Contacting the Helpdesk after hours

When there is difficulty reaching the Helpdesk staff after hours, or when e-mail is down or there are other circumstances, ITS suggests the following.

1.    Call the Helpdesk at 313.993.1500. If calling during Helpdesk hours, the helpdesk staff will provide an update on the status of the situation. If you are calling outside of Helpdesk hours, the recorded message will provide the current status of the situation. Please keep in mind that if you are the first to report an issue, the message may not address the problem you are encountering.

Please leave a voice-mail describing the problem in full detail, along with contact information, if necessary.

2.    Submit a helpdesk ticket through the http://helpdesk.udmercy.edu/ system. If e-mail is down but the internet is still available on campus, this web-based system is a good system for letting ITS know something is down. Unfortunately, you will not receive e-mail updates for your ticket while e-mail is down, but you can log in and check the notes that are left by the techs.

3.    Check the UDM-ITS status blog at http://udm-its.blogspot.com/ for the latest information. This service is hosted externally from the University, allowing it to operate when all internet connectivity to the University is down. (We recommend bookmarking this site now so that it is easily accessible when required.) This blog is open for comments which you may add for ITS to see.

Whenever there is an outage, we would encourage you to let ITS know. We actively monitor our systems utilizing a number of tools, but we always appreciate when users report outages.
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Toolbar and Pop-Up Blocker Recommendations to get past navigational issues

One of the most common problems the Helpdesk receives calls for from new users of the TitanConnect system has to do with add-on internet browser toolbars that block access to various components of the system. Technically, it is the built-in toolbar pop-up blocker that stops access.

ITS does not deploy University's systems with toolbars installed but we are well aware users tend to knowingly or unknowingly install these on the University system they have access to.

If you have an add-on internet browser toolbar such as the Yahoo Toolbar, Google Toolbar, ITS recommends that you do one of three things until you are able to fully use the TitanConnect system.

1. Use the "allow" capability of the toolbar pop-up blocker to indicate pop-ups from the University's system are allowed.

2. Temporarily disable your pop-up blocker when using TitanConnect.

3. Uninstall the toolbar.

Occasionally, people will install more than one toolbar. You will need to repeat the process for each installed toolbar.

In addition, some users install special pop-up blocking programs (separate from the toolbar). You will need to try to allow or temporarily turn-off the blocker or if neither of those two approaches work, uninstall the special pop-up blocking program.

Eliminating all your ???????? spam messages

The ?'s are displayed because the message was authored in a foreign language for which a language character set has not been installed. To eliminate the majority of these messages, do the following.

1.   Login to their mailborder.udmercy.edu account or click on the "Visit Junk Box" link displayed at the top right of the daily summary message.

2.   Click on the anti-spam, anti-phishing link.

3.   Click on the Foreign Languages link

4.   Uncheck the Adhere to Corporate Rules (if it is checked)

5.   Click the "Block all" for the languages that should be turned off

6.   Click Apply Changes

7.   Logout of mailborder
After this point all of these "questionable messages" will be directed to the user's Junk box. All junk box messages are automatically purged after seven days.
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Addressing staff e-mail to other staff members

Due to the presence of two different e-mail systems serving the University community, it is important users use fully qualified e-mail addresses when addressing messages to UDM colleagues.

If you commonly use the "short" name (i.e. doej) instead of the fully qualified name (i.e. doej@udmercy.edu), your message may not be delivered.

Please make it your current practice to include the @udmercy.edu when addressing messages to members of the University faculty, staff and administration.

Printing E-mail Workaround for funny printing (courtesy of Dean Auer)

When printing e-mail, if you discover that your message is printed using a compressed font on half the page, Dean Auer of the Library provides the following recommendation.

Right click on the grey part of the message where the To, From, Subject, Date and Attachment are located and then click on print. If you don't want your personal files to print on the left move the box around the message over until it covers the personal files.

Third Party Client Change by March 1, 2009

If you are using a third party client to access your TitanConnect e-mail, the information below is of importance to you.

If you access your mail using a web browser from tc.udmercy.edu or are an Exchange user, the information below does not pertain to you.

In preparation for student usage of the new portal and e-mail system as well as other efficiency improvements, enhancements are being made to the POP3 and IMAP mail interfaces.

In our current configuration, all third party clients share a single interface to the prodmail1.udmercy.edu server. Going forward, ITS will establish a load-balanced solution that will have all third party client requests spread across multiple interfaces. This will improve individual performance as well as provide fail-over opportunity in the event one of the interfaces stops working.

Starting today, third party client users should change their incoming mail server settings to pop3.udmercy.edu for pop3 users or imap.udmercy.edu for IMAP users. On March 1, 2009, access through the prodmail1.udmercy.edu connection will no longer be available.

Your outgoing smtp server setting should remain as mailgw.udmercy.edu.

If you have questions about this, please feel free to contact the Helpdesk.
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Accessing your W2

Whether you opted to receive your W2 online or by standard mail, the TitanConnect Banner system allows all employees to access their W2 through the TitanConnect portal. This allows all employees the ability to print or re-print their W2's at their convenience.

To access your W2 follow the steps below.

The W2 will display on the screen.

Click on the Print button to print the document to your printer.

Faculty syllabus editing recommendations

As some of you already know, there is a feature in TitanConnect Self Service that allows faculty to add their syllabus to each section in the Schedule of Classes.

As your syllabi are going to be displayed on the web, the syllabi need to have some basic html codes entered with the text for the document to display correctly. The process for encoding your syllabi is quite easy and the steps are laid out below:

1. In Microsoft Word, click File, then Save As, then select Save As Type: (select Web Page *.htm).

2. Open the newly saved file using Notepad (found in the Accessories folder). Then select all (Ctrl-A) and paste into the syllabus in TitanConnect Self Service.

3. Click Save and it will look similar to the how the document looks in Microsoft Word.
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Answers, FAQ's and Documentation

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