With final grading for some classes finishing up in AARC and all future student information activity having moved to Workday, Simmons Connection will be retiring at the end of October. Quick links to frequently used services are now available on internal.simmons.edu.  Select either “Current Students” or “Faculty & Staff” and scroll down to view various resources that are available to you.

Looking for events?  Navigate to events.simmons.edu in your browser and you will find what’s happening on campus.  You can also reserve a room for meeting or study. 

If you have questions regarding the retirement of Simmons Connection, please contact the Service Desk.

We know that you’ve been waiting for Simmons Connection to be available on mobile devices and we’re happy to announce that we have completed an upgrade that allows for full mobile access.

You can now use Connection, including AARC, by visitingconnection.simmons.edu on any common mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android devices, etc.). We recognize that the lack of mobile access made things difficult for many of our customers, especially students, and we hope that this upgrade makes accessing grades, registration, student billing and other services easier and more efficient.

In addition to the mobile upgrade, we’re also working on a project to enhance the news and announcements section of Connection. This upgrade will allow you to add rich media to announcements, comment and interact, and share listings on Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Based on your feedback, we’re also investigating alternatives to Planga as the event management tool for Simmons. We included Planga in Simmons Connection because it is a free tool and we wanted to test the value of an event management platform for our community. After months of use, it has become clear that Planga does not have the tools that you want nor does it have the technical capacity to fully integrate into Connection. Moving forward, we will assess other products based on criteria that you provided for us over the last six months. As soon as we have more information about when and how we will replace Planga, we’ll send an update to the entire Simmons community.

When Technology launched Simmons Connection in June, we promised that it would be an ongoing project that would be improved over time. During the last four months, we have received invaluable feedback from many members of the community, and we have used your suggestions to begin work on a second phase of Simmons Connection.

Over the next few months, we will be implementing several major improvements, including Moodle integration, a revamped news and announcements section that simplifies the workflow and incorporates sharing and social media, and inclusion of the Simmons directory within Simmons Connection. These changes should have minimal impact on how you use Simmons Connection and we will provide documentation and, as necessary, training on any new features.

During this time, we will also be creating a new Simmons Connection Governance Team, made up of various stakeholders at Simmons, who will help guide future changes by providing perspective on the needs of students, faculty, and staff. If you would like to be involved with this initiative, please contact the Simmons Connection team using this link.

We remain committed to constant, incremental improvement to our services so that they work better for you. Thank you as always for your feedback and patience as we make these enhancements.

With the Fall semester well under way, most students, staff, and faculty have probably used Simmons Connection to access information about classes, events and other campus news. Behind the scenes, Technology is working on the next phase of Simmons Connection. We’re currently mapping out changes and improvements based on your feedback and we will continue to do so as work on this new platform progresses.

We are aware that some features in Simmons Connection have not worked as well as we had originally intended. For example, the revamped menu structure in AARC has caused some confusion and we found that the display of student email was working inconsistently. Your feedback has helped us to identify these issues and subsequently make changes to improve or replace features as necessary.

As we prepare for phase two, we want to keep the lines of communication open with everyone in the Simmons community. If you have problems that you’ve encountered or suggestions for future improvements and upgrades, we encourage you to submit feedback on the Service Desk website using this link. Every comment we receive from you is discussed among the team and we will follow up to let you know when and if we can incorporate your ideas.

Thank you for taking the time to be a part of the ongoing upgrades to technology at Simmons.

To help everyone learn more about using Simmons Connection and Google Apps for Education, Technology will be offering several drop-in workshops throughout September. Just check the dates below, pick one that works for you, and stop by with your questions!

General Technology (ask us anything!)

– Wednesday, September 5th from 9am-1pm in L006 (Lefavour Hall)

Simmons Connection & Google Apps for Education

– Thursday, September 13th from 12pm-2pm in L003 (Lefavour Hall)

– Thursday, September 20th from 10am-12pm in L003 (Lefavour Hall)

– Thursday, September 27th from 1pm-3pm in L003 (Lefavour Hall)

Remember, if you have questions that you need answered right away, you can check the Simmons Connection/Google Apps section on the Service Desk website, or call the Service Desk at 617-521-2222.

