FAIT celebrates employees’ long-term service to UA

• August 27th, 2018
• in Uncategorized

Three Financial Affairs Information Technology employees were recently honored for achieving service milestones at The University of Alabama! Congratulations Kirt Warren and Todd Blue for achieving 10 years of service, and to and Lorraine Smith for achieving 25 years of service with the University.  We are honored to recognize these members of our team and congratulate them on their commitment and service to UA.

Can Office 365 Groups Help You Collaborate?

• February 7th, 2018
• in Uncategorized

Office 365 Groups allow users to easily collaborate with specific groups of people, as well as set-up collections of resources for those people to share. Groups for Office 365 isn’t an application like SharePoint or Outlook, but rather a way of taking pieces from a variety of apps and Office 365 tools and linking them together by teams or groups, making collaboration among departments and areas easier. Find more resources about Office 365 Groups at https://spacemanagement.ua.edu/office-365-groups/.

What Office 365 Collaboration Tool is right for your team?

One of the challenges with Office 365 is the multitude of options that are available, particularly as you start using more applications within Office 356.  Financial Affairs IT can help you determine which Office 365 app is most suitable for your team’s needs. For more information on available Office 365 collaboration tools visit https://spacemanagement.ua.edu/office-365-groups/.

Important Data Security Reminder

• January 17th, 2018
• in Uncategorized

FAIT regularly receives reports of phishing attacks taking place through email.  Phishing is an attempt to solicit sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, social security numbers, credit cards, etc.  While phishing through email has been common for several years, it is increasingly evident that the phishing attacks are becoming more sophisticated and difficult to detect.  Basically, the “bad guys” are getting better at what they do.

FAIT currently has preventive measures in place to protect against phishing schemes, and we are researching additional safeguards to implement.  With this being said, the best way to protect against phishing schemes is for each of us to exercise extreme caution when providing personal information online.  Typically phishing schemes are only successful when someone is lured into providing personal information to a fake source (website, email, PDF, etc.) that appears legitimate.  Be sure you know that the source is legitimate and trustworthy before providing any sensitive information online.

It is extremely important to remember that you should never provide your FA network username and password to any online source or in response to email solicitation, even if the email comes from someone within UA.  If you receive a request for sensitive information from someone within UA, we suggest calling the individual directly to discuss the request.  Also, please know that someone from the FAIT will never send you an email requesting that you provide network username and passwords.  If you receive any such request, please feel free to forward to FAIT (Mike Largin, mlargin@fa.ua.edu) and delete immediately.

Thank you for your help in protecting the sensitive data that we deal with every day within Financial Affairs.  If you ever have any questions or concerns related to data security, please do not hesitate to contact FAIT or our campus Chief Security Officer (Ashley Ewing, aewing@fa.ua.edu).

FAIT and Space Management Celebrates the Service Milestones of 11 Employees in 2017

• December 14th, 2017
• in Uncategorized

In 2017, 11 Financial Affairs Information Technology and Space Management employees were honored for achieving service milestones at The University of Alabama! A big congratulations is in order to these 11 employees for their service spanning from five years to 15 years. Accompanied by their supervisors and peers, these employees were recognized in July at the 2017 Annual Service Recognition Ceremony hosted by UA’s Department of Human Resources.  A company’s greatest resource is its employees, and getting to celebrate members of our hard-working team and to commend their efforts towards achieving milestones is one of the many highlights of 2017.

Congratulations to:

Victoria Corley – 5 Years of Service

Jennifer Rogers – 5 Years of Service

Jim Smith – 5 Years of Service

Luke Taylor – 5 Years of Service

Camisha Adams – 10 Years of Service

Rich Ranson – 10 Years of Service

David Smith – 10 Years of Service

Robert Baxter – 15 Years of Service

Andrew Beeson – 15 Years of Service

Greg Gaddis – 15 Years of Service

Tina Howell – 15 Years of Service

UA Guest Wireless Network

• November 20th, 2017
• in Uncategorized

The Office of Information Technology has implemented a guest wireless network, UA-Guest, to allow UA visitors to connect to wireless internet. This network provides internet-only access to non-UA personnel. It does not provide access to servers or applications. Once a visitor establishes the guest connection, the connection will be valid for 24 hours.

