The Contributor Role in WordPress can be a valuable tool for sharing content creation responsibility without exposing too much administrative access to a user.

The default settings for the Contributor Role are fairly restrictive in a WordPress site

A Contributor can create and edit only their own posts, but cannot publish them. When one of their posts is ready to be published, or has been revised, the Administrator needs to be notified personally by the Contributor to review it. Furthermore, once a Contributor’s post is approved and published by an Administrator, it can no longer be edited by the Contributor.

Contributors do not have the ability to upload files or images, but they can see your site’s stats.

However, by using the User Role Editor plugin (installed on many CNS sites), a user’s capabilities can be adjusted to match the desired results.

Example

To allow a user to continue to update a published page, consider adding the following capabilities to the user account:

• edit_pages
• edit_published_pages
• publish_pages

The Contributor will then be able to Edit and Publish pages for which they are assigned as the Author. They will not be able to Edit or Publish pages for which they are not the Author.

• Adding Capabilities to a Contributor Role

• WordPress View of Contributor Pages

• WordPress Page Quick Edit Menu

Links

• WordPress Documentation on User Roles (https://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#contributor)

A common question CNSIT receives is the availability of Adobe Photoshop for their CSU computers.  Photoshop has become ingrained in our psyche as synonymous with “photo editor”, much like we use the term “Kleenex” to name our facial tissue.  Unfortunately, Adobe Photoshop is not available as a free site license on campus.  If you require Photoshop, you must purchase this using an annual Adobe Creative Cloud subscription from RAMtech (https://ramtech.colostate.edu/departmental/software/#adobecc).  This cost is a per device charge as well, so you can see how the cost to use authentic Photoshop can get fairly high in a hurry.

Based on our experience, users rarely need Photoshop and all of its power, so the cost doesn’t always make sense.  Fortunately, there exists a free alternative, with a largely comparative feature set called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) – https://www.gimp.org 

GIMP is a free, open source alternative available for all major operating systems!  Rather than run through a direct comparison of GIMP vs Photoshop myself, I will list some articles I found that are already doing this:

https://blog.storyblocks.com/creators/gimp-vs-photoshop-better

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/gimp-vs-photoshop-one-right

https://www.colorexpertsbd.com/blog/brief-comparison-photoshop-gimp

In the end, the decision is a personal one.  If the GIMP does what you are looking for (and it most likely does that and WAY more, just like Photoshop), then I think you will be pleased with this free alternative.

Occasionally, it is important to rename your computer so that various network services can better identify your machine.  This is particularly important for personally owned computers that connect to various campus networks as required in our Computer and Network Policies page here: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/policies

Click below to select your OS for directions on renaming your computer.

Windows: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/how-to-rename-your-windows-computer

MacOS: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/how-to-rename-your-macos-computer

In days past, one of the major drawbacks to using the OneDrive sync client on your local computer, was that your local storage was often far less than your OneDrive quota of 5TB. The sync client required that you download any files to your local computer in order to even see them! Of course, this was sort of a buzzkill in that you quickly realized you could never take advantage of the the 5TB of OneDrive storage.

All of this has changed with an update to OneDrive called “On-Demand”. Basically, this allows you to only download files locally when you need them, but you can still see all of the files in your OneDrive account. This update introduces a new set of icons listed in your Finder window that designate whether a file is in the cloud or available locally. You can also set certain files to always be available locally if you wish.

A couple of requirements, of course.

– First, you must be running MacOS 10.14.2 “Mojave” or newer along with an Apple File System (APFS) formatted volume.  These are the current defaults nowadays, so any Mac purchased after 2012 should be compatible.

– You must also be sure to have OneDrive version 18.240 or newer.  This can be downloaded from the Mac App Store by searching for “OneDrive”.  Alternatively, you can download the .pkg installer directly from here: https://aka.ms/MacFilesOnDemandBinary.

Microsoft Windows has had these features for almost a year now, so it is great to finally see this functionality available for MacOS.  Read more about that here: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/onedrive-files-on-demand

Finally, here are some directions for setting up OneDrive for your personal space using the OneDrive client for MacOS with On-Demand:

https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/configure-onedrive-client-for-macos

In this article I will walk you through connecting the OneDrive client for MacOS to your CSU O365 personal OneDrive space.  The first step is to download and install the latest OneDrive client from the Mac Store.  You can find this by searching for “OneDrive” in the search area.  Alternatively, you can download the .pkg installer directly from here: https://aka.ms/MacFilesOnDemandBinary.  Once that is installed, you can launch it by entering in “OneDrive” into your MacOS Spotlight search.  When it is running, you will notice the “cloud” icon in the task bar (as shown in the screenshot below).

