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University Systems and Networking

University Systems and Networking (USAN) oversees the University's Data Centers and Wired / Wireless Network. We support both the Metropolitan and Florham campuses, as well as our international campuses in Vancouver and Wroxton. USAN enables the access, flow and storage of information within the University while defending our network against all threats and maintaining the integrity of our data.

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Managing Distribution Groups in Office 365

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A Distribution group (formerly known as mailing list) in Office 365 is a uniquely named email address that consists of multiple users and is managed by a designated owner. Distribution groups are intended to easily facilitate ongoing communications between a large and relatively fixed group of people.

There are a few important concepts to understand about distribution groups before we get started with group management:

  • Emails sent to a distribution group are distributed to all members of that distribution group.
  • Only users granted permission by the Distribution Group Owner can send emails to a particular distribution group.  Permission to post (send emails) to a group is managed by USAN, and Group Owners should open a ticket with the Fairleigh Dickinson University Technical Assistance Center (UTAC) to change members that can post to the group.
  • A distribution group can be configured in such a way that emails sent to it can be held for approval and specific users can be made approvers (also known as moderators).
  • A distribution group has a unique email address attached to it. Users granted permission to send email to this email address can do so from any email client such as Outlook on the Web or Outlook installed in your computer, laptop, tablet or phone, Mozilla Thunderbird, Mac Mail and more.
  • You can request a distribution group by submitting the Distribution List/Shared Mailbox Request form located at FDU Forms Portal.
  • As a Distribution Group owner, you can change the group’s settings via the group’s management page on your Office 365 account (Outlook on the web).
  • As a Distribution Group owner, you can add or remove members (recipients) from your group via your group’s management page. This can be accomplished via Outlook on the web or by using the Outlook application installed on your machine.
Adding and Removing Distribution Group Users in Outlook for Windows
  1. Open “Outlook” on your computer
  1. Open “Address Book

You can open Address Book in two different ways:

  • One way is to click the “Address Book” icon located at the top when “Home” tab is selected:
  • The second way is by composing/creating a new email and clicking the “To” button:
  1. Select “All Distribution Lists” from the drop-down menu located under Address Book:
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  1. Select “More Columns” and enter the name or email address of your distribution group in the search field as shown in the first screen capture below. If you see your distribution group on the list, highlight it and double click it. If you do not find your list using “More Columns”, then it might be easier to find by using the “Name only
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  1. Click on “Modify Members…
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  1. If you want to remove a member, then select the member from the members list, click “Remove” button and then click “OK
  1. If you want to add a member, click “Add” button
  1. Select “More columns” and enter the new member’s name in the search field
  1. You should see the user in the list. Select “Name only” to search again if you are unable to locate the user. Once you have found the user, highlight the record and click “OK
  1. Verify that the new member is in the member’s list and click “OK
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  1. Click “Apply” and then click “OK
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Adding and Removing Distribution Group Users in Outlook on the Web
  1. Go to “fdu.edu” in the browser of your choice
  2. Go to “Shortcuts” menu
  3. Click “Office 365 and Email
  4. Sign-in with your NetID and password
  5. Go to online Outlook app by clicking on the “Outlook” icon
  1. Go to Settings by clicking on the “Settings” icon
  1. Click on “View all Outlook settings
  1. Click “General
  1. Click on “Distribution groups

Here you see the list of distribution groups that you belong to and the list of distribution groups that you own

How to open the Configuration page for a particular Distribution Group that you own in Outlook on the Web

  1. Select the distribution group that you would like to make changes to and then click “Edit” (Pencil Icon)
  1. You should see the distribution group configuration page

How to see the list of recipients (members) for this Distribution Group in Outlook on the Web

  1. Click on “membership

How to add recipients (members) to this Distribution Group in Outlook on the Web

  1. Click on “+” icon (Plus Icon)
  1. Click “All Users
  1. Please enter the name or NetID of the user that you would like to add to this distribution group in the search text box
  1. Click “+” button beside the user that you would like to add from the search results (you can search and select more users if you would like)
  1. Click “Save” when you are done

Remove recipients (members) from this Distribution Group in Outlook on the Web

  1. Go to the membership list as shown in Step: 3 How to see the list of recipients (members) for this distribution group
  1. Click on the recipient (member) that you would like to remove

Tip

Press “Control” button while selecting recipient if you would like to select multiple recipients from the list.

