YU Link, York University’s new intranet for all employees launches June 17.
In a
ddition to offering a dashboard of tools and information meant to make your working life at York University easier, YU Link offers new and interesting ways to stay connected with colleagues and keep informed about what is happening at York University.
A single search bar allows users to search the York people directory, all of YU Link, the York website, Ask HR and library resources.
You can subscribe to news from across the York Community such as stories from Faculties, library blogs and more. If desired, you can also add external sources of news to your feed.
If you’ve ever wondered about a computer conundrum, where the best salads or pizza can be found on campus or you want to find someone who knows how to solve a problem, the aptly named message board “Who Knows How?” offers a question-and-answer section where you can post your question or answer a question posed by someone else on campus.
A tag cloud gives an at-a-glance view of what employees are discussing on YU Link. A personal to-do list and a bookmark portlet offer a great way for you to organize your tasks and online resources. You can add a weather forecast and most popular portlet, which displays the top pages visited by your colleagues and other employees on campus.
As a member of a community numbering some 7,000 staff and faculty, creators of YU Link felt there that enough people would be interested in a free (yes free!) classified advertising section. The classifieds section was one of the ideas that came out of the initial consultations and focus groups with staff. Classifieds are often one of the most popular aspects of corporate intranets. As with all “social” aspects of YU Link, all classified ads will have the names of the posters attached to them.
There are other ways to build your social networks and profile within YU Link. If you deal with a group of people on a regular basis, or through a committee, the My Colleagues section lets you build a list of people who you work with closely.
You can post your own status and see status updates and activities from your York colleagues.
There’s also an opportunity to build your own profile. Similar to what you would create in LinkedIn or on Facebook, YU Link provides a venue where you can add your photograph and some interesting information about yourself to your York directory information. This means that other York employees can get to know you better. You can also browser other profiles to see information about them, such as their colleague lists and their recent contributions to YU Link.
There are a myriad of ways to use YU Link. It offers a powerful way to connect with others, build networks within the York University community and get (and give) help to others.
When YU Link debuts on June 17, most employees with computers supported by University Information Technology will see a link appear on their desktops, while others can go to the Faculty & Staff home page for a link to YU Link. Over the next year, more resources and functionality will be added.
More information about YU Link will appear weekly until the June 17 launch.
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