More information and instructions for connecting to the UA-Guest network are available at https://oit.ua.edu/service/guest-wifi.  We are happy to provide this network to better accommodate campus visitors. Information about the UA-Guest network will be dispersed to campus after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Please contact the IT Service Desk at 205-348-5555 or itsd@ua.edu with any questions.

New Office 365 Training for FA Users

• November 8th, 2017
• in Uncategorized

The FAIT team is excited to announce a new Office 365 training that is offered to Financial Affairs employees who are interested in harnessing the power of the Office 365 apps.

This is a high-level training which explores the benefits and uses of the Office 365 apps,  including, Excel, Word, OneDrive, SharePoint, Outlook and more. Users interested in learning more about Office 365 are encouraged to request a training session. Trainings can be customized based on audience/department needs. Training sessions last approximately one hour and are held in the Ancillary Services Building computer lab. For more information, or to request a training session, contact Erica Williams at ewilliams@fa.ua.edu or Stefan Kim at skim@fa.ua.edu.

FAIT & Space Management helped keep the Quad in Motion!

• October 2nd, 2017
• in Uncategorized

On September 13, members of the FA Information Technology and Space Management team joined other UA faculty and staff to help keep the Quad in Motion for a full day! The third annual event hosted by the UA Office of Health Promotion and Wellness promoted living a healthy and active lifestyle while encouraging all 6,000+ University employees to “keep the Quad in Motion” throughout an entire work day. Our department strives to maintain a healthy work-life balance and encourages each other to participate in lunch time physical activity classes and group exercises.

FA Employees Required to use DUO for VPN Access

• June 14th, 2017
• in Uncategorized

Effective August 1, 2017, Financial Affairs (FA) employees that utilize the FA virtual private network (VPN) will now be required to use DUO two-factor authentication to connect to the FA VPN. By requiring DUO for VPN access, the University can better secure individual myBama user accounts as well as the entire UA network.

How will DUO work with the FA VPN?

• After the August 1, 2017 requirement date, when a user attempts to connect to the FA VPN, they will receive a prompt for username, password and second password. The second password field is the DUO prompt. You may enter the word “push” to receive a push notification to your smart phone, or you may enter a passcode that you receive from the DUO app, via SMS, or through OIT’s self-service page. More information on this can be found at https://oit.ua.edu/service/vpn/.
• When a user activates DUO, it will be applied to all DUO-enabled systems. This means DUO will be activated not only for VPN access, but also for the user’s myBama access.

How can I set up my DUO account?

• FA employees utilizing VPN will be required to activate their DUO account online at www.duo.ua.edu. If an FA employee does not have a smart phone or prefers not to download the DUO app, employees can utilize a landline phone to activate DUO.  Find more information and step-by-step tutorials at  https://oit.ua.edu/service/duo/.
• By activating DUO two-factor authentication, FA employees can protect their myBama credentials, ensuring that no one else can access the account, even if the password has been compromised.

To activate your DUO account, visit www.duo.ua.edu. Users should follow the screen prompts and download the DUO Mobile App on their smartphone to setup a DUO account. For more information, including a complete tutorial and frequently asked questions, please visit www.oit.ua.edu/duo.

New FAIT Website

• March 28th, 2017
• in Uncategorized

Financial Affairs IT is happy to announce the update of their department website. The updated site provides users information regarding Financial Affairs Information Technology, Space Management and Building Information Services. Users will find the website user-friendly and easier to navigate. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Mike Shelton at 348-2156 or mshelton@fa.ua.edu.