In June, we rolled out phase one of Simmons Connection, our new centralized source for technology resources at Simmons. At that time, we let everyone know that Simmons Connection is a platform that will change and improve over time. We want to inform you of a few changes that we’ve already made based on your feedback and to make you aware of additional resources for helping you make the most of Simmons Connection.

One area that we want to make especially clear is that all AARC functionality still exists within Simmons Connection. Some things might be in new places, but we haven’t removed any of the tools you used previously. For example, faculty and advisors can still view course rosters under theAcademic Resources menu, and everyone can access the Course Catalogby clicking on it under the Online Services menu. The new course catalog displays full information about each course being offered, as well as enrollment info and the option (if you are a student) to add a course to your Preferred Sections List while viewing the course description.

We have also made several changes based on feedback we received from you, including improved menu structure in AARC and replacing the Gmail link for students so that it is grouped with other Google Apps in Connection. In addition, we have recently fixed the data feed for the course catalog and corrected an issue that prevented class rosters from printing correctly. These are just a few of the improvements, small and large, that we’re continuing to make based on your input.

If you are having trouble using Simmons Connection, you can always call the Service Desk at 617-521-2222. In addition, our project website offers step-by-step instructions and short video tutorials on many aspects of Simmons Connection. This fall, we will be offering even more training sessions as everyone returns for the start of a new semester. We’ll be announcing the dates and times of these trainings soon.

For now, we hope you’ll continue to provide feedback on Simmons Connection, and we will continue to make updates and improvements to improve your experience.

In recent months, the Simmons Technology team has been hard at work on a new centralized platform that integrates many of the technology services offered at Simmons. This new product, called Simmons Connection, will be available to everyone at Simmons on June 4th.

We’ve kept the best of what the existing portal (My.Simmons) had to offer and added new services like email and event management. We’re most excited about two brand new features: Planga and Mox. Planga is a new event and group management tool that will make keeping track of your upcoming events easier than ever. Mox is a mobile app that will give you one-touch access to many Simmons Connection features. You can use it to view announcements, search the directory, and quickly navigate to upcoming events on Planga.

We also want you to know that, while email will look different for students, they will still have Simmons email addresses and the changes to email will not affect how students interact with professors or staff members.

While many technology services are already available in this first iteration of Simmons Connection, we do want you to know that it is a living, evolving platform that we will continue to refine and improve by making incremental changes over time. Like many of our projects, the creation and rollout of Simmons Connection has been rooted in a philosophy of continuous changes to functionality and usability based on your feedback. Accordingly, there is a prominent feedback link within Simmons Connection and we hope that you will use it to provide your thoughts and, in turn, help guide the decisions and changes we make.

We will be working this summer to include new features and improve the overall functionality of Simmons Connection. To keep you up to date on new developments, we have created a project website where you can find out more information about Simmons Connection and get access to some of the most common questions about how to use it. You can find it at project-connection.simmons.edu.

You spoke, we listened.

In order to create a better and more useful one-stop location for Simmons information, we have begun a project to replace MySimmons. The new system, called Simmons Connection, will improve on the existing portal and add new features, such as email integration, collaboration tools, and, soon, integration with Simmons Moodle.

In January, we sent a survey to students asking what you liked about MySimmons and what you would like to see changed or added to a new system. Based on this feedback, we began designing Simmons Connection from the ground up with your needs in mind. For example, we are working to add features you requested, such as a combined calendar/course schedule, as well as access to other Simmons services without having to log in separately.

In addition to building the Simmons Connection, we are also designing mobile apps so you can access this information from any device.

Simmons Connection will be available to students beginning Summer 2012. As soon as it’s ready, we’ll send an announcement along with information about new features and how to use them.

And don’t worry, Simmons Connection isn’t just for students. We will soon be sending a separate survey to faculty and staff to find out what features you want and need and we’ll then begin designing a version of Simmons Connection just for you.