BSD Remote Work & Return to Campus Guidelines

The University has compiled many resources for remote work and remote teaching. This page includes helpful links and BSD-specific guidance.

For any additional IT assistance, please contact bsdis@bsd.uchicago.edu.

Hot Topics

1. When you are on a Zoom call discussing sensitive information (PHI, PII, Institutional Knowledge, etc.) make sure to use headphones or lower the volume to ensure that information is not overheard by parties that are not authorized to have the information.

2. CLINICAL STAFF: Employees with clinical responsibilities are subject to additional guidelines regarding many aspects of remote work. Please refer to “BSD Employees with Clinical Responsibilities” on this page as well as guidelines from UCM. Please note that if you are not on campus, you must be using UCM VPN (rather than cVPN) to access the UCM link.

3. What passwords do I use where?

  • UCHAD username and password: Use this when logging into Citrix to access clinical applications like EPIC
  • CNET username and password: Use this when logging into VPN, Box, or anywhere else you receive the familiar CNET login screen
  • BSDAD username and password: Use this when connecting to BSD email, BSD Administrative SharePoint, or logging into your BSD computer remotely

A new password tool has been release to view all your usernames and sync your passwords. You may find it here: https://identity.uchospitals.edu/pss

4. Please click here for guidelines on purchasing a laptop that you wish to be reimbursed for.

5. Please take a moment to review out guidelines on sanitizing electronic equipment here: https://bsdis.uchicago.edu/sanitizing/

Contact Us

Additional Resources

Helpful Links

Table of Contents

Teaching Resources

University guidance for teaching remotely and many helpful links, tutorials, and best practices are available at https://teachingremotely.uchicago.edu/.

HIPAA Warning: If you are recording any lecture or meeting, do not discuss or expose any PHI during the recording.

Setting Up Your Remote Workspace

What You’ll Need

  1. An Internet connection
  2. A computer that you have sole access to during your work hours
  3. A phone or computer capable of making audio calls

Voice and Phone Forwarding

Forward your desk phone
You have two options for forwarding your desk phone:

  • To forward all calls for an indeterminate period of time, you can press CFwdALL on your desk phone and input your remote phone. Alternatively, you can email your desk phone and remote phone numbers to itservices@uchicago.edu and they will enable this.
  • If you wish to have the ability to turn forwarding on and off remotely as needed, submit this form to configure Single Number Reach service for your desk phone.

You can manage settings for your IP phone through the myPhone interface.

Voicemail
Set up voicemail to email. With this feature, your voicemail will automatically be emailed to you in an audio file you can listen to on your computer.

Programs to Install

These programs can help facilitate your remote work. Click on each item for more information.

1. VPN/Cisco AnyConnect
VPN stands for “Virtual Private Network”. A connection to the University’s VPN will make your remote computer “virtually” appear to be on campus and will allow it to access campus resources.

The University uses the Cisco AnyConnect application to establish a VPN connection. You can download it here:

https://cvpn.uchicago.edu

2. Box Sync
Installing Box on your remote computer will allow you to access all your work files remotely. You can access it via their website or install the client (Box Drive) on your remote computer.

3. Microsoft Office
Did you know that all University employees are allowed to install Office on their personal computer? You can download it here: https://o365.uchicago.edu

Install instructions:

  1. Visit the link above
  2. Click “Log into Office 365”
  3. Enter in your @uchicago.edu email (Your BSD email will not work.)
  4. Enter in your CNET username and password
  5. Complete the DUO 2FA screen
  6. Select if you’d like to stay signed in
  7. Once you’ve logged in, click on “Install Office” in the upper right corner
  8. Click on “Office 365 apps”
  9. A file will download to your computer. Once it completes, run it to install Office 365
4. Microsoft Outlook
Once you’ve installed Microsoft Office (instructions above), open up Outlook.

  1. Enter in your @bsd.uchicago.edu email address
  2. Click on the “Advanced options” button
  3. Check “Let me set up my account manually”
  4. Next
  5. Exchange 2013 or earlier
  6. When prompted for a password, click “More choices”
  7. “Use a different account”
  8. Username: bsdad\username
  9. Password: The password you need to log in
  10. Next
  11. Uncheck “Set up Outlook Mobile on my phone, too”
  12. Done
5. Shared Drives
If you store your files on a server on campus, and then access them via mapped drives, you can map these same folders remotely once you are connected to the VPN. Here’s how you do it:

PC Instructions:

  1. Ensure you are connected to the VPN (instructions above) first
  2. Open This PC
  3. Map Network Drive
  4. Drive letter: (select any letter. You may want to match it to the one you have on your work computer.)
  5. Folder: (Place the shared folder path here)
  6. Check the “Connect using different credentials” checkbox
  7. Finish
  8. You will be prompted for a username and password.
    • Username: bsdad\\jdoe
    • Password: Enter the password you use to log into your computer at work

Note: You may not know the shared folder paths to the drives you use at work. You can figure these paths out by looking at them on your work computer prior to working remotely.

