Working From Home or Other Remote Locations

Most of the SSCC's resources can be used from any location, so working from home or another remote location is very practical. This article will introduce you to the available tools and point you to Knowledge Base articles that will show you how to use them. Note that for our purposes you are at a "remote location" if your computer is not plugged into the Sewell Social Sciences Building wired network. Thus this article would apply even if you're using the wireless network in the building. Topics to be covered are:

Using Winstat

Logging in to Winstat gives you access to almost all the statistical software available at the SSCC and all the files on the SSCC network. You can also use it to transfer files between the SSCC network and your own computer. This makes it the obvious choice for working from home.

Winstat is a highly convenient tool for working from home, but in the event of a pandemic, extreme weather, or other situation that prompts a large fraction of SSCC members to work from home it's possible Winstat would be overwhelmed. We suggest having a backup plan in case you can't use Winstat. 

  •  If your office computer has the software you need, you can log into it remotely. Note that this needs to be set up ahead of time—we'd suggest doing it now! 
  •  If you need to work with files on the network  but have the software you need on your home computer (in some cases just Word), you can get access to your files from your home computer. 
  •  If you need to use statistical software and are comfortable using Linux, you can connect directly to Linstat and run programs there.

Using Linstat

You can log into Linstat from home either by logging in to Winstat and running X-Win32 there, or by connecting directly from your home computer.  Our Guide to Research Computing has instructions for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Using Your Office Computer

It's possible to log in to your office computer from home and use it via "Remote Desktop" or "Screen Sharing." The result is similar to logging in to Winstat, though Winstat will generally give you better performance and stability. However, if you have software on your office computer that is not available on Winstat, connecting to it will allow you to use that software from home. In order to use Remote Desktop, you will need to request that SSCC Staff configure your desktop for remote access.

If your computer is not in the Sewell Social Sciences Building it may still be possible to connect to it remotely, but check with your local IT staff.

Using Files on the SSCC Network

You can use files on the SSCC network from any location by first connecting to the SSCC network using Virtual Private Networking (VPN) and then connecting to the usual network drives.

Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) is an alternative method for accessing files, with SecureFX being our suggested SFTP client for Windows.

If you have questions about working from home, please contact the Help Desk.



Keywordsremote desktop winstat home linstat network drives   Doc ID102704
OwnerAmanda T.GroupSocial Science Computing Cooperative
Created2020-05-31 10:24:00Updated2024-01-03 13:48:19
SitesSocial Science Computing Cooperative
CleanURLhttps://kb.wisc.edu/sscc/working-from-home-or-other-remote-locations
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