overlap with the reporting year, then the activity will be included. You may choose to omit activities that are not relevant to your report by checking the box to the left of the activity title and then saving all changes. You can know that it is omitted when the background of that entire activity becomes gray. Alternatively, you can update the project dates for the activity.
You may preview your full report at any time, by selecting Preview Report on the detailed navigation menu on the left.

Getting Help

A training workshop on the new interface will be offered on Friday, February 25th at 1:30 pm. To register, go to http://ittraining.olemiss.edu. If you need assistance with the new layout or if you have any questions, please contact Faculty Technology Development Center at 915-7918 or ftdc@olemiss.edu. If you would like individual assistance in person, drop by FTDC in 101 Weir Hall weekdays between the hours of 8:00 am and 5:00 pm.

Filed Under: Faculty Activity Reports, myOleMiss Tagged With:

Major Upgrade Easter Weekend: SAP Production & myOleMiss Unavailable, April 21-25, 2011

February 18, 2011 by

The SAP production system and the myOleMiss portal will be unavailable beginning at 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 21 due to a major upgrade. The system is scheduled to be unavailable until Monday, April 25 at 8 a.m. During this downtime, Office of Information Technology (IT) staff members will install the latest enhancement package from SAP, Enhancement Package 5 (EhP5) for SAP ERP 6.0.

Enhancement packages are SAP’s method of introducing new functionality into its software without requiring customers to perform a full-scale upgrade. To date, SAP has released four enhancement packages since the release of ERP 6.0 in 2006. Each enhancement package is cumulative, meaning that EhP5 contains all of the functionality delivered in EhP’s 1 through 4, as well as new functionality in EhP5. Another unique feature of SAP’s enhancement package strategy is the ability to activate only the new functionality that applies to an institution’s particular environment. This allows institutions to be selective in planning upgrades.

All new functionality for SAP’s Student Lifecycle Management application (SLcM) is delivered via enhancement packages and, typically, that is the driving force behind the decision to install them at the University. EhP5 is no exception, as SAP has introduced substantial enhancements to the Degree Audit process, namely a major revision of the user interface. The University elected to participate in SAP’s ramp-up program to take advantage of this new interface; by doing so, we will be one of the first SAP customers in the world to have this software.

Degree audit is an advising tool for viewing a student’s progress toward fulfillment of degree requirements. This application can be used by students, advisers, chairs, deans and other academic department staff. Degree audit does not replace the graduation application process; therefore, students still need to follow their respective college or school’s graduation requirements.

“The new Degree Audit system will be more user-friendly for students and will make it easier for academic administrators to apply and maintain substitutions,” notes Margaret Walden, Systems Analyst III, IT. Walden manages the Degree Audit project at the University and works with academic deans and chairs to facilitate the process and insure continued progress with this system. Walden adds, “One of the biggest enhancements with the new user interface is that it will allow the user to view details about requirements within the same window as the overall results of the audit. With the current interface, users have to scroll to the bottom of the audit to view details of the requirements or applicable courses.”

EhP5 has been installed onto our sandbox system for acceptance testing by functional testers, and the acceptance testing process is currently underway. During the acceptance testing process on the sandbox system, IT will be scheduling several training and testing sessions for the various Dean’s Offices, some of the ASB student representatives, and any other interested and authorized administrators.

In the future, Walden looks forward to the possibility of integrating GPA information and enhancing the notes functionality, which will allow advisors to communicate even more with their students and with other administrators.

Filed Under: Systems Maintenance, Upgrades Tagged With: ,

New Technology Purchases Policy

February 15, 2011 by

Please be aware of the new “Technology Purchases” policy, which defines the review and approval process for University of Mississippi technology procurements to ensure compliance with Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services (ITS) policies and state purchasing laws, as well as to promote the resourceful, informed utilization of technology within the University.

Filed Under: Technology Procurements

7 Handy Tips for Navigating myOleMiss

February 11, 2011 by

Services offered for the students, faculty and staff at the University of Mississippi through the myOleMiss portal, my.olemiss.edu, continue to grow. Besides the obvious role-based organization of the services, myOleMiss also has some subtle tools to help with navigation and usability. This article presents 7 tips that can lead to a better myOleMiss experience.