  1. Open up This PC
  2. Look at your mapped drives under “Network Locations”
  3. Windows formats the share name to make it more readable but we can use it to construct the share name. Example:

First we take the piece in the parenthesis. That is the start of our share (\\\\prfs.cri.uchicago.edu) and then we add a slash (\\) and then the share name before the parenthesis (test-share). This gives us our full share path:

\\\\prfs.cri.uchicago.edu\\test-share

Mac Instructions:

  1. Ensure you are connected to the VPN (Instructions above)
  2. Click on your desktop so that the Go menu appears above
  3. Click on “Go”
  4. “Connect to server”
  5. Enter in your share folder. It should be in the form of: smb://servername.uchicago.edu/share or smb://servername.uchicago.edu/oneormorefolders/share
  6. You have the option to press + to save the share to your list for easy re-connection
  7. Connect
  8. You will be prompted for your username and password. Enter in the same username and password you use to log into your computer in the morning.
6. Microsoft Teams
Talk with your manager about using Microsoft Teams. Teams is an application that is also available from the o365.uchicago.edu link above. Teams has many features including:

    1. Chatting
    2. File Sharing
    3. Collaboration tools
    4. Voice and Video conferencing capabilities

More information on teams: https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software

Quick overview: https://teams.microsoft.com/start

Keeping Your Information Secure When Working Remotely

When you use your personal computer for work purposes, it’s imperative that you secure it in the same way your work computer is secured. Here are some steps to keep you secure:

  • Install anti-virus. The University provides free anti-virus to all employees.
  • Don’t store work data (sensitive or otherwise) on your personal computer.
  • Ensure your personal computer uses a login and doesn’t log in automatically.
  • Secure your wireless network at home by changing your default admin password and enabling WPA2 encryption. Contact your web provider for instructions on how to reset your password on your home network.
  • Ensure that all devices on your home network are protected by a strong password and running the latest version of their operating system.
  • Enable auto updates for your operating system and applications installed on your devices.
  • Don’t allow your family or friends to use your work devices.
  • Avoid working on public networks such as Starbucks or other free wireless networks.
  • Ultimately, common sense is your best protection. If an email, phone call, or online message seems odd, suspicious, or too good to be true, it may be an attack.

Zoom Meetings

Accounts for Hosting Meetings

If you are currently using a free Zoom account to host meetings, you must transition to a University-licensed account. Anyone teaching a course in Spring quarter will automatically be provisioned an account.

To receive a free Zoom account for hosting, please log into https://uchicagomedicine.zoom.us with your CNET ID and one will be provisioned for you.

The University offers resources for using Zoom to teach remotely, available here.
Online training is available: Introduction to Zoom for Remote Teaching

If you need to use Zoom for clinical research purposes, please see additional details for BSD employees with clinical responsibilities.

Participating in Zoom Meetings

To participate in Zoom meetings, you’ll need to download and install a client for your desktop or phone.

If you are new to Zoom, these detailed user guides can help you navigate the app to join and participate in meetings:

BSD Employees with Clinical Responsibilities

For those who have multiple roles within the BSD in a clinical capacity as well as a teaching and research capacity, it is important to understand how to navigate the environment. All clinical work must be conducted through UCM policies and tip sheets. Please ensure you are following the guidelines below, which may contradict non-clinical advice elsewhere on this page. (Please note that if you are not on campus, you must be using VPN to access UCM links and tip sheets.)

  1. Follow any guidance communicated to you from Hospital leadership and UCMIT. Remote work guidance is available on UCM intranet.
  2. Use of personal devices is not permitted except as outlined within the UCM Tip Sheet for Accessing IT Applications Remotely or otherwise explicitly authorized by UCM IT.
  3. All users should leverage the UCM WebApps system to conduct their normal work.
  4. All personal devices (e.g., smartphones or tablets) used for work must be encrypted.
  5. Do not store PHI on personal devices.
  6. Enroll all devices in 2Factor Authentication. (Tip Sheets: Tablet; Smartphone)
  7. Rather than cVPN, make sure you are using UCM VPN.
  8. If you are using Zoom, ensure that your account has been provisioned by UChicago Medicine. This service is provided by the University of Chicago ITS department. Details on access can be found here: https://its.uchicago.edu/web-conferencing.
    • UCM Zoom instances have additional security settings that are required for clinical research purposes.
    • The only instances that UCM users should be using to host a meeting are:
  9. Do not use Office365 or Teams for clinical purposes. UCM Zoom Chat instance is recommended as an alternative to Teams. These messages are encrypted and secured and can be used for confidential communications. (Tip Sheet: Instant Messaging via Zoom)
  10. Shared drives for clinical purposes should be provisioned by BSD or UCM rather than CRI.
  11. Install and test Citrix on your personal computer. (Tip Sheets: Mac; Windows; iOS Devices)
Citrix Install Instructions
You can log into https://webapps.uchospitals.edu from any computer just as you would from work. After you do, you will be prompted to install the Citrix client. If that fails for any reason, you can download the clients from below and try again: