Due to graduation week some Staff may be working from home. Some University systems require the use of the VPN but many do not. In the interest of keeping the VPN below its maximum and capacity and to ensure that those that need access to the VPN have it when needed, please consider if the use of the VPN is essential for the work your are doing.

OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams do not require the use of the VPN to access them and are a great place to store your work.

Please consider the below guidelines when working from home and using the VPN:

  • If you don’t need to use the VPN to access N Drive/Collaborative Fileshare etc then please don’t. Use OneDrive and Team sites wherever possible.
  • You can access Office 365 apps (Word, Excel etc) by logging into https://www.office.com using your University email. Once you enter your details you will be directed to a University of Reading login page which requires your username and password. Once logged in you can access all your apps in a browser or download them on up to 5 devices.
  • If you need to access files then you should copy them to your OneDrive and then log off the VPN. This will free up connections for those who really need it.
  • You don’t need a VPN connection to access your email. You can do this via Outlook on a laptop or via the O365 portal.
  • Log out of the VPN as soon as it is not needed.