Working Remotely

Working Remotely

The information below should help Lewis & Clark employees transition from working in the office to working from home. Most staff will need access to a computer in order to perform primary job functions while offsite. With that in mind, here are some technical considerations.

• If you already have an institutional laptop assigned to you, that would be your best option for working remotely. Simply connect it to your home network and you should be ready to go.
• If you don’t have an institutional laptop, Information Technology has a limited inventory of older computers available for your use. Call the Service Desk and we will do our best to fulfill your request, while supplies last. Unfortunately, we do not have any peripherals such as mice, keyboards, or printers available for loan. If you do need a peripheral for home use, you will want to check with your department to see if there is budget available to purchase any additional equipment you require.
• If you have a personal computer at home with internet access, along with an active antivirus program installed, you can connect remotely to the college’s network and, in most cases, it’s just like being in the office. While we are happy to provide you with instructions for using our VPN, we will be unable to troubleshoot your home network. We recommend you contact the professionals employed by your specific internet service provider.
• If you do not have a laptop or personal computer, you will be asked to take your office desktop setup home with you. Please contact the Service Desk at itservice@lclark.edu and IT will make sure that your office desktop setup is unlocked and installed with all necessary software to function from your home office environment.

Security Tips for Protecting Yourself at Home

Before accessing the College’s network remotely, there are two things you will need to do first.

• First, make sure you have an up-to-date antivirus program running on your computer. Institutional provided computers already have this installed, but if you are planning on using your personal home computer to access the LC network, it will need antivirus protection. The college does not provide antivirus software or have any specific recommendations but some helpful information can be found here. 
• Secondly, you will need to sign into GlobalProtect, the College’s virtual private network (VPN) application. This will provide a safe and secure connection to the campus network. Again, if you are using an institutional computer, GlobalProtect VPN should already be installed. 
  • Before you can use GlobalProtect, you will also need to be granted multi-factor authentication (MFA) access as well as install Arculix to your mobile phone for authentication. To be granted MFA access for GlobalProtect/VPN use, please contact us at itservice@lclark.edu.

For your convenience, most of the commonly used applications around campus can be accessed remotely including WebAdvisor, Workday, Colleague, LCFiles and the Google suite of applications which includes Google Drive. If you find that there is an application you require, which isn’t available to you our your student employees while logged into GlobalProtect, please contact the Service Desk and they will do their best to assist you. In regards to LCFiles, for those of you who have access to an H-drive or J-drive while at work, you may continue to access those same files remotely when logged into GlobalProtect. We have included instructions on how to do this for both Mac and PC.

Google Meet is a quick and easy solution for setting up video chats. Sessions may be added to any Google Calendar invitation by selecting Hangouts Meet from the “add conferencing” dropdown when creating a calendar event. For more information, visit our Google Meet page. If you need a Zoom pro license you can request one by contacting us at itservice@lclark.edu.

Finally, all staff have the ability to access their office voicemail remotely and you can also set up call-forwarding if needed. Once setup, if someone calls your office phone you can pick it up using your home or cell phone without interruption. Instructions for setting up call forwarding can be found here and details for accessing voicemail remotely can be viewed at this location.

Security tips for protecting yourself at home

Some tips for working from home

Tips for transitioning to working remotely

Some tips for managing remote workers