New Things:

Exchange support at OCH – the Helpdesk should be helping folks with Exchange email questions. There are documents in Helpdocs. Let me know if you have any questions about this.

Exchange forwarding to OSU Gmail – there is a new Helpdoc about how to do this, but it is not recommended. It’s better for people to forward from Gmail to Exchange. Also, for CN customers, please get LRP approval before setting up a forward.

Exchange Archiving – the server admins have notified us that we should not be adding new users to the Exchange online archive. Anyone who is using it now can continue to do so. For people who are running out of email space, please give them the usual mailbox clean-up and retention tips, and after that we can increase their quota up to 5GB (at no charge). There will be announcements to the DCA list and CN customers about this soon.

Office 2010, 2013 and 2016 – Office 2010 is end-of-life on 10/13/2015, however the software will continue to work and we will continue to support it for some time. We have a self-serve install option for Office 2013 for CN customers and will be announcing that to them soon. Office 2016 is now available on \\software.oregonstate.edu and activation is configured.  Office 2016 is now the default install option in Office 365 and for the Home Use Program.

Student Success Collaborative (SSC) predictive analytics tool  – this new tool will help the university predict the success of students and intervene to ensure better retention and graduation rates. You can learn more about this at https://www.eab.com (go to Member Login, New User to gain access).

General Notices:

Office 365 sync issues – Jason resolved another sync issue in Office 365 this week (thank you Jason!) that was impacting a large number of users. Scott will be reminding students about this service in a mass email soon, so we may get another bunch of calls.

Office 365 Helpdesk Access – Jason is working on getting all of use limited helpdesk access to the Office 365 administration dashboard, which would hopefully allow everyone here to see whether an account has been synced and licensed properly.

Google Apps XML – the feature to access calendar via XML has been deprecated.  Chances are not too many people were using it.

Question for you all:

We have been crazy busy all summer and the past couple of weeks. If anyone has feedback on what would make the work experience less stressful or more positive for you, send your ideas to me or your supervisor.

Fun Fact:

When children learn that 2*3=6, it measurably slows their response time on calculating 2+3=5 because our brains like patterns and this confuses them. So, the more math you learn, the worse you get at arithmetic.

Have a great weekend everybody!