  1. To select a range of adjacent recipients on the list, click the first recipient from that part. Now, press the “Shift” key and click last recipient in this part
  1. Click “” button at the top located below the “Members” title
  1. Click “Save” when you are done
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Enabling Distribution Group Moderation and Adding Group Moderators
  1. Follow Step 1 & 2 in “Adding and Removing Distribution Group Users in Outlook on the Web
  1. Click “Message Approval
  1. Check (select) “Messages sent to this group have to be approved by a moderator”.
  1. Click “+” button under “Group Moderators

Note

By default, emails sent to the distribution group will be sent to the group owner for approval if you enable message approval and do not select any moderators.

  1. Click “All Users
  1. Please enter the name or NetID of the user that you’d like to add to this distribution group in the search text box
  1. Click “+” button beside the user that you’d like to add from the search results (you can search and select more users if you’d like)
  1. Click “Save” when you’re done. You’ll be taken to “Message Approval” screen
  1. You can add users’ emails from who do NOT require any approval by clicking “+” under “Senders who don’t require message approval” and following the same process as above
  1. You can choose who should be notified when an email sent to this distribution group has been held for approval -or- you can choose to disable these notifications as shown:
  1. Click “Save” again on “Message Approval” screen

Note

An email will NOT be held for approval from a group moderator who is allowed to send emails to the distribution group.

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Microsoft 365 Group Expiration Policy

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Unused Teams and Groups can accumulate and become a burden to resources over time. To prevent this from happening, Fairleigh Dickinson University has implemented an expiration policy for Teams and Groups. This article will explain the expiration policy and provide you with information regarding renewal.

What is the FDU expiration policy for Teams and Groups

  1. Any Team or Group inactive for 365 days or more will expire
  2. Team and Group owners will be notified 30 days, 15 days, and 1 day before the team’s expiration date

Note

Expiration notices for groups used in Teams appear in the Teams Owners feed.

  1. If the Team or Group is not renewed before expiration, it will be deleted.
  2. The expiration period of 365 days begins at the creation of the Team or Group, or the date it was last renewed

Note

When the policy goes into effect, all groups that have already passed the 365 days period will expire. Affected group owners will be notified to renew.

How to renew a Team or Group

There are two methods to prevent the Microsoft 365 group from being deleted.

  1. The group owner can manually renew the group by clicking the button in the warning message
  1. A member of the group can perform a monitored user activity:
    • SharePoint: view, edit, download, move, share, or upload files (viewing a SharePoint page does not count as an action for automatic renewal)
    • Outlook: join or edit group, read or write group messages from the group, and like a message (Outlook on the web)
    • Teams: visit a teams channel
    • Yammer: view a post within a Yammer community or an interactive email in Outlook
    • Forms: view, create, or edit forms, or submit a response to a form
  2. When the team owner receives the expiration notification, go to the Team’s group “Manage team” option and click on Renew now as shown below

Whenever the Microsoft 365 group is renewed by any of the methods mentioned, the group’s lifetime will be extended for another period of 365 days.

What are Microsoft 365 Groups

Microsoft 365 groups are created from a variety of tools including Outlook, SharePoint, Planner, and Teams. Microsoft 365 groups allow you to choose a set of people to collaborate with. You can use Microsoft 365 groups to communicate with others, share files, and apply permissions to shared resources.

