Classic Hangouts Shutdown Date July 15th

This is a friendly reminder that as of July 15th, the classic Hangouts chat will no longer be available. This is because the college is now using the brand new Google Chat for direct and group messaging!

The sunsetting of the classics Hangouts app is solely to reduce any confusion and make sure that we are using the most up to date applications to ensure quality, experience and reliability.


There is no action needed unless you are still using the classic Hangouts app for a group chat. All group chats created in classic Hangouts should be recreated in Google Chat. For more information on how to do so, please refer to this link. If you would like to know more about the switch to Google Chat and how to access your classic Hangouts group chat transcripts please check out our blog post.

Note that on July 15th you will no longer be able to use hangouts.google.com and the old mobile chat app will no longer work. You will only be able to view the old group chats in the Gmail chat label.

Changing your resolution in Google Meets can help with quality issues!

If your Google Meets chat is slow, laggy and or blurry, your WiFi connection may be the issue. One simple solution can be to change your Google Meets resolution. Your resolution is the amount of pixels your computer will show. A higher resolution will show sharper and more clear image quality. Sometimes a higher resolution will hurt Google Meets performance, especially if you have an older computer or a poor WiFi connection. Lowering your resolution through Google Meets can help this problem. Typically the resolution is lowered from 720p to 360p.

Please use this article for directions on how to do this. 

New Meet Features Coming To Help Moderate and Engage Students!

Meet features help engage students and moderate classes

This year, as educators conducted class remotely, the equivalent of over 1,300 years of learning took place each day on Google Meet. With more than 140 million educators and students now using G Suite for Education worldwide to create, collaborate and communicate, many more schools and educators are using Meet to stay connected. [Google is] excited to share some Meet features that will be launching later this year to help educators improve moderation and engagement in remote or hybrid learning environments.

Read the full post.

Reposted from Google's Education blog

https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/new-meet-features-for-edu

Manhattan College Installed "Grid View" Extension Has Been Removed

You may have noticed that your Grid View extension disappeared today in Google Meets. Due to a large number of known issues with Grid View, we have removed the extension where it was installed by us. If you installed it yourself it should remain. If you do not wish to continue to use it, please reference these instructions for how to remote the Grid View extension. If you wish to continue to use it, you are welcome to do so, provided it works well for you. If it was removed and you wish to install it, follow these instructions to install Grid View.


The Tile View in Google Meet will be expanding from viewing 16 people at once to viewing up to 46 people at once in the coming weeks.

COMPLETE: Wifi maintenance in Leo, Higgins, and RLC - June 29

UPDATE: As of 6PM, this scheduled maintenance is now complete. If you experience any wireless connectivity issues in RLC, Leo, or Higgins, please reach out to ITS.

ITS will be conducting scheduled maintenance for the wireless networks servicing RLC, Leo, and Higgins on Monday, June 29, 2020 starting at 530pm. The scheduled maintenance will last a couple of hours.

In order to add wireless capacity for the Higgins building, ITS will be conducting maintenance on the wireless networks in RLC, Leo, and Higgins. This maintenance will cause the wireless network to be down during the duration of the maintenance period and will affect devices that generally connect to the wireless network, including Kramer devices in classrooms. This maintenance will not affect the wired networks in these three buildings, nor will it affect wireless in other buildings on campus.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact ITS by emailing its@manhattan.edu.

RESOLVED: Authentication Service Outage

RESOLVED: ITS was able fix the issue. All MC services are accessible via log in. 

Manhattan College is currently experiencing an authentication issue preventing users from being able to log in into MC services (if not previously signed in). Service include email, Moodle, SelfService, etc.

ITS is currently investigating the problem and will post an update as soon as possible.

Grid View Version 1.37 and Sidebar Layout

This morning a new version of the Grid View extension was released.  The latest version is 1.37.  Please make sure:

• Your computer's operating system is fully updated.  
• Your Chrome browser is fully updated
• Your Grid View extension is at 1.37

Before turning on Grid View, make sure that you first change the native Google Meet layout to "Sidebar".  These instructions show how to do this.