To start the connection process, you will select this OneDrive “cloud” icon and select the “Sign In” button.

From there, you will be asked to enter in your username in the form “eID@colostate.edu”.  Once entered, select the “Sign in” button to proceed.

Next you will indicate that this account is for a “Work or school” account by selecting the appropriate choice.

You will now be asked to enter in your password.  This is your CSU eID password.  After entered, select the “Sign in” button once again to proceed.

You will now be asked to choose your OneDrive folder location on the local computer.  Click on the “Choose OneDrive folder location” to proceed.  The next dialog window will allow you to choose this location.  Unless you have good reason to alter the default, you are advised to keep this in the root of your user profile.  The screenshot below shows this dialog.  Select the “Choose this location” button to proceed.

The next window will confirm your choice.  Select on the “Next” button to proceed.  The next dialog window to appear will ask you what OneDrive content you would like available locally using the OneDrive sync client.  It is recommended to leave all content selected as shown in the following screenshot.  Select the “Next” button to proceed.

You should now be all set!  This final dialog window will confirm the setup.  You will also notice a check box for “Open at login so my files sync automatically”.  It is recommended that you select this choice so that OneDrive starts up when you log in to your computer, and your content is always up to date.  At this point, you can open your local OneDrive folder by selecting the “Open my OneDrive – Colostate folder” button.  This resides in your user profile and can be located at any time from within the MacOS Finder.

Enable On-Demand for OneDrive

One demand is a very useful feature that should be enabled to save local hard drive space.  More information on this can be found here: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/mac-onedrive-client-files-on-demand

To enable On-Demand functionality, select the OneDrive icon from the upper task bar, and choose the “Preferences” option in the ellipses “…” menu.

In here, you will make sure to select the “Preferences” tab at the top and finally, select the button labeled “Turn On Files On-Demand”.

Enable the OneDrive Finder Extension

The final step is to enable the OneDrive Finder extension so that the On-Demand icons indicating the files local and cloud availability is visible.  To do this, select the “Extensions” icon in the MacOS System Preferences.

From here, you will select the OneDrive “Finder Extensions” check box as illustrated int he screenshot below.

You may need to restart your computer at this point for these new OneDrive Finder Extensions to load.

In this article I will walk you through connecting the OneDrive client for Windows 10 to your CSU O365 personal OneDrive space.  In Windows 10 (which you should be using) OneDrive should be installed and running on default.  If you do not see the OneDrive “cloud” icon running in your task bar over by your clock, you may need to start this by searching for “OneDrive” using the Cortana search bar by the Windows start button.  Once that is running,  you will notice the “cloud” icon in the task bar (as shown in the screenshot below).

To start the connection process, you will select this OneDrive “cloud” icon and select the “Sign In” button.

From there, you will be asked to enter in your username in the form “eID@colostate.edu”.  Once entered, select the “Sign in” button to proceed.

Next you will indicate that this account is for a “Work or school” account by selecting the appropriate choice.

You will now be asked to enter in your password.  This is your CSU eID password.  After entered, select the “Sign in” button once again to proceed.

You will now be asked to choose your OneDrive folder location on the local computer.  Unless you have good reason to alter the default, you are advised to keep this in the root of your user profile.  The screenshot below shows this dialog.  Select the “Next” button to proceed.

The next dialog window to appear will ask you what OneDrive content you would like available locally using the OneDrive sync client.  It is recommended to leave all content selected as shown in the following screenshot.  Select the “Next” button to proceed.

You should now be all set!  Well, almost.  Once you “Next” your way through the short OneDrive tutorial, you can select the “Open my OneDrive folder” button to view your local contents and become familiar with its location on your hard drive.

There are a couple of additional settings that are recommended.  To confirm and change these you should once again select the OneDrive “cloud” icon from the task bar (bottom right, by the clock), select the “More” button from the bottom, and choose the “Settings” entry from the menu list.

