Google Collaboration Challenge Week 5

Using Google Calendar

With Google Calendar, you can quickly schedule meetings and events, and get reminders about upcoming activities, so you always know what’s next. This week we'll show you how to setup your Google Calendar to keep track of classes, meetings, and events as well as configure Calendar to let others know when you are available.

Getting started with Google Calendar

Let's start by getting familiar with Google Calendar. In this tutorial, we'll explore Calendar basics including creating meetings, reminders, and invitations as well as customizing the look and function of Calendar.

Configure Calendar

First, we'll need to make sure the Calendar is configured to securely share your Free/Busy information while keeping your event details private.

1 - Access Calendar by clicking the Google Apps menu and selecting "Calendar. The Google Apps menu can be accessed from any Google app including Gmail.

2 - In calendar, select the "gear" icon at the top right of the page and select "Settings".

3 - In the Calendar Settings screen select "Calendars" from the top menu, then click the link for the first calendar in the list. The first calendar should be your name.

4 - In the details screen, click "Share this Calendar" from the top menu. Recommended settings are below. Be sure to check the appropriate boxes and select "See only free/busy" from both drop-downs.

 Your calendar has now been configured to the recommended settings to share your availability with others while keeping your event details private.

Creating Appointment Slots with Google Calendar

You can set up appointments on your calendar that people can reserve. For instance, professors can have their students reserve time during office hours each week. For instructions on how to create events and invite people, please click the link to the tutorial below and complete the tutorial below.

Get familiar with Google Calendar

Assignment: Complete the "Get Started with Calendar" tutorial to create and manage your first personal event, invite others, and set reminders.

Once you complete reviewing the materials from the fifth week of the Google Collaboration Challenge take a few minutes to answer these questions: Week 5 Google Drive Questionnaire

COMPLETE: Moodle Scheduled Maintenance Tuesday 7/2/19 7AM-9AM

COMPLETE: As of 7:28AM, the Moodle scheduled maintenance has been completed.  Moodle is now AVAILABLE.

The Manhattan College Moodle system will be OFFLINE for system maintenance starting at 7AM on Tuesday 7/2/19 to apply system updates. We anticipate that the maintenance will be completed between 7AM - 9AM during which time the Moodle system will be UNAVAILABLE.

Google Replacing MS Office Drive Plug-in for MS Office with Drive File Stream in June

Drive File Stream is G Suite's enterprise-focused app for accessing Drive files on demand via Mac or PC.  Google is now updating it with features from the Drive plug-in for MS Office, which is being shut down in June.

Launched in 2017, Drive File Stream allows users to access Shared Drives and other documents stored in the cloud on demand. This Mac or PC app for G Suite customers will now incorporate the Google Plug-in for MS Office that allows Windows users to edit, email and share Office files stored in Drive.

The key advantage of this integration includes the ability to open Drive files through the regular system menu for a more native experience. For example, files can be saved to Drive by using
File>Save and selecting Drive File Stream. This also works to open Drive documents from the File>Open menu.

Drive for Office plug in users will be prompted to uninstall the Windows app and then download Drive File Stream.
If you need support in switching to Drive File Stream, please reach out to ITS:

email:  its@manhattan.edu or call: 718-862-7973


Partially reposted from: Google replacing Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office with Drive File Stream in June

Google Collaboration Challenge Week 4

Using Gmail at Manhattan College

Manhattan College provides a JasperNet account to all students and employees that comes with email powered by Gmail. With Gmail you can:

        1. Create and send email
Creating and sending emails is as easy as selecting Compose within Gmail. You can then specify the recipients and the subject, and begin typing the content. Once done, select Send to send the email. You can view sent mail by selecting the Sent Mail section in Gmail.

      2. Organize your inbox

You can manage and organize emails by creating labels and filters. To create a label, select Settings in the top right, and select Settings. Then select the Labels tab. Scroll to the Labels section and select Create new label. Enter the label name and select Create. You can also create nested labels, which are like subfolders. You also have the option to Star emails. You can view any starred emails in the Starred of Gmail.

      3. Search for emails

To search for specific emails, type any keywords associated with the email in the search bar found at the top of the page in Gmail. Once you have entered keywords into the search bar, any emails associated with the key words will be displayed.

      4. Create email signatures

With Gmail, you can also create Email Signatures. Manhattan College provides an email signature generator, which automatically generates email signatures for all employees using the information found on Banner.  Follow the instructions found in the Email Signature Knowledge Base Article to create a Manhattan College generated email signature.

