IT Tip

New Scheduling Tool for Faculty and Staff

Posted on by Josh Moon
Joshua Moon, Educational Technology Specialist

Microsoft’s Bookings with Me

Microsoft’s “Bookings with Me” (EDIT: also known as Personal Bookings) is now available as a tool for scheduling meetings, advising, and other one-on-one appointments. This is designed to integrate with your Outlook calendar and produce an easy-to-use website for people to book time on your calendar. If you’re previously familiar with Microsoft Bookings, Bookings with Me is a streamlined tool better designed for an individual user to set up quickly.

Want to Learn More About Microsoft Personal Bookings?

Get started with Microsoft Personal Bookings Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Problems or questions?

Contact the Help Desk at 269.337.5800 or HelpDesk@kzoo.edu.

Add the K Holiday Schedule to your Outlook Calendar

Posted on by Katrina Frank
screenshot of imported K College Holiday calendar.

Did you know…

You can place Kalamazoo College holidays and “weeks of the quarters” (e.g. Fall Week 1) on your Outlook calendar? It’s true!

To do so follow the K College Calendar Holiday Entries instructions. Also note that this is an Outlook holiday file and is compatible with Outlook for Windows only.

Please contact the Help Desk for more information or additional help.

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New Year, New(ish) IS Resources

Posted on by Katrina Frank

Happy New Year K Community!

To kick off 2023, here are some new and some not so new IS resources that will come in handy throughout the quarter.

As always, if you need to connect, please feel free to send us an email at HelpDesk@kzoo.edu or stop by the Help Desk in the Upjohn Library Commons (located on the first floor to the right of the grand staircase). We’re open Monday – Friday: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. with Student Computer Consultants available during some off hours.

Community Member Pages

Looking for resources depending on whether you’re a student, faculty, or staff member? If so, select the page that relates to you:

New Employees

Did you know there are resources for supervisor’s hiring new employees and onboarding tips for new employees? Check them out:

Partner with IS

K faculty and staff are supposed to consult and partner with IS when considering any technology hardware; software; services; and any cloud or externally hosted systems. It’s true!

Learn how to get started:

Scheduled Maintenance

You can count on Information Services regularly performing upgrades and maintenance Thursday evenings from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. During this time you can expect a brief VPN disruption.

Note: IS may not publish a weekly scheduled maintenance post if systems do not directly affect the campus community.

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IT Tip – Are you being phished by email?

Posted on by Katrina Frank

Are you being phished by email?

“A phishing email is an email that appears legitimate but is actually an attempt to get your personal information or steal your money” (Microsoft Support, Phishing and Suspicious Behaviour)

This IT Tip will share ways to identify suspicious emails and how to report a phishing case.

Phishing attacker taking personal data through a laptop.
Photo credit: alwarebytes LABS and shutterstock

Red Flags in Suspicious Emails

The content below has been adapted from KnowBe4 resource, Social Engineering Red Flags.

From:

  • The email is from someone inside K or from a vendor, or partner and the email is very unusual or out of character.
  • You don’t have a business relationship nor any past communications with the sender.
  • The email is from someone outside of K and it’s not related to your job responsibilities.
  • The email is from a suspicious domain (like micorsoft-support.com)

To:

  • You were copied on an email sent to other people, but you don’t personally know the other people it was sent to.
  • The email was also sent to an unusual mix of people within your organization. For example, a group of people who last names start with the same letter.

Date and Subject:

  • The email was sent at an unusual time like 3 a.m. and not during regular business hours.
  • The subject line is irrelevant or does not match the message content.
  • The email message is a reply to something you never sent or requested.

Attachments

  • There is an attachment that you were not expecting or that does not make sense in relation to the email message.
  • There is an attachment with a possibly dangerous file type such as:
    • ZIP and RAR Files
    • DOC and DOCX
    • XLS, XLSX, XLSM
    • PDF
    • IMG, ISO, etc.

Hyperlinks

  • The biggest red flag – When you hover over the hyperlink to preview the URL and the link-to address is for a different website.
  • The email only has long hyperlinks with no other information.
  • The email has a hyperlink with a misspelling of a known website such as www.bankofarnerica.com (in this case the “m” is really two characters, “r” and “n.”
  • The sender asks you to click a link that seems odd and/or illogical.

Content

  • The email is out of the ordinary, has bad grammar, and/or spelling errors.
  • The sender asks you to click a link or open up an attachment that seems odd and/or illogical.
  • The sender asks you to click a link or open an attachment in order to gain something of value or avoid a negative consequence.
  • The email claims to have a compromising or embarrassing picture of yourself or someone you know.

Tips for checking a link without clicking on it

Simply hover over the link and look at the bottom left corner of your computer screen for the full URL the link actually goes to.

How to Report Phishing Attempts

The easiest way to report phishing emails is through the Report message option in Outlook which can be found in different locations depending whether you’re using Microsoft Office Outlook or Outlook.com.

