Contents
- Upcoming Power Outages for SSB, ESH, Lucas Hall, AB Hall, JC Penney
- Do Faculty and Staff Still Need a Desk Phone?
- Phishing and Email Scams
- Computer Lab Hours during Spring Break
- Answers to your Frequently Asked Questions
- Happy Spring Break!
- IT Chuckle
Upcoming Power Outages – Mar. 22-30, 2025
Information Technology Services (ITS) would like to remind you of an earlier campus announcement from Facilities regarding a planned power outage from March 22 -30, 2025, for the following buildings: Social Sciences and Business Building (SSB), Express Scripts Hall (ESH), Lucas Hall (LH), and Anheuser-Busch Hall (ABH), and the JC Penney building.
ITS has the following recommendations to ensure you stay connected.
- In preparation for the outage, turn off your laptop’s power strip before you leave campus. This will turn off power to your monitors and dock to protect them when power comes back up.
- If working remotely, you can use the Mitel Connect Softphone to answer campus calls by installing the Mitel Connect and Cisco Virtual Private Network (VPN) before you leave campus. Please note that VPN is required to use Mitel Connect off-campus. You can download the Mitel Connect software from the Software Center for PCs or Self Service on a Mac.
- If you try to remote into a computer on campus in SSB, ESH, LH, ABH, and JC Penney from March 22- 30, 2025, it will not work because the power will be off.
- Please remember to take your laptop power supply home.
Do Faculty and Staff Still Need a Desk Phone?
Did you know that as an UMSL employee, you have the ability to receive phone calls from your laptop that would typically come to your office desk phone? Find out more about Mitel Connect and the Softphone feature…
Be aware of Phishing and Email Scams
Please continue to be diligent with identifying and reporting phishing and email scams. This time of year we see an increase in emails discussing taxes and other documents with sensitive information, like social security numbers. Read more about protecting yourself from email scams…
Computer Lab Hours – Spring 2025
During Spring Break, the TLC Lab in 100 Marillac Hall (South Campus) will be open Monday – Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (The SSB 103 computer lab will not be available during Spring Break due to the scheduled power outage.)
For a complete list of the computer lab hours for the 2025 Spring Semester, see lab hours…
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
How do I turn off the “Focused” option in Microsoft Outlook?
Please see this Focused Inbox for Outlook page for instructions.
Note that the instructions differ a bit if you are using Classic Outlook, New Outlook, or the web version. The article also includes a very brief video to guide you.
Where do I find more information about Microsoft Authentication (MFA)?
For MFA information and instructions on downloading the authenticator app, please see this MFA page.
Happy Spring Break!
As we look forward to March 20 as the official start of Spring, we wish all our students a fun and relaxing Spring Break from March 22-30.
IT Chuckle
Why didn’t anyone laugh at the jokes on the Teams meeting?
They weren’t even remotely funny!