Resources for Remote Work
- James Coombes
These pages provide some basic information about tools that can be used to work remotely. A few can be used by people for their own individual work, but most are intend to allow groups of people to work together from different locations. Keep in mind that these do not replace existing collaborative tools (such as email or cloud file sharing).
Search these pages:
Working Remotely
Before reviewing the technical tools it is also a good idea to remember that remote work is not primarily a way of using technology. It is a way of working, and the tools you use should accommodate the way you choose to work or are expected to work by the people you work with and work for. The pages are not meant to dictate how you should work using these tools. They will only list capabilities, offer options, and provide instructions on how to perform certain tasks.
If you would like to learn more about how to generally work remotely, here are some online courses freely available to UT employees and students. To view them click the logon button on the course page and enter your McCombs email address to be redirected to an EID login page.
- How to work remotely: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/working-remotely-2
- How to mange your time while working from home: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/time-management-working-from-home
- How to manage virtual teams: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/managing-virtual-teams-4
If you'd like to skip the videos here are some brief articles:
McCombs faculty and staff can find more college specific guidance on the Business School's intranet at https://intranet.mccombs.utexas.edu/Pages/Home.aspx
The Resources
Staying connected with your work group
- Outlook (https://outlook.office365.com and the Outlook desktop and mobile app)
Your Office 365 Mailbox will obviously be a major way to stay in touch with your work group and everyone else.
- Teams (https://teams.microsoft.com and the Teams desktop and mobile app)
Teams is an Office 365 application that allows you to set up exclusive areas, called teams, where you can chat, hold online meetings, and work on documents with various work groups. It also lets you chat and schedule online meetings outside of those teams. It works together with your Outlook mailbox.
Please see Microsoft Teams for remote work for more information
To request a team for your own group please submit a request at https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/tech.
- Using your office phone remotely
You can configure your office phone to forward to your home phone or mobile phone or configure voice mail message to forward to your Outlook mailbox. Please see for UT Phone Forwarding, Voicemail, and Teleconferencing for remote work more information about this.
It is also posisble to configure Microsoft Teams on your computer or mobile device to answer calls placed to your university phone number.
Holding meetings with other people
- Teams (https://teams.microsoft.com and the Teams desktop and mobile app)
Teams capabilities also work outside of exclusive team areas. Teams lets you chat with any Teams user at UT and schedule online meetings via email meeting request with any one at UT or outside of UT. Since Teams meetings also have dial-in numbers they can also be used for telephone conference calls (the phone number and conference code appear in the meeting details)
Please see Microsoft Teams for remote work for more information
- Zoom (https://zoom.its.utexas.edu/ and the Zoom desktop and mobile app)
Zoom is a cloud based online meeting service. Its meeting capabilities make it more suitable than Teams sometimes when you have meetings that involve a large number of people or a significant number of people outside of UT Teams users. Zoom is integrated with Canvas, and it is the only meeting tool UT is supporting for remote classes. Departments and individual staff may use either Teams or Zoom for meetings as they wish.
You can find documentation and training on using zoom at:
Faculty should visit https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/instructional-continuity-toolbox for specific information about using Zoom with Canvas.
- UT Teleconference Bridges
The UT phone service offers "Meet Me" telephone only conference calls. Please see Teleconferencing for remote work for more information.
File Sharing and Collaboration
The same cloud storage services you use in the office are also good ways to continue to share files and collaborate on them with others remotely. If you do not currently use a cloud storage service we recommend UTBox. OneDrive is also useful if you specifically want storage integrated with your Office 365 applications.
- UT Box (https://box.utexas.edu)
- Microsoft OneDrive (https://office365.austin.utexas.edu/)
Connecting To Campus Resources From Off-Campus
While off campus, some resources available on the campus network can only be reached by connecting through the university's Virtual Private Network (VPN) service.
Here are some useful links regarding VPN:
- Instructions on using the VPN: https://utexas.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?spaceKey=networking&title=Connecting+to+the+UT+VPN+Service
- Connecting through the VPN via the web: https://vpn.utexas.edu
Many online services such as Office 365, VPN, UTDirect, Workday, etc. require two factor authentication (2FA). Duo is the 2FA application that the university uses. If you need to set up 2FA or change how you have it configured please visit the Duo registration page at https://utdirect.utexas.edu/apps/duo/register/
Relevant University policies
All remote work should comply with existing University policies and state laws including, but not limited to:
Whether working on campus or remotely, all use of UT Austin technology resources must comply with the Information Resources Use & Security Policy and the Acceptable Use & Security Policy Agreement for employees.