In the popup dialog that appears, make sure you are in the “Settings” tab at the top, and check both of the options in this view.  The first is to make sure that OneDrive opens automatically when you log in to your computer (this ensures you always have access to current data).  The second is to enable the On-Demand functionality.  On-Demand is described here and is very useful: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/onedrive-files-on-demand

Finally, you should take full advantage of the On-Demand functionality by running the “Free up space” operation for your OneDrive space.  To access this option, simply right click on your “OneDrive – Colostate” folder that appears on the right side of an Explorer Window, and click on the “Free up space” menu item.  The following screenshot illustrates this.

In this article I will walk you through connecting a CSU O365 SharePoint Online site to your local computer using the OneDrive sync client.  This walkthrough assumes you have already connected your OneDrive sync client to your personal OneDrive space as described in the following articles:

Configure OneDrive Client for Windows: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/configure-onedrive-client-for-windows

Configure OneDrive Client for MacOS: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/configure-onedrive-client-for-macos

This article also assumes you know the URL for the SharePoint Online site you wish to connect to.  This will have been sent to you when the SharePoint Online site was created (contact CNSIT at https://cnsit.natsci.colostate.edu/help to request a SharePoint site) and should have a URL similar to the following, where SITE_NAME is the name of the SharePoint Online site:

https://colostate.sharepoint.com/sites/SITE_NAME

To begin, open up a web browser (built in browsers such as Safari on MacOS and MS Edge on Windows are preferred).  Navigate your browser to the SharePoint Online site URL you wish to connect to and log in with your CSU O365 formatted credentials.  Remember, to log in to CSU O365 resources, your username must be in the format eName@colostate.edu.

Once connected, you will notice a portion of the page where your site’s documents are listed.  Select the ‘Sync’ button as illustrated by the screenshot below.  This will initiate the connection to your local OneDrive sync client by first asking whether the browser has permission to access to open the OneDrive app.  This may come across as a confirmation that you are switching apps, or if you allow the page to open the OneDrive app.  In any case, you will need to grant that permission by selecting the “Yes” or “Allow” button.

From here, if you are using MacOS as your local operating system, you may be asked to log in and choose a location in the same way you connected your personal space.  It is recommended that you keep the default location (if asked) for your SharePoint Online site to sync to.

If you are using Windows, you will most likely be met with a successful connection dialog (although you may also be asked to log in and choose a location), in which case you should be almost done!

The final step is to run the “Free up space” operation for your new SharePoint Online sync location.  To do this, simply choose the “Colostate” folder in Finder (MacOS) or Explorer (Windows) and right click on your SharePoint Online folder you just added.  Choose the “Free up space” menu item to begin the local cleanup.  If you do not see this “Free up space” option in the menu, you should make sure On-Demand is enabled by revisiting the final steps in the OneDrive configuration steps linked to above.

It is official, we are sunsetting Pangea.  While this phasing out will take some careful consideration and migration, we wanted to make sure to document up front what we believe will be the process.

Why are we doing this?

Pangea has been our go-to collaboration tool since 2006.  It has gone through many iterations in terms of access, storage capacity and host hardware/software.  At one point we even had two of them!  However, in today’s world Pangea has been forced to compete with enormous pools of cloud based storage and it is now clear it cannot keep up in a fiscally responsible way.  One good example of this competition is the free OneDrive space we all have access to as part of our campus O365 contract.  Pangea allots a default 20GB for personal shares, while OneDrive serves up a whopping 5TB (roughly 250 times more space).  Also, OneDrive is available at zero additional cost.  By migrating most of our Pangea shares to these other more modern scenarios, we can easily save close to $2,500 annually just on primary storage charges.  Beyond the financial motivations behind this sunsetting, there is also some clear technological advantages to migrating to other collaboration tools, which are outlined here: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/collaboration-and-file-sharing-tools

How are we going to do this?

We can consider Pangea data as 3 different types.  There is personal Pangea space, collaborative group space, and finally Pangea served web space.  We will address these all separately in turn.

