New myVCU -- What's Changed?

In 2004, we introduced the first myVCU Portal to the University. On August 6, 2009, we updated to a new myVCU Portal. While much is the same, there are some significant differences and enhancements, including:

1. The myVCU Portal now consists of two portals: Standard and Custom
2. The tabs are now the same for all members of the VCU community
3. Many of the Gadgets have been improved
4. eServices was relocated
5. Many new features are available for customization 
6. The myVCU Portal utilizes the VCU Central Authentication Systems (CAS) for login

Two Portals: Standard & Custom

The original myVCU consisted of one portal with a couple of fixed gadgets (Alerts and Portal Notice) and the remaining gadgets could be added or removed from any tab. The new myVCU consists of two portals, Standard and Custom. The Standard Portal allows the user to customize individual gadgets but is completely fixed in terms of gadget location, tabs, etc. For the Custom Portal, a user can customize gadgets as well as layouts and tabs. To learn how to do this, please refer to the portal help for the Standard Portal Help and the Custom Portal Help.

Tabs

Each member of the VCU Community is now given four tabs: Home, University Life, Library and Community as their fixed configuration for the Standard Portal and as their starting point for the Custom Portal. The main difference between the original portal and the new portal is that all the Life tabs (student, faculty and staff) are combined into one University Life Tab. When using the Custom Portal, you can rearrange, rename, add, and delete tabs. To learn how to do this, please see Custom Portal Help.

eServices was relocated

The eServices tab was eliminated and is replaced by a single sign-on link in the Resources gadget located in the upper left hand corner of the Home Tab.

Gadgets

Many of the gadgets have been improved as well the ability to add more gadgets to a page or relocate a gadget within a page.

Weather

In the original portal, you had to know the zip code to change the city of the Weather gadget and it only worked for US cities. The new Weather gadget allows you to type in the city name to obtain its forecast; it also now includes many international cities such as Doha and Paris.

Links

Formerly known as Favorites, the Links gadget allows you to add, delete, and update links to your favorite web sites. Now to reorder your favorites, you simply need to hold your cursor down on a link and drag it to its new location.

New Features

Many new features have been added such as:

• drag and drop relocation of gadgets within a tab
• ability to change a tab layout (e.g. from two to three columns)
• ability to set a particular tab as the default when you log in
• in line help for each gadget by clicking the (?) in a gadget title bar

To learn about these new features and much more, please view the Portal Help.

VCU Central Authentication System

VCU students, faculty and staff will use the university’s Central Authentication Service (CAS) to log into the new myVCU portal. VCU CAS provides a centralized, easy-to-use and consistent login interface to university Web applications. Users can log into the system knowing that their VCU login information is encrypted and secure.