Author: Maya Mishra
Maya is a student employee with Technology Services.
For students, faculty and staff at U of I, cloud storage is a small yet mighty tool for organizing everything from coursework to research and even club collaboration. But did you know that all cloud storage isn’t automatically enabled for your NetID? To really take advantage of everything that Illinois offers, you will need to set up your accounts through the cloud dashboard.
Through the cloud dashboard, the U of I offers access to three major platforms (click here to read a more comprehensive article on these):
- Microsoft OneDrive, offering integration with Office 365 applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
- Google Apps @ Illinois, providing access to Google Drive, Gmail and other Google collaboration tools.
- U of I Box, which is a secure storage and collaboration service available to eligible users on all three of University of Illinois’ campuses.
While OneDrive is automatically ready to use from the start, Google Apps and Box accounts require manual activation. The cloud dashboard is the university’s one-stop enrollment portal for these cloud-based applications. You can use it to enable, disable and access your cloud accounts at any time.
Here’s how to get started:
- Visit cloud-dashboard.illinois.edu.
- Log in with your NetID and password.
- You will see a list of applications which are available to you based on your account type.
- To enable access, simply toggle the service to “On”. Depending on the service, you might be asked to agree to a Terms of Service, to which you should answer “yes”.
- To disable a service, click “Off”. No data will be lost, and you are always allowed to re-enable the service later if you wish.
Once enabled, you can navigate directly from the cloud dashboard to the chosen application!
Now why does this matter? Enabling cloud storage ensures that you’re set up for safe file backup and easy access to your documents across devices. Whether you’re sharing your research with your discussion group, submitting assignments, or just simply keeping your files organized, these tools can help to keep everything orderly.
Take a few minutes today to activate your accounts and you’ll thank yourself the next time that you need quick and secure access to your files.