Who are Group Owners

When a Microsoft 365 group is created, the person creating the group is designated as the owner. After adding members to the group, the primary owner can also promote other members to owner status. We suggest that when practical, Microsoft 365 groups have at least 2 owners. This can be important as only the group owner will receive the warning messages. In some cases, the group owner may have removed themselves from the group or left the university entirely. If you find yourself a member of a Microsoft 365 group without an owner, please contact support by creating a SAMI Support Request.

Groups without Owners

Ownerless or orphaned Groups may be deleted by USAN. USAN will notify Group members prior to deletion, but if they receive no response, the Group will be deleted. If USAN deletes a Group, all the records associated with the Group’s shared space will be deleted as well

Automatic Renewal

Groups that are actively in use are renewed automatically setting the days to zero. Any of the following actions will auto-renew a group:

  • SharePoint – view, edit, download, move, share, or upload files. (Viewing a SharePoint page does not count as an action for automatic renewal.)
  • Outlook – join the group, read or write group messages from the group, and like a message (Outlook on the web).
  • Teams – visiting the Teams channel.

Recover Deleted Teams or Groups

When the 365 days limit hits, the Microsoft 365 group will expire and be put into a “Soft-deleted” state. Which means it can still be recovered for up to 30 days. To have the Microsoft 365 group recovered please contact support by creating a SAMI Support Request and include the Microsoft 365 group or Team name to be recovered.

Where to Get Help

For assistance with Microsoft 365 groups, please contact support by creating a SAMI Support Request. We can answer questions about the expiration policy, renewing groups, and updating group owners.

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Microsoft 365 Quarantine Support

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Spam Quarantined Email

Microsoft 365 email has filters to protect users from spam and malicious emails like phishing scams.

Messages caught by the filters are placed in quarantine for Fairleigh Dickinson University and its users’ protection. Users will receive a Spam Notification message once a day, notifying them of any messages placed in quarantine. Any legitimate mail caught by mistake can be released directly from this message or from the quarantine portal.

Warning Warning

Mail left in quarantine will automatically be deleted after 15 days.

Handling Quarantined Email

Legitimate messages placed in quarantine may be released into your inbox in one of two ways:

  1. From the daily spam notification email message

If you receive mail that has been placed in quarantine, you’ll receive an email message from quarantine@messaging.microsoft.com. The message will look like the one below:

Note

You will only receive an email if you have items in quarantine.

The following options will be available to you by clicking the respective links in the email notification or you can choose to do nothing.

  • Review Message – go to the Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Center to review it
  • Release – the message is removed from quarantine and placed in your inbox
  • Block Sender – add the sender to the Blocked Senders list in your mailbox
  1. From the Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Center

Quarantined email can also be handled in the Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Center.

  1. Go to Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Center >
    • A list of your emails in quarantine will be displayed
  2. Click on any message to select it, then choose from the options given:
    • Release message
    • Preview message
    • View message header
    • Block Sender

For more details, use this link:

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Microsoft Office 365 Apps

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Microsoft Office 365 offers a comprehensive set of software tools that facilitate documentation, collaboration, and communication. These tools are available on the Web or as downloadable desktop Office 365 apps.

Below is a list of articles for each of the available tools in the Microsoft Office 365 environment. Each article contains information on what each application is and training on how to use them.


Outlook

Outlook allows you to connect and stay organized with your email, calendar, and contacts all in one place.


Word

Word allows you to collaboratively view, edit, and create high-quality shared documents.


Excel

Excel is the industry leading spreadsheet program, a powerful data visualization and analysis tool.


PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a slideshow presentation program that’s part of the Microsoft office suite of tools. PowerPoint makes it easy to create, collaborate, and present your ideas in dynamic, visually compelling ways.


Teams

Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines persistent workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration. Here you will find documentation on how to install and use Teams and all its features.


OneNote

OneNote is a cross-functional digital notebook. You can organize different notebooks into sections and pages with easy annotation and navigation tools.


OneDrive

OneDrive and Microsoft 365 make it easy to access, share, and collaborate with your classmates or co-workers on files from anywhere within FDU.


