You’re a member of staff at Reading Mencap and you’ve been allocated a new desktop PC or laptop? Want to know what to do so you can use it? Read on …

(Any problems, email john@readingmencap.org.uk or talk to Amanda. Note that this document/web-page is live and will be updated from time to time.)

The PC or laptop will have been mostly set up before it’s passed over to you, but there are still one or two things you should do to complete the process. Already, this device will …

• have Windows 10 Pro installed
• have three local accounts created: admin, office and visitor
• have been joined to the RM Azure Active Directory (a cloud-based secure inventory of Reading Mencap devices)
• have been joined to the local workgroup READINGMENCAP to permit direct access to other local devices in the RM office (if you have a local account on those devices and you are at the RM premises)

You could carry on simply using this device with a local account, like ‘office’ (with the usual password — don’t know it? Ask Amanda), but the device won’t know who you are in the Reading Mencap scheme of things and so won’t automatically hook up to your OneDrive – Reading Mencap cloud storage or other Office 365 features. That’s not the end of the world because you can always separately sign in to Office 365 through a web browser, but it’s a less convenient way of working than if you tell the device (and the cloud) from the outset who you are by signing in with your Reading Mencap workplace account. This gives you what’s called ‘single sign in’.

When this desktop/laptop is passed over to you it does NOT have your own Reading Mencap workplace account set up on it. That is because setting up a workplace user on a new device requires two-factor authentication. That is, the first time you sign in the device will ask for a six-digit verification code that has been sent to your phone.

Signing in with a workplace user account for the first time

Start up the laptop and connect to the local wifi network (click on the wifi icon at the bottom right of the screen). When that’s all done, look at the bottom left of the Windows sign-in screen; it shows a list of recent accounts/users that have signed into this device. Your name won’t be there because you’ve not signed in with it before. So click on Other user. Then enter your RM email address in the username space and your RM email password in the password space. Click the right-arrow go button. Because this is the first time you’ve signed in to this device with this account, the system will prompt you to look at your phone to see the six-digit verification code that Microsoft texts to you. After you’ve entered that code, it will prompt you to devise a six-digit PIN which will be used instead of a password for your future sign-ins.

Thereafter when you want to sign into this device you can simply select your name (eg Josephine Bloggs) from the list of recent users in the bottom left of the Windows sign-in screen and enter your previously chosen 6-digit PIN.

Signing in with a local account

The workplace account should be the normal way you sign in to this device, but there may be times when you want to use a local account, like ‘office’. To do this click on Other user in the bottom left of the Windows sign-in screen. Then, in the box that asks for email address, type the word ‘local’ (no quotes) followed by a backslash character ‘\’ and then the name of the local account you wish to use. Thus, for example, if you wanted to sign in using the local account ‘office’, you would type ‘local\office’ (no quotes). Then type the usual password for this local account. Note that simply typing ‘office’ as the username will NOT work; the device has to be told you want to access a local account by using the style ‘local\office’. Note that the local account ‘visitor’ needs no password but allows only restricted access to the device.

Setting up OneDrive

It might be confusing, but Microsoft has developed two versions of OneDrive — one is a personal/home cloud storage service that gives you 5GB of free space (vaguely like Dropbox), and the other is a business cloud storage service that is integrated into its SharePoint product and provides 1 TB of space. It’s the second one that you want to connect to: OneDrive for Business. Your connection will be associated with your Office 365 account via your RM email address.

You can see the OneDrive icon in the System Tray (at the right of the taskbar at the bottom of the screen). You might need to click on the up-arrow to show hidden icons in the System Tray. At first, the icon is grey, indicating that it is not connected to any account. It may now be connected either to a personal account or to a work account (OneDrive for Business) and you must make sure it’s connected to the latter. Proceed as follows.

Open File Explorer. In the left sidebar you should see a link to OneDrive. Click on it and it will invite you to sign in to create an account. MAKE SURE YOU ENTER YOUR RM EMAIL ADDRESS AND SELECT WORKPLACE ONEDRIVE, otherwise you’ll end up with the wrong type of OneDrive account. When it’s set up the File explorer entry in the left sidebar will show OneDrive – Reading Mencap and the OneDrive icon in the system tray will turn blue.

There’s lots more to say about how to use OneDrive and how to get the best from it, but this document is meant only to cover the initial setting up. The same goes for Office 365 in general.

Using the Olivetti all-singing-all-dancing printer

This document assumes you know what you’re doing under this heading. If you don’t then talk to an experienced staff member or, preferably, Amanda.

What to read next

Want to get the best out of Office 365, SharePoint, OneDrive, Libraries, Email, and so on? There will be links put here to other documents as they are produced. so check back from time to time.