Stage One – Personal Pangea Space Migration

Our first goal is to migrate all personal Pangea spaces over to OneDrive.  We have created a writeup for this here and are ready to assist with user migrations immediately. https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/converting-a-personal-pangea-space-to-onedrive

Stage Two – Collaborative Pangea Group Space Migration

For stage two, we will be transferring all collaborative groups from the Pangea VM over to the new ACNS hosted RStor service.  Collaborative Pangea groups include lab groups (eg: “peersenlab” and “medfordlab”) and other special project groups (eg: “x-ray_facility” and “traits_model”).   As this RStor space will be paid for departmentally, Pangea-era quotas will remain in effect as they are at migration.  If additional space is required for these groups, an official, group funded RStor arrangement must be made.  For example, if you suddenly realize your lab needs more than the 100GB quota they have been using with Pangea, RStor space can be purchased in blocks of 1TB at $70 per year.  The challenge for this stage is simply that users will have to remap their groups at its new location.  We have plenty of documentation on this here: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/rstor-how-to

Other collaborative groups, such as staff, accounting, departmental, and advising shares will be migrated over to the O365 SharePoint Online sites model.  These migrations will also involve close cooperation with the share’s user group and CNSIT.

Stage Three – Pangea Web Group Migration

The final migration involves Pangea served web groups.  These need to be addressed individually to find out where the best new home might be.

In this article I will walk you through migrating your personal Pangea space into your CSU O365 personal OneDrive space.  The advantages to using OneDrive for personal storage are outlined here: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/collaboration-and-file-sharing-tools  This migration process is stage one for our Pangea sunset plan as outlined here: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/pangea-sunset-plan

First, users should be sure to have their local computer configured for the OneDrive sync client for personal data by following the instructions below:

Windows: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/configure-onedrive-client-for-windows

MacOS: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/configure-onedrive-client-for-macos

You must also have your Pangea space mapped to the local computer in the traditional way.  For more information about mapping Pangea – please refer to the following information: https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/pangea

Once both of these spaces are configured for your local computer, you can simply move (select all, right click and select ‘copy’) your data found within your personal Pangea space.  Keep in mind that this operation should only be used to copy your personal Pangea data, and not data from any other Pangea group you may be a member of.  Once copied, you can open your personal OneDrive folder found on your computer (usually called “OneDrive – Colostate”), and paste it in.  There are obviously a number of ways to copy this data over, so use whichever you are most comfortable with.  We recommend against a “move” operation during the transfer as this destroys the data on Pangea after it copies.  Depending on how much data you have, this transfer could take a long time.  You will notice the activity feed for the OneDrive sync client listing all of the files that are being synchronized to the OneDrive servers.  Once complete, the OneDrive sync client will display a message stating that it is “Up to Date”.

Once you complete the transfer process, please let CNSIT know by submitting a ticket.  We can then archive the personal Pangea space going forward so as to avoid confusion while the remainder of the Pangea sunet project takes place.

Of course, should you run into any trouble or have additional questions about the migration, please let us know as well.  We are also more than happy to set up an appointment to transfer this data with you.  Just let us know what you need!

https://cnsit.natsci.colostate.edu/help

The information in this article is designed to inform users interested in purchasing Adobe Illustrator of a potential free alternative.  Adobe Illustrator is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud now, and involves annual licensing costs that turn most folks off (https://ramtech.colostate.edu/departmental/software/#adobecc).

Inkscape is a free and open source vector graphics editor for professionals and is available here: https://inkscape.org

Along the same vein as the recent article comparing GIMP and Adobe Photoshop (https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/gimp-vs-adobe-photoshop), I don’t use Illustrator myself, and therefore am a poor source for determining whether this is a good alternative or not.  However, there are plenty of comparisons online from folks that actually do use this stuff.  Check out the following:

https://logosbynick.com/can-inkscape-replace-illustrator

https://blog.templatetoaster.com/inkscape-vs-illustrator-vector-graphics

Enjoy!

Sometimes it will be necessary to share an email folder or sub-folder with someone. This walk through is broken into 2 steps. Step 1 is setting up the sharing permissions and Step 2 is connecting your shared mail box folders with another user’s Outlook client.

Step 1 – Set up Permissions

On the Outlook client that is being shared, right click on the top level of the email account (left pane of outlook client), it will look like “your.name@colostate.edu”.

At the drop-down menu, select “Folder Permissions”.

A box will pop up, select the “Permissions” tab and click the “Add…” button.

Search the Global Address List (GAL) for the correct user and click the “Add” button and then “Ok” button.

