What's New in PAWS

Over the past weekend, the university upgraded the Cabinet file storage system used by faculty and staff to a new, easier-to-use service. At the same time, we discontinued the Folder file storage service previously used by students and merged that service with Cabinet. Everyone on campus will now have access to the same personal file storage service, accessible through the My Files channel in PAWS.

What's changed?

- One personal file storage system for everyone at the U of S
- Aging hardware replaced with newer, faster equipment
- Disk quotas now start at 2GB and larger quotas can be requested by contacting your local IT support staff or the ITS Help Desk
- New, easier-to-use My Files interface in PAWS
- Microsoft Windows users can restore deleted files or folders using the ‘Previous Versions’ tab built into the Windows Explorer on their desktop (non-Windows users will be provided with a restore console that they can connect to remotely to restore files and folders)
- Service available from off campus, using software that is built into Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh desktops

Students will now see a Cabinet link in the My Files channel (still located on their Home tabs). Faculty and staff will also find the new link on their existing My Files channel located on their Admin Services tabs. You can read more about the new, improved Cabinet file storage service on the ITS website, or, if you need more help, can contact the ITS Help Desk.

As always, we welcome your feedback, so please send us your comments or suggestions.

Posted by PAWS Content and Communications at 01:15 PM | Permalink

You may not recognize your Announcements channel when you next log in to PAWS. Or, if you use the PAWS Bulletin Board channel (below your Announcements channel by default), the new Announcements channel may look somewhat familiar.

We’ve redesigned the Announcements channel to make it easier to use. Like the Bulletin Board, the new Announcements channel allows you to expand your announcements within the channel itself. (No more waiting once you’ve clicked an announcements subject to go to a separate screen, taking you away from your Home tab!) The arrow to the left of each announcement subject now simply expands the message body, where you can read it and delete the announcement if you no longer need it. Clicking the arrow again retracts the message body if you’ve read an announcement but would like to keep it in your Announcements channel until expiry.

Your announcements will now also be categorized; you’ll see the announcement category below the subject and can quickly tell whether it’s college or departmental information; indicates a date or deadline; warns you of an upcoming road closure, etc. If the announcement informs of an emergency situation, the subject and category will appear bright red to draw your attention. (Announcements currently in your channel will be categorized as “General Announcements” if they were sent before the new channel went live, however.)

We hope that you like what we’ve done to this important feature of PAWS. We welcome your feedback, so please send us your comments or suggestions. As always, you can get help with anything PAWS related by contacting the ITS Help Desk.

Posted by PAWS Content and Communications at 05:03 PM | Permalink