1. History Bar: This path (left corner, over left navigation panel) shows the last five pages that you have visited in a session. You can click on the links to navigate to any recently visited page.  If you want to see the complete history of your visited pages, click on the History link on the right end of the history bar. There are Back and Forward links also, next to the History link, which work to navigate pages in your history.

2. Square Box at the End of History Bar: Too easily ignored, this small square box is an important organizing tool. Clicking on this box gives options to open the page in a new browser window, refresh the page, add the page to your browser’s favorites, and also add the page to your Portal Favorites (explained further in the next tip).

3. Portal Favorites: When you add any page in your Portal Favorites (see previous tip), it appears on the Portal Favorites list located in your left navigation panel, at the end of Detailed Navigation. You can add your frequently visited pages to your portal favorites, and then they are just one click away when you log in to the portal. This list can be organized further by clicking the square box, which is located on the top of your favorites list, and by selecting organize entries.

4. Hide Left Pane: Click on the tiny triangle on the left navigation panel and it will collapse the panel, giving you a larger workspace area. To get it back, click on the triangle again.

5. Re-size Left Pane: If you do not want to hide the left navigation panel but rather want to shrink the size of it (or enlarge it), click on the triangles on the left side of the panel. You can adjust the width of the panel according to your preferences.

6. Site Index: This drop down menu can be found in your left navigation panel, after Portal Favorites. This lists all the pages of the portal, sorted in an alphabetical order. This comes really handy when you don’t know the location of a particular page. Having a large number of pages located in the portal, under different roles and headings, can sometimes be irritating when you know which page you need but don’t have any idea which tab contains the page. Site Index can be a life saver.

7. Mobile Access: The University’s portal can be accessed on mobile phones also, giving users an on-the-go browsing experience. The portal can be accessed by selecting myOleMiss on the home page of mobile version of Ole Miss website, m.olemiss.edu. For further details on Ole Miss Mobile and its features, refer to the TechNews blog on Ole Miss Mobile.

These tips can help you navigate the portal more efficiently and can save precious time. If you have other tips that you would like to share, please provide feedback.

Filed Under: myOleMiss

Stay Tuned! – Get Important Information via Campus CATV Channel 10 with WEBUS

February 8, 2011 by

Need to spread the word to the UM community regarding important messages?, Advertisements?, Deadlines?, Alerts?, Student Job Opportunities?,  Hours of Operation?, etc.

The Office of Information Technology introduces WEBUS, “a web-based application that enables users to create and publish messages on local access television channels” as well on the internet via a web player.   The University of Mississippi is using Channel 10 to air important messages via television on all campus televisions with campus cable service.  Authorized users are able to create, update, and submit information by logging into a simple web based application.

For more information on airing an announcement, contact Michele Mize, Telecommunications, (662) 915-5922.  Please see the following feed for LIVE information about WEBUS via the web at http://olemiss.edu/info/webus.html or tune in to channel 10 on any TV connected to the campus cable system.

University employees who would like to learn more about WEBUS  in regard to creating and publishing messages,  please sign up for this training scheduled on Monday, February 21st, in Weir Hall 104 from 9:00 am to 10:00 am.  To sign up, follow the link:  http://ittraining.olemiss.edu/.

Filed Under: Blogs, Uncategorized

Campus Telephone Services and Features

February 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The University Telephone switch has several features available to enhance office productivity:

Automated Directory Assistance – Available 24X7, Dial 8411 from any campus telephone and speak the name of the person or department you would like to reach.  After accepting the entry found, you will be transferred to the number.

Voice Mail – Voice Mail can be added to any campus extension either in standard form or an enhanced mode that enables voice mail to be “popped” into your email client as a wav file attachment.

Caller ID – Caller-ID can be added to any campus extension to display the number calling via a display.

EC-500 – From your digital office phone, you have the ability to activate this feature that enables your cell phone to be tied to your office phone so they ring simultaneously. Unanswered calls will go to campus voice mail in the event of no answer. This enables use of your cell phone for business calls while away from your office without giving out the actual cell number.  NOTE: Call minutes will be used on your cell phone when activated.

To obtain the pop Voicemail, EC500, or  callerid features and learn their associated pricing, send an email to telcom@olemiss.edu and we will create a work order to activate it in the switch.

Filed Under: Uncategorized