Welcome to Lowell Observatory
We hope you find this Field Guide helpful. This guide is maintained by IT, so feel free to reach out to us if you want to add, change, or modify contents.
NOTE: HCPS = Hendricks Center Science Planetary and SB = Slipher Building
Accounts and Passwords
We used Microsoft Active Directory to create your Lowell account (email). To learn more, visit our Accounts and Passwords page.
TwoFactor Authentication on email
Starting Feb. 1, 2022, all staff with a Lowell email account will need to enable TwoFactor Authentication in accordance with our Cyber Security Insurance. Here's the guide to getting started.
Emergency alerts notification
In case of an emergency, Management will notify staff through email and text messages (optional). In order to receive text messages, you'll need to go to the Emergency Form, sign up and IT will place that into the Emergency Group.
Slack
A tool we used to communicate & collaborate with staff and others. To learn more, visit our Slack page.
RingCentral
It's our VOIP communication tool. It's important that you read through the RingCentral page to understand the usage.
Lowell Vehicle Checkout
This is a Google sheet that staff can access to from a web browser. Be familiar with the Vehicle Usage Policy before checking out a vehicle. There is also a kiosk setup in the HCPS mail room with login credentials placed on the monitor; this is where the vehicles keys are located. Link to 2022 - Lowell Vehicle Checkout.
Lowell Wiki (intranet)
- 2022 Pay Schedule
- 2022 Schedule Holiday
- Departments
- Email Signature
- Mars Hill campus map
- Organization Chart
- Phone List
NOTE: You'll need to be on the Lowell network in order to access the wiki.
Wireless
The broadcast SSID is mars-hill-net. See IT for the passphrase.
Food AKA Free Table
There is a long standing tradition of leaving free food / items you would like to get rid of/share on the counter in the HCPS lobby.
Office Supplies
Random office supplies are kept in the HCPS mail room / printers.
Lowell FUN Groups
IMPORTANT: "Company email lists, including Cafe@lowell.edu, are not an appropriate place for discussion of politics, public policy topics, citizen petitions, and so forth." - Jeff Hall
These are groups (optional) used to partake in fun activities. If you want to be on the group, please email it@lowell.edu.
- cafe@lowell.edu - non-work related place to post about things (please keep it PG13).
- switchfridays@lowell.edu - where staff gathers to play Switch videogames, usually on Friday (now changed to TUESDAY) as the name imply; Todd Gonzales (astrotodd@lowell.edu) coordinate the event
- ramblers@lowell.edu - where staff partake in hikes around Mars Hill. Dyer Lytle (dlytle@lowell.edu) coordinate the event
- mars-hill-redshifters@lowell.edu - mountain bike group rides. Todd Gonzales (tgonzales@lowell.edu) coordinate the event
- volleyball@lowell.edu - usually active during the summer and sometimes into fall season; Dave Schleicher (dgs@lowell.edu) coordinate the event
Lowell HELP Groups
These are groups you can email to to get specific help.
- cartalk@lowell.edu - vehicle related issues
- fixit@lowell.edu - facilities maintenance related issues
- it@lowell.edu - computers related issues, questions, or generals; you can also hit up IT on Slack as well
- hr@lowell.edu - for HR related issues, questions, or generals
Spam/Phish/Scam
- We are asking that users report phishing emails to phish@lowell.edu. We won't respond if you report a phishme scenario until the scenario ends (72 hours post-email delivery), but if there are other reports in between of actual phishes we will respond and let you know what we think. (This is a google group like it@lowell.edu but will let us distinguish these messages more easily).