For more helps, tips, and tricks, please see the Gmail section in the GSuite Learning Center.

Assignment: Create an email and send it to yourself or someone else.

Extra Credit: Organize your inbox by creating and applying labels.

Once you complete reviewing the materials from the fourth week of the Google Collaboration Challenge take a few minutes to answer these questions: Week 4 Google Drive Questionnaire

AirPlay Update

Note that over the course of the next few weeks, all AirPlay devices on campus will be receiving a software update that should improve performance.  While we do not expect service interruption, it is always a possibility.  If you run into an issue with AirPlay, make sure to email its@manhattan.edu so that we can investigate accordingly.

Google Calendar Outage

Updated 6/18/19 @ 1:20PM?:
As of 1:13PM, Google reports the issue is resolved.

Google is troubleshooting an issue where some are unable to connect to Google Calendar.  Please check the Google Apps Status Dashboard for updates.

Google Collaboration Challenge Week 3

Utilize Action Items to Work More Productively with Google Docs

One of the core promises of Google Docs is to help you and your team go from collecting ideas to achieving your goals as quickly and easily as possible. That’s why Google Docs recently launched Explore in Docs, Sheets and Slides — with machine intelligence built right in — to help your team create amazing presentations, spreadsheets and documents in a fraction of the time it used to take.

Try out two new time-saving features designed to speed up and simplify the way you work, so you can focus on bringing your team’s ideas to life.

1. Spend less time figuring out who owns what with Action Items

According to research by the McKinsey Global Institute, employees spend about 20 percent of their work week — nearly an entire day — searching for details internally and tracking down colleagues for answers. This can be especially true when a document is full of ideas, requests and comments, making it difficult to get a clear sense of who’s responsible for what.

To help keep your projects moving, when you type phrases like “Ryan to follow up on the keynote script,” or “Andrea to schedule a weekly check in” on desktop, Docs will intelligently suggest an Action Item to assign to the right person, thanks to Natural Language Processing (NLP).




Assignment:
Manually assign an Action Item to someone in the Docs, Sheets and Slides desktop and mobile apps by mentioning their name in a comment and checking the new Action Item box. The assignee will get an email notification and see the Action Item(s) clearly highlighted with a blue bar when they open the file.

2. Spend less time searching for the files that need attention

Once Action Items have been assigned, it’s easy for team members to identify documents, spreadsheets and presentations that need their attention. The next time they visit Docs, Sheets, Slides (or Drive) from their laptops or mobile apps, they’ll see a badge on any files with Action Items assigned to them, plus any unresolved suggestions that others have made to their files.

Assignment: Ask someone to assign an Action Item to you and complete that action item by navigating My Drive to find that Action Item.

Once you complete reviewing the materials from the third week of the Google Collaboration Challenge take a few minutes to answer these questions: Week 3 Google Questionnaire

COMPLETED:Planned Network Maintenance in Miguel - June 12th from 7-9am

ITS will be conducting network maintenance in Miguel Hall on Wednesday, June 12th, which will cause some localized network outages between 7am and 9am.

In order to improve network reliability, there will be scheduled network maintenance in order to replace some network equipment. This network maintenance will affect the wired and wireless networks in Miguel.

We apologize for this inconvenience. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact ITS at x-7973 or its@manhattan.edu

UPDATE: This has been completed as of 9am.

Google Summer Collaboration Challenge Week 2

Getting started with Docs

Let's start by getting introduced to Docs - an online replacement for Microsoft Word. The following tutorial will walk you through a number of steps to become more familiar with Docs. The same can be repeated for Sheets (replaces Excel) and Slides (replaces PowerPoint).

Track changes, make progress 

It can take dozens of edits to make a document just right—especially a legal agreement, project proposal or research paper. These new updates in Docs let you more easily track your team’s changes. Now, your team can:

1. Name versions of a Doc, Sheet or Slide on the web.
2. Preview “clean versions” of Docs on the web to see what your Doc looks like without comments or suggested edits.
3. Accept or reject all edit suggestions at once in your Doc so your team doesn’t have to review every single punctuation mark or formatting update.
4. Suggest changes in a Doc from an Android, iPhone or iPad device.
5. Compare documents and review redlines instantly with Litera Change-Pro or Workshare Add-ons in Docs. 

Assignment:  Complete the "Introduction to Docs" tutorial by creating, editing, and sharing a new Doc.

