Working Remotely

All of our work situations are unique, however given approval from your leadership the VTCSOM IT Team is ready to support you in any way we can to insure you can still do business. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us so we can assist. 

We have a dozen laptops ready for checkout in the event that you do not have a home PC capable of performing tasks.

Web cams and headsets should be here next week to aid in teleconferencing from home. 

We have a robust remote support network that allows us to remote your PC, personal or VT, from anywhere in the world.

Here is a handy reference for the most common tasks when you will be away from the office.

• To check voicemail remotely
• To forward your desk phone
• To access exchange email from the web
• Zoom meetings
• Remote access to files
• Access VT shared resources
• VT VPN Access
• Faxing

To check voicemail remotely

• Dial 540-231-1000
• Press # followed by your extension number. 
• Enter your password. 

To forward your desk phone

• Dial *06 then at the dial-tone dial 9 + the number you wish to forward to. 
• Dial #06 to disable call forwarding
• If you can't get to the office, contact us and we will go to your desk and forward the phone for you.

To access exchange email from the web

• Open a web browser (Chrome/Firefox/Safari) and go to http://outlook.com
• Enter in your VT Email address
• You will be taken to the VT sign in page.
• Enter in your VT Username (PID) 
• Enter in your VT Passphrase
• Complete the 2 factor authentication

Zoom Meetings

All VTCSOM Employees have access to Zoom for video and telephone conferences. Even though the system is designed for Video conference it works well with just audio only too. There are apps for both Android and iOS if you don't have a computer handy.

• Open a web browser (Chrome/Firefox/Safari) and go to https://virginiatech.zoom.us/

University Relations put together some VT-related virtual backgrounds, in case you’d like to use them instead of other people seeing your living room or office.

More tips and tricks for Zoom are shared here.

Remote access to files

If you utilize Google Drive for any of your team files you can get access to those fils by going to:

https://drive.google.com and log in with your VT Email address and passphrase.

If you are signed into a personal Gmail account on your home computer, click on the little icon of yourself in the upper right hand corner and select add another account. You can then add your VT Email address and switch between your home and work G-mail accounts by selecting your photo and the appropriate profile. If that's too confusing you can also open an incognito or private browsing window and login directly with your VT Email account. 

Access VT Shared resources

To get access to VT Shared resources such as the V: drive, S: drive or P: drive you will first need to connect to the Pulse Secure VPN.

VT VPN Access

Follow the instructions here for obtaining and installing the Pulse VPN Client if you do not already have it installed. 

Once you have the client installed you will need to launch it, select a prfile for all traffic or VT only - we recommend during COVID-19, using VT TRAFFIC here - and entering in your PID and Network password. Your network password can be found here.

And yes, you have to use the dashes, yes it is far to long to ever remember but you can look it up, no you can't set it to something easier and yes we have complained. 

Once you are connected to the VPN if you are using a VT Domain computer (One you use every day at work) it should have the Z: P: and S: drives pre populated and you can just click and go. The connections should re-establish once the VPN is in place. If this is a home PC or mobile device you will need to open a file browser and browse to the following locations:

• S: drive -->  \\storage.vt.edu\vtcsom-fs\shared
  
• Z: drive -->  \\storage.vt.edu\vtcsom-fs\VTC SOM\
• P: drive -->  \\storage.vt.edu\vtcsom-fs\home\[YOUR PID]

All other VT apps and resources should be accessible via standard Internet connection without VPN. If you are looking to do anything please go to http://my.vt.edu, log in and use the search tool. For example you can search for leave report, chrome river, VPN, outlook and everything I've mentioned in this e-mail (sans the S: Z and P drive stuff) and it should pop up. 

If all else fails, contact us and we can utilize our remote management software to move files to/from your PC or place them in an easier to get to location. We can figure out a way to make it work. 

Faxing

Should the need to fax a document come up, or if you need a document faxed to you please contact the IT team and we can coordinate sending or retrieving the document on your behalf. 

If you are a reasonable distance from the school please let us know if you need us to bring you equipment, items from your office, or assist in any way. 

You may contact us by going to https://4help.vt.edu or give me a call at 540-632-1042 - any time. 

Thank you, 
Brian Brindle
Sr. Director of IT
Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine
bbrindle@vt.edu