If you are still experiencing issues, please email its@manhattan.edu to report the issue.

Please make sure to subscribe to the blog for updates.

Manhattan College ITS Statement - Unemployment Claim Fraud

Manhattan College has received some inquiries from our community with respect to the ongoing nationwide unemployment benefit fraud scam. Reports of unemployment fraud have been widely identified in neighboring states such as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and are now being reported in New York.

At this time, Manhattan College ITS has determined that none of its internal systems have been compromised and no intrusion has occurred. Our analysis has revealed that the data breach(s) resulting in the fraudulent unemployment claims are not associated with Manhattan College.

We are in contact with relevant data processing partners, however, we have not been informed to date of any breaches that would have exposed the personal information of Manhattan College employees as required by law.

If you believe that you are a victim of unemployment fraud, you should alert your state’s Department of Labor by following the U.S. Department of Labor's guidance. Manhattan College ITS also provides a summary of remediation steps.

Manhattan College ITS continues to actively monitor this situation. Protecting our community and their data from malicious activity is a top priority for ITS.

List of responses:

• NY State Department of Labor
• ADP

GridView Extension Broken

Update:
At 11:00 AM the ITS team performed a test of the GridView extension version 1.36 that was released this morning.  While the issue with showing attendees in a single column has been fixed, unfortunately we found that it has a new issue.  Once the meeting hits 16 attendees, the browser crashes.  We recommend NOT using GridView until this issue is resolved.  In the meantime please use the Google Meet Native Layouts.  This Knowledge Base Article explains how to use the Google Meet Native Layouts.


Original Post:
ITS is aware that an update to Google Meet has broken the GridView Extension.  A new version was released this morning that ITS will be testing this morning.  We will notify the community of our findings.

Update to Tiled View in Google Meet

Be on the lookout for an updated version of Tiled View in Google Meet! 

Google has announced that they are releasing an improvement to the Tiled View on Google Meet. The improvement will allow users to see other attendees even when someone else is presenting. For more information about this update please visit this link.  

For additional information about the different views and how they work please reference our knowledge base article. 

Manage Multiple Google Accounts with Ease using Delegated Accounts or Chrome Profiles

If you work with more than one Google account, you’ve likely had some frustrating experiences. This blog post will provide you with some tools to make managing these multiple accounts a breeze. We would like to bring your attention to Delegated Accounts and Chrome Profiles and the different benefits of each. Please refer to the chart below for a summation of the main benefits of each tool. For more information on how to set up and use these tools please reference our knowledge base articles linked below.

Delegate accounts: you may want to give access to your email account to another person. Mail delegation allows the delegate to read, send, and delete messages on your behalf through their own account. Please reference this article for how to set up a Delegated Account.

For example, a manager can delegate email access to another person in their organization, such as an administrative assistant. Another great use for delegation is shared email accounts

Important things to note:

1. Delegated accounts cannot be accessed via mobile applications, ONLY on computers.


2. After a delegated email is set up, it may take a few seconds to a few hours for the changed to reflect in your account. Please refresh the tab where the account is open frequently until you see the change has been applied.

COMPLETE: Leo 4th Floor Network Maintenance

UPDATE: This maintenance has been complete. Both wired and wireless networks have been restored to Leo 4th floor. If you continue to experience poor or no network services while on Leo 4th floor, please contact ITS.

Starting on Friday, June 12, 2020, both of the wired and wireless networks in Leo 4th floor will be down while ITS and the Leo/Higgins construction company work on the IT closet.

In order to better provide wired and wireless services for the new renovations throughout Leo 4th floor, ITS is working with the construction company to tidy up and fix our IT network closet. While this is being done, both the wired and wireless networks for the 4th floor only will be down. This will not affect the rest of the building, nor will it affect the rest of campus.