The following information was retrieved from the “How to report a phishing scam” section on Microsoft’s “protect yourself from phishing” documentation.

Microsoft Office Outlook

With the suspicious message selected, do the following:

  1. Choose Report message from the ribbon
  2. Select Phishing.

This is the fastest way to report it and remove the message from your Inbox. It will also help Microsoft improve their filters so that you see fewer of these messages in the future.

Webmail at outlook.office.com

Select the check box next to the suspicious message in webmail. Select the arrow next to Junk, and then select Report phishing.

Note: If you’re using an email client other than Outlook, start a new email to phish@office365.microsoft.com and include the phishing email as an attachment. Please don’t forward the suspicious email; as it needs to be received as an attachment so the headers on the message can be examined.

Have Questions?

For more Microsoft documentation please visit the Phishing and Suspicious Behaviour page through Microsoft Support. Additionally, please feel free to email Help.Desk@kzoo.edu with more specific questions related to phishing emails.

Katrina Frank, Web Services Specialist

Suggest an IT Tip

If you have a topic that you would like us to cover in the future, please complete the IT tip suggestion form or email, Katrina Frank at Katrina.Frank@kzoo.edu directly.

IT Tip – Having Wifi Issues?

Posted on by Katrina Frank

Are you having issues with Wi-Fi on campus?
Use the Wi-Fi Outage Report Form

Steps to Resolve and Report

  1. Visit the Wi-Fi troubleshooting page to assist you in resolving your issue. Please attempt all troubleshooting tips that apply to your circumstance before completing a report.
  2. Due to the complexities of Wi-Fi-related problems, specific details are needed to help resolve Wi-Fi related issues. You must provide the following in order to submit a Wi-Fi Outage Report.
List of Required Information to Complete the Wi-Fi Outage Report Form
  • Name
  • The wireless network you were attempting to connect to
  • Screenshot of the error you encountered or the exact error message as displayed on your device
    • Note: A full screenshot of the error you are encountering is the most reliable way we can assist in resolving your issue
  • Date of occurrence
  • Time of occurrence
  • Location of occurrence
  • If this issue has happened elsewhere on campus. If so, the location(s) it has occurred
  • If the device was able to connect successfully in any other locations on campus. If so, the location(s) it has been successful
  • Type of device experiencing the issue –
    • Note: If you are using a device running on Android 10 or iOS 14 you will need to disable MAC randomization on your device first. See the Wi-Fi Troubleshooting section for instructions.
  • MAC Address – If you are unsure where to locate your MAC Address please see, How to Find Any Device’s IP Address, MAC Address, and Other Network Connection Details article by How-to-Geek.
  • If there were any other apps running on the device while the issue was experienced. If so, which apps

IT Tip – Using “Focused Inbox” in Outlook

Posted on by Katrina Frank

Welcome to our new series, IT Tips!

IT tips are meant to expand your understanding of the technology offered here at K and improve your experience using that same technology. For our first IT tip, you can learn more about the Focused Inbox feature in Outlook.

If you have a topic that you would like us to cover in the future please complete the IT tip suggestion form or by emailing, Katrina Frank at Katrina.Frank@kzoo.edu directly.

Katrina Frank, Web Services Specialist

Katrina Frank, Web Services Specialist

Focused Inbox

IT Tip written by Technical Support Specialist, Stefan Nash and editorial support by Systems & Networking Associate, Peter Zillmann

If you use Outlook to check your email, you may have noticed the new Focused Inbox.

Focused Inbox is a feature that attempts to help with email overflow. When active, it separates your Inbox into two tabs, “Focused” and “Other.” Emails that are considered important are displayed on the Focused tab while the rest are shown in the Other tab. Focused Inbox doesn’t move your emails out of the Inbox folder, but tries to keep less-important email out of your way until you look for it.

“Emails are on the wrong tab…”

Sometimes, Focused Inbox will move an email to Focused when you would prefer it in Other, and vice-versa. You can specify which tab an email should appear in by doing the following:

From your inbox, select the Focused or Other tab, and then right-click the message you want to move.

  • If you’re moving from Focused to Other, select Move to Other if you want only the selected message moved. Select Always Move to Other if you want all future messages from the sender to be delivered to the Other tab.
  • If you’re moving from Other to Focused, select Move to Focused if you want only the selected message moved. Select Always Move to Focused if you want all future messages from the sender to be delivered to the Focused tab.

Turn off Focused Inbox

You may prefer to turn off the feature entirely. Here are the steps to turn off Focused Inbox:

For the Outlook desktop application

  1. Select the View tab.
  2. Select Show Focused Inbox.

The Focused and Other tabs will disappear from the top of your mailbox.

For Outlook on the web

  1. At the top of the page, select Settings icon.
  2. In the Settings pane, move the Focused Inbox toggle to off.

Have More Questions?

See the Focused Inbox for Outlook documentation for more instruction.