Information and Technology Services is upgrading MCommunity, the university’s online directory, to make it easier to use, enhance privacy and security, and offer features that have been commonly requested by the campus community.
The updated directory will be available July 31.
Members of the university community will be able to add personal pronouns, a name pronunciation using NameCoach, a profile photo, and a preferred name to their profile in the updated directory. Profile pages also will allow individuals to add a QR code with their desired level of personal information to ease sharing of contact information.
The directory will be mobile friendly and work on all ITS-supported browsers, devices and screen sizes. In addition, more granular profile settings will give individuals more control over their own privacy.
“Needs and expectations have changed since ITS launched MCommunity 10 years ago,” said Ravi Pendse, vice president for information technology and chief information officer. “Our team designed the new directory with simplicity and user experience in mind, in order to give staff, faculty, students and alumni more useful features while also raising the bar in terms of privacy and security.”
The updated directory will make it easier to set up and manage away messages for email. Users will be able to include a “start/end date,” an “indefinite end date,” and set a privacy option for who receives their away message.
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All profile changes, including the away message, will now happen in the UMICH Account Management application, which users will be able to access by selecting “Edit my information” from their MCommunity profile. Michigan Medicine staff should continue to set their auto-reply messages from within Outlook.
The updated directory will include new features for MCommunity groups, as well. Large MCommunity groups will be easier to manage with a new, consolidated view of who is permitted to send messages to a group. There also will be an option to send an auto reply in response to incoming messages to the group, and the ability to make sure official groups don’t expire.
Effective July 31, individuals will need to log in with UMICH credentials to view groups and group members in the MCommunity directory.
“You need to log in to search for groups, but you will continue to be able to search for individual people as you do today without being logged in,” said DePriest Dockins, director of ITS Identity and Access Management.
“We’re delighted to provide a greatly improved, mobile-friendly, browser-friendly, accessible and easier-to-use MCommunity,” said Sol Bermann, chief information security officer and executive director of ITS Information Assurance.