As of right now, there is no time limit as to when this maintenance will be complete, though we will work as fast as we can to get the network back up. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause and will update the community with any updates. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact ITS by emailing us at its@manhattan.edu.

COMPLETE: Horan Hall - Brief Network Outage - 6/12 at 2pm

UPDATE: As of about 230pm this afternoon, this generator test has been completed successfully.

Physical Plant will be conducting a generator test in Horan Hall on Friday, June 12th at approximately 2pm.

There will be two brief outages, one while switching to generator power, the other while switching back to main power. Both wired and wireless will be affected during this generator test.

This will not affect the rest of campus.

If you have any questions, please contact ITS at its@manhattan.edu. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Important Message About The Manhattan College Transition to Google Chat on June 15th

We’re excited to share that we’ll be transitioning everyone at Manhattan College to Google’s newest enterprise-grade collaboration product, Google Chat. Chat has a modern/easy viewing interface as well as team rooms that support better team collaboration, emoji reactions to make work fun, and bots to help you be more productive. Manhattan College is receiving early access to some great new features, such as an upgraded Gmail integration and the ability to chat with external users (non-Manhattan College users).

Beginning Monday, June 15th, 2020, all teams will be using Chat for direct messages (DMs), group messages, and team discussions. Classic Hangouts apps will no longer be accessible in Gmail..

How do I get Google Chat?

It's important to do the following before 6/15 as classic Hangout apps will stop working:

1. Explore the new Web experience at chat.google.com
2. Download the new mobile app for Android or iOS.
3. Please make sure you install the Chat mobile app (Android or iOS) before 6/15 to minimize chances of missed messages.
4. Download the new standalone desktop app if you've been using the classic Hangouts Chrome extension or app. You'll be able to access the desktop app from a prompt that will appear inside chat.google.com
5. On 6/15, refresh your Gmail to get the new Chat in Gmail experience.

Where do I find my old chats?

1. You will be able to continue recent direct messages from classic Hangouts in Google Chat, but group messages from classic Hangouts (including their history) will not be migrated to Google Chat. This means on 6/15 you will no longer see any group messages you had using classic Hangouts in your Google Chat.
   
2. All previous chat history from classic Hangouts will be accessible in the Gmail Chat label.
   
3. The classic Hangouts web interface for chat, hangouts.google.com will remain available during this transition in case you need more time to access and move certain group conversations. Users cannot chat in classic Hangouts by visiting hangouts.google.com in a mobile browser. Using hangouts.google.com will be the only way to access your classic Hangouts group chats.
   
4. The classic Hangouts bot in Chat will also notify you of missed group messages from classic Hangouts. This means if you are using Google Chat and someone messages a classic Hangouts group you are in, you will receive a message with a link to the conversation. Please use this link for further assistance if you need to add the classic Hangouts bot to Google Chat. 

What are the limitations of Chat?

1. Google Voice and Google Fi are not currently available through Chat:

• Users who already have a Google Voice account can access Google Voice at voice.google.com, by selecting Voice from the App launcher , or by downloading the Google Voice app (Android, iOS).
•  Google Fi users must use the default SMS app on their mobile device to send and receive SMS messages

2. Group messages from classic Hangouts (including their history) will not be migrated to Chat. Users can still access these group messages in hangouts.google.com.

       If you have important group messages in classic Hangouts, we recommend that you recreate them as Rooms in the new Chat.


3. Group direct messages and rooms that are started in the new Chat will not send messages to users who are still on the classic Hangouts apps.

Where do I go for help?

G Suite Learning Center for more information about the new Chat.

Updated GridView Extension Available

A new version of the GridView Chrome extension has been released. The current version is 1.35. You should get the latest version automatically. If you haven’t already received the update and want to manually update, please view these instructions.


Previously ITS had reported a fix for the removal of more than one GridView extension. We have been made aware that some users are still experiencing issues after removing the second extension. This is, because you may need to clear your cache after you uninstall the extension. Please refer to this article for further assistance with clearing your cache.