Lists

Lists you can Build and share lists to help you track issues, assets, routines, contacts, inventory, and more. You can get started with Microsoft Lists from Microsoft 365, from MS Teams or from within SharePoint.


Yammer

Yammer is a collaboration tool that helps you connect and engage across the company. You can share information across teams and organize projects. Only your coworkers can join, so your communications on Yammer are secure and visible only to people within your organization.


Power Apps

Power Apps is a suite of apps, services, connectors, and data platform that provides a rapid application development environment to build custom apps. Using Power Apps, you can quickly build custom apps that connect to data stored throughout Microsoft 365.


Power Automate

Power Automate is a service that helps you create automated workflows between apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data and more.


Power BI

Power BI is a business analytics solution that lets you visualize your data and share insights across your organization or embed them in your app or website. It allows connections to hundreds of data sources and generate live dashboards and reports.


Planner

Planner makes it easy for your team to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share files, chat about what you are working on, and get updates on progress.


Bookings

Bookings offers a simpler way to organize schedules and manage appointments. Microsoft Bookings includes a web-based booking calendar and integrates with Outlook to optimize your calendar and give your contacts the flexibility to book a time that works best for everyone involved.


Forms

Forms is an app that lets you create surveys, quizzes, and polls to collect real-time responses from students, collaborates and colleagues. It has built-in analytics to evaluate responses, and export results to Excel for additional analysis or grading.

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Microsoft Office 365 Suite for Students

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The Microsoft productivity suite subscription includes Office for the Web, stand-alone, downloadable Office 365 desktop clients and mobile apps. Included in the Microsoft Office suite of products are

  • Microsoft Word
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft OneNote
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft Publisher
  • Microsoft Access

Available Platforms

  • Windows
  • Mac
  • iOS, Android, Other Devices
  • Browsers – Current versions of Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Internet Explorer

Eligibility

  • Current students that are registered for classes for the current term or a future term.

How to Install Microsoft Office 365 Pro Plus

Current students can download the latest version of Microsoft Office free of charge as part of the Microsoft Campus Agreement:

Microsoft Office Suite can be installed on up to five devices.

Note: Students leaving Fairleigh Dickinson University (by graduating or otherwise) will need to purchase Office to continue using it. You will be prompted by Microsoft to purchase Office the next time you launch the software. If you don’t purchase Office, you will still be able to open the documents you created but won’t be able to edit them or create new documents.

  • Office 365 Pro Plus can be installed on Windows 10
  • Office 365 Pro Plus can be installed on Mac OS 10.13.6 (Sierra) or higher.

Steps

  1. Visit the Office Portal
  1. Enter you FDU NetID and then click “Next”. This will re-direct you to the FDU SSO login page.
  1. Enter your FDU NetID and then click sign in.
  1. In the Software window, click Office. Then click the Install button.
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  1. The software will be downloaded and installed on your computer. Your copy of Microsoft Office remains active until you leave the University, at which point, you will either need to uninstall it or purchase a license key.

NOTE: Any computer with Office 365 Pro Plus installed on it must connect to the Internet at least once every 30 days so the status of your subscription can be verified. If you do not connect to the Internet every 30 days or less, Office 365 will go into reduced functionality mode. Once the computer reconnects to the Internet and the subscription status is verified, all features will become available again.

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Office 365 Training Guide

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Introduction to Office365

Fairleigh Dickinson University uses Office365, a new E-mail system that greatly expands the quota of data stored per user and features enhanced services such as Word Online, Excel online and PowerPoint online. Office365 service can be accessed via office365.fdu.edu from a web browser, or a configured mail client such as Outlook or Thunderbird.

The manual available for download below is intended to assist users with an FDU email address and non-FDU issued equipment to migrate their e-mail account to Office365.