Now we set permissions. CAUTION with this as you can easily give someone full control over your email.

Under Read, select NONE

Delete Items Select NONE

Permissions level None

Check box Folder visible

Click Apply

If you are drilling down to a sub-folder, you must do the same process above for each folder in the chain.

Once you get to the sub-folder you want to share, right click that folder and select “Properties” from the drop down menu. For this walk through I have created a sub folder in my inbox called “Test” and sub-sub-folder called “Test2”. The next steps will be applied to the Test2 sub-folder only, as this is my target folder.

A box will pop up. Select the “Permissions” tab.

Click the “Add” button and find the appropriate user in the GAL and click add in the lower left then click the “OK” button.

Here is where you will select the Permissions Level to give the person you are sharing your email with the appropriate permissions. There is a drop-down box (Permissions Level) where you can select default sharing options, or you can manually check the boxes yourself. Make sure that Full Details is selected under Read.

Click the “Apply” button and then the “OK” button.

The person you are sharing with is now added. Now we move on to the person we are sharing the email with.

Step 2 – Connect to Shared Folder

Open the Outlook client of the person you are sharing with.

Click “File” in the top menu and then select “Account Settings” in the “Info” pane.

A box will pop up, select their address and click “Change …”.

Another box will pop up and select “More Settings …”

Another box will pop up and select the “Advanced” tab

Click the “Add” button and a small box will pop up, type the person’s name in the same format as the GAL <eg> doe,john and press enter or click the “OK” button.

On the following screens click “Next” and “Finish” buttons in sequence.

Finally, click the “Close” button.  You should now be back at your Outlook client main screen.

You have now added the mail folder to the Outlook client.

In the email folder section of Outlook (far left column) scroll down to the bottom and you should see the added email account, now expand (using the little arrows to the left) and however many sub folders you have, you should see them in order with the the last folder being your target, should have email in it. If there is email in any of the other folders above the last one, the permissions are wrong, and you need to go back through the sub folders at your Outlook client to correct them.

If you have trouble completing these steps, please be sure to let us know with a CNSIT ticket (https://cnsit.natsci.colostate.edu/help) and we can set up an appointment with you to get things working.

At some point it might be helpful to have a list of what SharePoint sites you have access to and use.  The most straightforward method of this is to keep a list of the SharePoint URLs sent to you, and just use those (or memorize them).  However, this is rarely convenient, and our memory for this type of stuff is often imperfect.  The following method involves a little setup, but will reward you for the effort by offering a list of SharePoint sites you have set as “Following”.

This article assumes you know the URL for the SharePoint Online site you wish to “Follow”.  This will have been sent to you when the SharePoint Online site was created (contact CNSIT at https://cnsit.natsci.colostate.edu/help to request a SharePoint site) and should have a URL similar to the following, where SITE_NAME is the name of the SharePoint Online site:

https://colostate.sharepoint.com/sites/SITE_NAME

The basic step for this is to first browse to the SharePoint URL for each of your SharePoint sites, and click on the “Follow” button in the top left.

A small alert will appear letting you know that you are “Now following this site”.  Repeat these steps for all of you SharePoint sites.

Once you are “Following” a SharePoint site, it will appear in the “SharePoint” page for your O365 portal.  This can be found by clicking on the “Waffle” icon located in the top left of any page of your O365 Portal.  This is a convenient way to keep track of all of the SharePoint sites you use, without syncing them locally using the OneDrive sync client.

To free up space from locally available OneDrive files to save space on your local PC, do the following:

1. Once all your files are synced, open File Explorer
2. Navigate to your OneDrive folder by clicking on the OneDrive icon on the left
3. Right click on it, and select Free up space from the context menu. This will keep a copy in the OneDrive cloud but not on your local PC. Once you click on the file again it will re-download to your PC and be accessible locally. If you want to put that file back in the OneDrive cloud, select the file and choose “free up space” again.

Using OneDrive On Demand File Management

OneDrive has several different ways of managing your files. It can keep files only on your local PC, only in the Cloud or a combination of both. The information below explains how each option works, when you might use it and how to toggle between them to most efficiently manage your files to optimize space and accessibility.

You will see icons to the right of your one drive files. Below are the different file statuses represented by those icons.