Extra Credit:  Try the same tutorial for Sheets and Slides.

Working OFFLINE

 A useful feature for Google Apps (Docs, Slides, and Sheets) is the ability to work offline without an Internet connection.  By enabling "Offline Mode" within Google Drive, you'll have access to edit all of your files from a Chrome browser wherever you are - even when WIFI is spotty or unavailable.
View this video to find out how to enable offline mode for Google Drive.

Assignment:  Enable OFFLINE MODE for Google Drive.

Note:  it may take a while to make all files and folders accessible offline.  After enabling "offline mode", disconnect from WIFI and try creating and editing a new Doc or Sheet.

Once you complete reviewing the materials from the second week of the Google Collaboration Challenge take a few minutes to answer these questions: Week 2 Google Drive Questionnaire

Partially reposted from: What Can You Do With Docs?

COMPLETE: Planned Network Maintenance Thomas Hall - June 24th 7am-8am

UPDATE: As of 7:05 this morning, this network maintenance was completed. If you notice any network issues in Thomas Hall, please do not hesitate to contact ITS at its@manhattan.edu or via phone at x-7973.

ITS will be conducting network maintenance in Thomas Hall on Monday, June 24th, which will cause some localized network outages between 7am and 8am.

In order to improve network reliability and stability, there will be scheduled network maintenance in order to upgrade some network equipment. This network maintenance will affect the wired and wireless networks in Thomas Hall.

We apologize for this inconvenience. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact ITS at x-7973 or its@manhattan.edu

OUTAGE - UPDATE - 2 June 2019 7:50pm - 2 June 2019 - Multiple Jaspernet Sevcies

UPDATE - 2 June 2019 - 7:50pm
Google services are returning to normal operation.
All production Manhattan College services are being brought on line.

If you continue to see outages please email its@manhattan.edu we will be monitoring closely throughout the evening.



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Due to an issue that seems to be contained within google cloud services multiple Jaspernet services are currently off line.

This includes but is not limited to:

• Banner
• Authentication
• Google network services.

We are closely monitoring the situation and will update the community as we receive more information 

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. 

Google Summer Collaboration Challenge Week 1

Let's kick off week 1 of the Summer Collaboration Challenge by introducing Google Drive, or Drive for short.  Drive is part of your JasperNet account that provides virtually unlimited online storage space.  We'll explore various parts Drive as a foundation for future weeks.

Google Drive Basics

Starting to use Google Drive is a simple as clicking the Drive icon from the Google Apps menu at the top right of any Google App including Gmail.  ITS provides documentation on getting started with Google Drive as well as answers to commonly asked questions. Begin by reviewing Google Drive Cheat Sheet:

Assignment:  Click on the Google Apps menu and open Google Drive.  Upload a file.

What Can You Do with Drive?

Sharing

Once you have added files to Google Drive, you can choose to keep the files private (default) or share with colleagues or friends.  Files are accessible anywhere, from any device.  Locate the file that you just uploaded or add another file to explore sharing settings in Drive.

Assignment:  Share a file that you've uploaded to Google Drive.  

Share files from Google Drive

Finding Files - Add to My Drive

Finding files is easy with Drive.  Drive uses Google's powerful search technology to find files that best match your search.  Drive also allows you to add files that have been shared with you to your Drive - not by copying the file, but rather giving you direct access to the same file that has been shared with you.  Simply click the "Add to My Drive" icon to make the file available whenever you access Drive without the need to search.

Assignment:  Find a file that has been shared with you and add to "My Drive"

What Can You Do with Drive?

Drive File Stream - Backup

Drive File Stream is a new way to access all of your Google Drive files directly from your Mac or PC, without using up all your disk space. Unlike traditional file sync tools, Drive File Stream doesn’t require you to download your files first in order to access them from your computer. Instead, when you need to view or edit a file, it automatically streams from the cloud, on-demand. With Drive File Stream, your team will spend less time waiting for files to sync, no time worrying about disk space, and more time being productive.

With Drive File Stream, you can:

• Quickly see all your Google Drive files in Finder/Explorer (including Team Drives).
• Browse and organize Google Drive files without downloading all of them to your computer.
• Choose which files or folders you'd like to make available offline.
• Open files in common apps like Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.

Assignment:  Install and configure Google Drive File Stream:
Google Drive

Once you complete reviewing the materials from the first week of the Google Collaboration Challenge take a few minutes to answer these questions: Week 1 Google Drive Questionnaire