NCSSM Employee Communications Options and Best Practices
NCSSM employees have a number of officially-supported communications solutions available to them for communicating the other community members, whether that be colleagues, students, families, or anyone else with whom they conduct the business of the institution.
ITS strongly recommends against utilizing a personal phone, email address, or communications tool for communicating with members of the NCSSM community.
Note: Any business conducted for NCSSM, whether on personal devices and services or institutionally-managed devices and services, will be considered a public record and may be subject to public records requests.
Some of the recommended and ITS-supported options for communications follow below:
Google Workspace applications EVERYONE
Gmail
Gmail is the institutional email system for the entire NCSSM community. All employees, students, and families are given an institutional NCSSM email address, ending with @ncssm.edu, that they can use for correspondence.
Google Chat
Google Chat is an instant messaging platform for the whole of NCSSM. All community members with an NCSSM Google account can use Google Chat, whether that is for direct messaging, group messaging, or Spaces for communication and filesharing.
Google Meet
Google Meet is one of two fully-supported video conferencing platforms at NCSSM (alongside Zoom).
Dialpad MOST
Dialpad is NCSSM’s phone system, and all employees have the option of having an official school phone number. If you require a phone number for doing school business, a Dialpad account and phone line are highly recommended.
Dialpad can be used on your institutionally-provided and personal devices, and is available as an app on iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS.
Traditional desk phones can also be provided for Dialpad users as needed. Just contact ITS to let us know.
Zoom MOST
Zoom is one of the two fully-supported video conferencing platforms at NCSSM (alongside Google Meet).
Institutional mobile phone FEW
A small subset of individuals working at NCSSM have mobile phones and service plans that are purchased and paid for by their departments. For more information, and for requests for new mobile devices and lines, please contact your supervisor and ITS.
ITS recommends using Dialpad on these devices and advertising that number, and not the mobile phone number.