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FAQ
  • An alias is an additional email address that will direct mail to your FDU email account. Creating an alias for your account can be a useful strategy. For instance, if you are spearheading a project, it may be easier to solicit replies to an address that contains the name of the project than it would be to garner responses to your existing email address. If this solution interests you, please fill out the Email Alias form.

  • Due to the cavernous email storage offered on the Office365 platform, there has been little to no demand for FDU staff and faculty members to request an increased mail quota. Office365 email provides enough capacity for even our most prolific users. However, if special circumstances make you the exception to this rule, you can request a quota increase by completing the Quota request form.

  • FDU’s Acceptable Use Policy prohibits running software that accepts incoming connections from other computers. Programs such as BitTorrent or other P2P file sharing hosting program all contain server components that allow others to connect to your computer and retrieve files from your system. In addition to the legal implications of sharing copyrighted materials, file sharing software creates a security concern. Improper use of these programs could result in the compromise of your private files and may leave your system open to attacks from other computers. To view FDU’s stance on this issue in its entirety, please view the document below. 

  • Phishing involves the use of e-mail messages that appear to come from your bank or another trusted business in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The phishing e-mail typically ask you to click a link to visit a Web site, where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers

    How to spot a phishing scam

    Scammers have become increasingly sophisticated in creating fraudulent emails and Web sites that look authentic. These emails and Web sites often appear to be from legitimate companies and include images and logos of these organizations.

    If you are unsure if any email you receive is a phishing scam, please contact the UTAC at (973)-443-8822.

  • The Network ID (NetID) is a Windows Active Directory account uniquely assigned to each student, faculty & staff. It serves as your login to many computing and networking services including FDU Email.

  • FDU’s Opus is a Red Hat Linux based server. Opus provides an environment for FDU students, staff, and faculty to practice using software such as:

    • Expect
    • Gcc
    • Gzip
    • Aspell (Ispell replacement)
    • Java (Now 1.8.0_181)
    • Make
    • Ncurses
    • Tcl
    • Tcsh
    • Tcl/Tk
    • Strace (Trace)
    • Emacs
    • Bison
    • Nano (Formerly Pico)
    • Perl
    • LaTeX
    • A2ps
    • Links (Lynx Alternative)

    If you require access to Opus, please fill out the form.

  • In order to provide a safe and stable computing environment, the FDU-Wireless and FDU-Secure wireless networks require NetID authentication. However, in certain instances our students, staff and faculty members will need to work on campus with people from outside of our community. This can include vendors, contractors, visiting scholars, or even a visiting family member or friend. In these instances, the FDU community member can sponsor a guest for temporary wireless access.  The sponsor of a guest account will be responsible for the actions of his or her guest. Please ensure that your guest(s) follow FDU’s Acceptable Use Policy for Computer Usage

  • In order to provide a safe and secure network environment, FDU IT requires devices to authenticate to the FDU network before connecting. This works well for computing devices such as desktop computers, laptop computers, and mobile devices such as tablets and phones. Most other electronics, including gaming consoles and streaming video boxes, cannot properly authenticate to the network. In these instances, we ask you to register the device using the online form below. Please note that each user on our network is entitled to register up to 5 devices.

Staff Directory
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Anthony Licandro University Systems and Networking Senior Network Operations Manager
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Charles Ciccotto University Systems and Networking Operations Manager
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Christopher Bland University Systems and Networking Systems Manager Lead
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Christopher Robley University Systems and Networking Director of Systems
CP
Cory Palacios Merino University Systems and Networking IT Assistant – Vancouver
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Danovan Golding University Systems and Networking Senior System Technology Manager
ER
Estref Resuli University Systems and Networking Technician Operations – Vancouver
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Karl Henry University Systems and Networking Senior Desktop Engineer
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Kevin Atkinson University Systems and Networking Systems & Network Infrastructure Manager – Vancouver
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Michael Reekie University Systems and Networking Director of Networking
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Stuart Alper University Systems and Networking Associate Vice President
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Torence Bobbitt University Systems and Networking Tier 1 Technician