Going Away from the Office

ITS MONTHLY TALKIN' TECH

WHILE YOU'RE AWAY...

Click on any word in red to see more information on that topic!

Whenever you know that you will be away from the office (whether a day's vacation, a week at a conference, or an extended sick leave), you can easily prepare for technology to assist you in communicating with your internal and external colleagues.
Follow these easy steps in managing your Email, Voice Mail and Colleague Purchasing Approvals while you are gone.

Email: Set up your Out-of-Office Assistant

In Outlook, click on Tools/ Out of Office Assistant.

Click the radio button before "I am currently Out of the Office"

Type text in the AutoReply window that will be automatically be sent to all users who email you. Each time you return to this Assistant, you will only need to check the correct box and edit the dates.

Do you need certain emails to automatically route to a back-up person while you are out? Click on Add Rule...

You can develop a rule that identifies messages that come from a particular user, or have a specific Subject or Message body, and have Outlook perform an action with the email. The example above is telling Outlook to Forward any message with the "Schedule25 Room Request" subject to the user Jack Hofer.

Notice that when you return to the Out of Office Assistant window, the rule displays with a check to the left of the rule. Whenever you turn on the Out of Office Assistant, make sure that the rule is checked.

Note that building the rule within the Out-of-Office Assistant is not as powerful as building your own rule using the Rules Wizard. See Creating a Rule for further information. If you use this alternate form of rule, you will turn the rule On or Off as you go away to and come back from your leave.

Do you belong to any listservs? If so, it is a courtesy to your colleagues to unsubscribe to those lists for the duration of your out-of-office, so that your away-message is not sent to hundreds of people.

When you return: When you log into Outlook when you return, a message will automatically display to remind you that the Out Of Office Assistant is turned on, and will ask you if you wish to turn it off. Click Yes.

Did you go home and forget to do this? You can access email from anywhere outside the College network through Outlook Web Access; you can even set the Out of Office Assistant via the web.

Voicemail: Set your Temporary Greeting

If you have Voicemail, you will want callers to know that you are unavailable. You do not have to change your standard internal or external greeting. You can create a temporary greeting that will override your standard greetings while you are away.

Log into Call Pilot.

Enter your voicemail box extension and password.

Press for greeting.

Press for temporary greeting.

Press to record.

Press to stop recording.

Press to play the greeting.

Press to log off.

You can also set an expiration date on your temporary greeting, press 9, enter month, day, time followed by the # key as directed. If you set your expiration date to 12am on the day that you return, anyone calling before you arrive will not get the temporary greeting.

If you don't like the way your greeting turned out, click 76 to delete it and 5 to re-record.

For complete Voice Mail Documentation, refer to ITS web site.

When you return: If you set an expiration date, you need to do nothing.

If you didn't set the expiration, when you first log on to Voicemail, there will be a voice prompt reminding you that your temporary greeting is being used. Follow the first two steps above.

Press to delete the temporary greeting.

Did you go home and forget to do this?

You can access your voicemail from outside the college network by calling:

(412) 237-3144 - Allegheny/ College Office

(412) 371-8658 - Boyce Campus

(412) 369-3604 - North Campus

(412) 469-6350 - South Campus

Colleague Purchasing: Getting a Back-up Approver

Are you an approver in the Datatel purchasing system? If you predict that you will be away for a prolonged period, you may need to have your appointed backup person approve requisitions, purchase orders or vouchers in your absence.
Every approver should have a backup that is set up in Datatel with the same approval rights as the primary approver. When you, as primary approver, go on vacation or will be off for an extended amount of time, you should notify your backup to approve items while you are away. The backup will go into APRN and type in YOUR userid (the primary approver) and it will bring up the primary approver's cue of items to be approved.

After reviewing the requisition or voucher, the backup should type in THEIR OWN userid and password. If they want they can delete out the primary approver's name, but it won't hurt anything if they don't.
Anyone who does not currently have a backup approver should go through their Business Office to designate who you want your backup to be and the Business Office will forward the request to Claire Wozniak to add the appropriate approval rights in the system.
Do you want your backup to get the email notifications that items are in your cue? Try writing a rule that forwards all emails, with the subject containing the word "approval", to your backup. See Creating a Rule for further information.

While You're Gone...

You can access the following technology services from home or anywhere in the world via the web:
Outlook Email Access: check your email, calendar, etc. via the web.

Academic Email is always available via the web.

Colleague data is available only through:

CCAC Central/ WebAdvisor: remember that you only access your own information.

ARC: you can check on enrollment or run reports in the Administrative Reporting Center.

CMS (Content Management System): you can still manage web content from anywhere via the web.

Blackboard: is available via the web as always.

Voice Mail: check your voicemail by dialing the Remote Login numbers above.
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