A blue cloud icon next to a OneDrive file or folder indicates that the file is only available online. Online-only files don’t take up space on your computer. You see a cloud icon for each online-only file in File Explorer, but the file doesn’t download to your device until you open it. You can’t open online-only files when your device isn’t connected to the Internet.

When you open an online-only file, it downloads to your device and becomes a locally available file. You can open a locally available file anytime, even without Internet access. If you need more space, you can change the file back to online only. Just right-click the file and select “Free up space.”

Only files that you mark as “Always keep on this device” have the green circle with the white check mark. These always available files download to your device and take up space, but they’re always there for you even when you’re offline.

Viewing PDF files in an optimal manner is something we often struggle with across platforms and browsers. Typically, the best way to view and interact with a PDF file is to view it directly with the desktop version of Adobe Acrobat DC or Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. However, many browsers choose to display these files in a browser plugin as a default. This can interfere with filling out PDF files that act as forms, as well as mess up printing operations. This article will guide you through changing this default PDF viewing setting in the Chrome browser.

First, choose the Settings menu located in the top right of the browser window. This looks like 3 dots stacked on top of each other. From there, choose the Settings menu item.

From within settings, select the Settings menu on the top left, then select “Advanced” which will expand. You will choose “Privacy and security” from this expanded list.

Next, select the “Site Settings” option.

Now, scroll down and select the “PDF documents” option.

Finally, toggle the option for “Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome”.

You can now close out of the settings and give it a try. When you click on a PDF link, it should as you to download the file which can be opened by your Adobe Acrobat desktop client.

At some point it may be that changing your Microsoft Office theme and background color may prove beneficial or desired. Some people find that a darker background is easier on the eyes or you may find that it is just a more pleasing appearance. The directions below will help you change the look of your Office suite to your preference.

Launch any Office program and click the File tab and then Account. There under Office Theme, select the color you want from the drop-down menu.

In addition to the theme, you may want to change the background color. To change this, launch any Office program and click the File tab and then Account. There under Office Theme, select the color you want from the drop-down menu.

Another way to modify the color and background is to go to File > Options, and under Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office, select the color you want from the drop-down list.

In the end, it is a matter of preference, but worth looking into to make your computing time more enjoyable.

Managing the membership of a SharePoint Online site without the intervention of CNSIT Staff is another one of the great advantages that SharePoint has over some traditional network file sharing and collaboration services. In this article, SharePoint site owners will learn how to manage the memberships and permissions for their SharePoint online sites.

This article assumes you know the URL for the SharePoint Online site you wish to manage.  This will have been sent to you when the SharePoint Online site was created (contact CNSIT at https://cnsit.natsci.colostate.edu/help to request a SharePoint site) and should have a URL similar to the following, where SITE_NAME is the name of the SharePoint Online site:

https://colostate.sharepoint.com/sites/SITE_NAME

From here, you should locate the “Gear” icon in the top right of the page. Click on this “Gear” icon and choose the “Site Settings” option.

In the Site Settings menu, you will look at the top right cluster of links. Locate and select the “People and groups” link.

Here you will see a list of all of the group members. You will notice the “Groups” on the left side. The default group is “Members” which should be showing now. You can add additional groups with custom permissions as well, however – this will not be covered here. To add new members to this group, you can choose the “New” menu, and select “Add Users”.

A modal window will appear that allows you to search for and choose the users you wish to add. It is often best to search for individuals that are CSU affiliated and within the Global Address List (GAL) using the format “Last Name,First Name”. For users not in the CSU GAL, you can simply enter in their e-mail address. When you add users, they will receive an e-mail describing the new access. You may wish to enter in additional information before adding as well. You can also choose not to send this message by Showing the Options and un-checking the “Send an email invitation”. This is often a good idea if you are planning on showing them their access in person, and prefer they don’t mess with it until that time.

Once you share access to your new members, they will be able to access the SharePoint site and start collaborating!

For those interested, here is a more in depth document on the various permission levels you can award an specific group (if you would like to customize your site further in this way).

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/understanding-permission-levels

The information in this article is designed to inform users interested in purchasing Adobe InDesign of a potential free alternative.  Adobe InDesign is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud now, and involves annual licensing costs that turn most folks off (https://ramtech.colostate.edu/departmental/software/#adobecc).

