Media Services » Event Support

Media Services Office Closed

Matt Dobosenski — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:25:29 +0000

This is a notice that the Media Services Office will not be open this coming Friday, June 12. Our staff will be providing support for the SouthWest MN Synod Meeting on campus. Please plan accordingly.

Media Services staffing limited, please make an appointment

Matt Dobosenski — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:25:34 +0000

This a notice that Walk In office hours at Media Services will not be available the week of May 26th through May 31st. This is largely do to the fact that our office is mostly staffed by student workers who are finishing up courses and leaving for the summer break, and those who are still around will be assisting in the preparation for the upcoming Commencement and Reunion Celebrations.

Please contact Matt Dobosenski directly to set up an appointment for someone to assist with your need so that we can assure the access to the individual/ service you need, while having the flexibility to complete the work that needs to be done.

Matt Dobosenski will not be available on Monday as it is the Memorial Day holiday.

Office closed during break

Matt Dobosenski — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:21:46 +0000

Just a quick reminder to all that the Media Services office will be closed for the duration of Spring Break as our office is staffed primarily by student workers. Equipment checked out prior to the break is due back on Monday, March 30th. Any submissions for large format printing will be processed once the student staff is back following the customary three business day turn around.

If you have a need that must be addressed during the break, please contact Matt Dobosenski directly to set up an appointment. If your need is less urgent, visit our Virtual Office online at http://mediaservices.gac.edu or email your need to mediaservices@gac.edu and we will address your need as soon as we can one staff returns.

Have a wonderful (and safe) Spring Break.

Media Services billing process

Matt Dobosenski — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:07:09 +0000

A recent number of phone calls with questions about how billing for services works with Media Services has prompted a bit of explanation of what is going on.

First off, Media Services is one of a few departments on campus that does not use the traditional Interdepartmental Invoice system in which an invoice is sent over to the department being charged and that department accepts the charge and provides an account number and sends a copy back to us and we submit that to the Finance Office for payment. Instead, requests are made, with the Requester providing appropriate billing information regarding which department is charged. Services are rendered, and billing is tracked internally using QuickBooks which is used to generate reports that are given to the Finance Office with money being transfered automatically, and PDF’s of Statements and Invoices being sent to the Budget officer or designated account manager on file.

Some things to know:

We have been provided very specific account numbers by the Finance Office that we are to charge departments (typically 00-department account number-71550, which is the object code for “Media Services”) and are only able to charge other accounts if they are Restricted (10-00000000-00000 or 90-00000000-00000) and the account number is provided at the time of request.

We use Quick Books to manage the internal accounts payable tasks that are necessary to do what we need to do. We selected Quick Books because it it flexible enough to do what we need (multi-user, invoicing, statements and basic communication with customers like the ability to email PDFs of invoices and statements) without being overkill (especially in the cost department). Because we use QuickBooks, it is important to know that emails of Invoices etc are sent through the QuickBooks email server, so depending on how closely you look, messages will appear to come from Instructional Media Services, but are actually sent from . These messages are not spam, nor are they fake. When in doubt, feel free to contact us with questions.

Who receives the above emails is based on budget officer information that we receive from the Finance Office. This information was just recently updated because we had been running on information that was several years old. We understand that there are departments that have individuals that manage budgets for the budget officers, so in the event that the information we send out should be CC’d to someone else (most commonly the Department Administrative Assistant) or should just be sent to that person and not the budget officer, we will need to be contacted by the Budget Officer to indicate that is the case, and be provided with the information that needs to be corrected. As people move from one position to the next, or leave and there are new hires, we are not given any information regarding these changes, and instead rely on updates from those who are aware of these changes (instead of just forwarding the emails to someone else, contact us and let us know about the change so we can correct this for future communications).

When in doubt, we are here to answer questions and take suggestions. Thanks for your cooperation and feedback.

gac.edu or gustavus.edu?

Kevin Seitz — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:44:57 +0000

There is no doubt that community members are familiar with both the gustavus.edu and gac.edu domains. The gac.edu is most commonly used on campus because it is shorter and was established first. At the same time, Gustavus would like to be known as “Gustavus” and not “GAC” to the outside world, so both exist. Appropriate server voodoo has happened over the years to generally support either domain interchangeably. While Media Services generally supports this concept (gac.edu and gustavus.edu are one in the same), VirtualOffice and your web browser would like to disagree.

Long story short: you should access VirtualOffice by visiting http://mediaservices.gac.edu.

Here’s why: VirtualOffice uses an encrypted connection to send web page data to you (and keep your information safe!) In order to establish a secured connection without your web browser freaking out, the website has to be “something.gac.edu” and not “something.gustavus.edu.” If you were to visit “https://mediaservices.gustavus.edu,” your web browser would complain, so we encourage you to come visit us on line at mediaservices.gac.edu

Media Services VirtualOffice 6

Kevin Seitz — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:49:18 +0000

With summer “break” ending in a month, Media Services is still hard at work on VirtualOffice 6, the successor to our current version. After using version 5 for over a year and collecting some much-appreciated feedback from students, faculty, and staff on campus, we have learned a great deal about how VirtualOffice helps everyone using our variety of services. In addition, we’ve found several ways we can improve.

This year, we plan to set up a notification system which sends reservation confirmations and due date reminders to your Gustavus e-mail account. In addition, we are redesigning the check-out system to include a larger variety of our audio-visual equipment, but also to allow for more flexible organization. (For anyone interested, we’re setting up the system such that we track all of our assets in our office by location and barcode — pretty sweet!)

Finally, we are updating the large format printing form to accomodate our new printer and make it easier to select inks and media. The new upload system will prevent your request from being lost if too many files are uploaded. We will also be including a quick cost estimator in the near future.

Overall, we are pretty excited for all the changes we are making. If you have any suggestions for our newest version, please let us know! Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

The current version Media Services VirtualOffice can be accessed at (version 6 will become accessible to the public mid August for Public Beta testing at this same address):

http://mediaservices.gac.edu

Office closed over break.

Matt Dobosenski — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:52:57 +0000

Just a quick reminder to all that the Media Services office will be closed for the duration of Spring Break. Those individuals that require access to equipment during this time should make sure that their reservation (and check out of the reserved equipment) is for Thursday March 20. Equipment checked out on Thursday will be due back on Monday March 31. Any submissions for large format printing will be processed once the student staff is back following the customary three business day turn around.

If you have a need that must be addressed prior to the break, please visit our Virtual Office online at http://mediaservices.gac.edu or email your need to mediaservices@gac.edu

Have a wonderful (and safe) Spring Break.

Event support request form added.

Matt Dobosenski — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:22:59 +0000

Tis the season (for events). Spring Semester is known (at least in our office) for a high volume of Department and Organization events ranging from guest lecture series, to conferences (Building Bridges, Mayday! etc). Most of these events will require assistance from Media Services in some form or another, so we are working on standardizing how event support requests are submitted to our office to ensure a consistent method of responding and following up on these requests. In the past we have received a wide range of requests in various forms ranging from an informal hallway conversation, or email, to very detailed requests for services that arrive on official letterhead and have been CC’d to half the administrative council. The two main problems we were having is that these requests were coming in last minute (making it difficult to align resources with the needs), and the details being provided were often incomplete (believe it or not people have asked for help, and failed to indicate when and where they need the help).

This new form is located within the Media Services Virtual Office. You can access this system by going to http://mediaservices.gac.edu (you might want to bookmark this location as there are many other useful features located here also). You will be redirected to a secure log in page. The log in credentials are the same as your Gustavus username and password (so the same as email). Once you log in, the Campus Menu on the left has a link for “Event Support Request” (see image to the right).