This past week, visitors to hornet.emporia.edu, aka the gateway to Hornet 365 services, saw a visual upgrade. This first step moves us closer to the ultimate goals of Hornet 365 to become the next generation portal for all ESU digital services.What about Buzz In?
The current portal, Buzz In, will be retired in the coming months, but will continue to be operational while we work to add new content and features to Hornet 365.
If YOU build it...
That's right, we want you as a student, faculty, staff or guest of ESU to help us build it! Give us your feedback (you'll see a fancy new button on hornet.emporia.edu) to fill out a short form. Because the new 365 will run in parallel with Buzz In, we're taking the unique opportunity to work collaboratively with groups across campus to help make Hornet 365 better throughout the fall 2018 semester!
What's New?
Hornet 365 has a lot going on under the hood, not least of which is the fact that the authenticated sites (or the parts you DO have to log in to) are powered by Office 365. In addition to FREE Microsoft Office, there are many different services. We'll cover those in future posts, but here are just a few of the new things that are live now:
Hornet Sites - These sites are just like a public website, but you need an ESU userid and password to access them.
g365 - A special service for group emails, sharing files, a team collaboration space, integration with Microsoft Teams and more!
w365 - A place for sharing files with your department, committee or standing group. Just files here, plus it integrates with OneDrive!
OneDrive - Okay, this one isn't new, but there is a feature that is--the ability to intelligently synchronize files to your computer. The OneDrive client is able to determine which files you're using and which one's you're not and only sync the one's you've used recently. All of your files still live in the cloud and are there whenever you need them. This saves on disk space and bandwidth. Right now, this feature is exclusive to Windows. OneDrive gives every ESU student, faculty and staff member 1 TB of file storage space that you can access via Windows/Mac file explorers, web browsers and your Apple/Android mobile device.
Hornet Spaces - this is a new ESU service, or collection of services showing you all of the various maps of ESU. From a details overhead map to a Street View-style 360 service that gives you the ability to virtually walk throughout the entire campus, we've got them all in one place. Plus, don't miss our new site about campus computer labs currently being beta-tested.
Newsstand - Have you ever needed to share a file or document in a way that makes it pleasant to read? Would you like to share it with the public or even embed it into another website? PDF's are boring--why not add some interactive features to your documents? Those are just some of the things that we've made available with the new service called Newsstand. Powered by the popular web service Issuu, Newsstand is available to any ESU department, recognized student group, etc. at no cost.
These are just a sampling of some of the great new things that are coming to Hornet 365! Stay tuned to the blog and our social media for more coverage of the services we've mentioned here and even more in the future!
#MyHornet365
-Brian Osbourn, Director, Web and Digital Strategies