Scribus is a free and open source page layout program and is available here: https://www.scribus.net

Along the same vein as the recent article comparing GIMP and Adobe Photoshop (https://wp.natsci.colostate.edu/cnsit/gimp-vs-adobe-photoshop), I don’t use InDesign myself, and therefore am a poor source for determining whether this is a good alternative or not.  However, there are plenty of comparisons and demos online from folks that actually do use this stuff.  Check out the following:

https://www.ghacks.net/2018/05/12/a-look-at-scribus-open-source-desktop-publisher-on-gnu-linux/

Enjoy!

The https://www.natsci.colostate.edu website was recently moved to a new webhost provided by ACNS. This transition included a number of updates and changes to the WordPress installation that powers our website. One of the bigger changes to the website is the login form and account setup. Previously, users had a separate WordPress account tied to their email address. The new site uses CSU’s eID “federated authentication service” to verify your account. Requests for new users to be able to access the site should be made to the CNS Web Developer.

One common request CNSIT sees is for a custom e-mail address to be used for a conference, special group, or any other reason where a personal e-mail address might not be the best solution in the future. CSU provides functionality for a couple of different solutions; one of which will hopefully work for your purposes.

CSU Mailing List

CSU mailing lists are essentially lists of e-mail addresses to which a received message is distributed. When an e-mail is sent to a mailing list, everyone on the list will receive the same message in their personal inbox.

These addresses have an e-mail address the following the following naming convention example:

CNS-LISTNAME@lists.colostate.edu

This solution allows for any e-mail address to be a part of the recipient list (not just CSU affiliates with an active CSU eID).

Mailing lists are most effective when everyone in the recipient group is required to read the e-mail the list receives. It is also advantageous in that a list owner can manage the list creation and membership without CNSIT intervention.

You can can request a CSU mailing list by filling out the form at the following URL:

https://lists.colostate.edu/

CSU O365 Shared Mailbox

An O365 shared mailbox is an e-mail address is a more classic sense. This solution maintains its own inbox, and is managed by members of its access list.

These addresses have an e-mail address that follows the following naming convention example

CNS_EVENT-NAME@mail.colostate.edu

*NOTE* – There is also a way to add an alias address to point to these shared mailboxes. They can be a more compact and friendly version such as:

EVENT-NAME@colostate.edu

Access to these shared mailboxes is most typically done using its custom web URL. You can use the following tool from ACNS to figure out what your O365 shared mailbox URL is:

http://help.mail.colostate.edu/tt_o365_shared_mailbox_owa.aspx

You can also set up an Outlook desktop client to read this inbox directly. ACNS has directions for setting this up as well:

http://help.mail.colostate.edu/tt_o365_outlook_multiple_mailboxes.aspx

This solution requires that access list members are CSU affiliates (have an active CSU eID).

Shared O365 mailboxes are most useful when the access group will take turns in managing the inbox, and not everyone in the group needs to know about all of its traffic. It is a standalone solution in which ownership and access can be transferred with ease.

To request an O365 shared mailbox or to update the access group of an existing mailbox, please submit a CNSIT ticket at the following URL:

https://cnsit.natsci.colostate.edu

Every so often we are contacted with a MacOS Outlook client that his having trouble searching. The symptoms typically resemble something like “No Results” found or a severely limited set of results returned, such as only the past week’s worth of e-mail.

Outlook on MacOS utilizes the built-in Spotlight indexing system for its search, and sometimes this gets messed up. The following steps are the first to take when trying to remedy this situation.

If you are running a version of MacOS older than Mojave (10.14) – the solution is fairly simple. Just download and run the “Outlook Search Repair Tool” found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/troubleshoot/outlook-for-mac/useful-tools

For those that are running Mojave (10.14) or newer – the following steps should accomplish the same thing (although more complicated):

1. Choose Apple menu, then System Preferences, and then Spotlight.
2. Select the Privacy tab.
3. In Finder:
   1. On the Go menu, select Go to Folder…
   2. Copy and paste the following location into the “Go to the folder:” dialog box and select Go: ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/
4. Drag the “Main Profile” folder to the Privacy tab. Once added, remove the folder, and Spotlight will re-index the folder. You must perform this step for any additional profile folders you have.

More in-depth solutions can be found here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2741535/outlook-for-mac-search-returns-no-results-and-task-items-are-not-displ