• You will have an email issued by UNC: first_last@unc.edu

  • You should create an alias using your ONYEN and the unc.edu domain. This will be your primary email. See UNC and Genetics Onboarding page under the "UNC Email" dropdown for more information on the alias system.

• Google Enable your UNC Email: 

  • Everyone needs to Google enable your ONYEN@unc.edu email (your primary email). See the UNC and Genetics Onboarding page under the "UNC Email" dropdown for more information. 

• Email Signature lines: it is encouraged that all TISLab personnel working at UNC use the following signature line template. 

• Note on email forwarding: 

  • Either check both your tislab and UNC accounts regularly, or set tislab to forward to UNC. You are expected to check and respond to both, if you have both. 

  • Note - it is not allowable to forward your UNC email to TISLab email or your TISLab email to a personal gmail account. 

• Subscribe to the All hands TISLab Mailing List and Google Group:

  • Email sarah@tislab.org to subscribe using your primary email address (all notifications). If different from the primary one, also ask to join with your Google enabled address (if different, no notifications).

  • Note that membership in these lists may invite you to pre-existing meetings; it is not the expectation that you attend them all. Talk to your supervisor about what applies to you.

  • Once you have joined, the TISLab Google Group can be found at https://groups.google.com/a/tislab.org/g/allhands 

  • Manage your Google Group Notifications Here. 

    • Choose from "every message, digest, or web-only participation"

    • Unsubscribe from any thread you're not interested in

• TISlab.org email addresses: 

  • All new UNC employees get a UNC email and do not get a tislab.org email address. 

• TISLab, and many of our programs, use Slack for communication. Join the TISLab workspace on Slack to stay connected to the team. 

  • TISLab Slack Work Space

  • Contact Sarah (sarah@tislab.org) to get link to join. 

• Are you new to Slack? Check out the Quick Start Guide here. 

• We encourage you to browse the different channels in the TISLab Slack workspace and join ones that seem interesting to you! A few examples: 

  • Do you live in North Carolina? Join #carolina

  • Do you like animals? Join #pets-and-other-creatures

  • Are you going to be on the Monarch Project? Join #monarch-at-tislab 

• Here are some things to remember when you take vacation or sick leave:

  • Use TIM via https://connectcarolina.unc.edu/ to submit your time off in advance through UNC-CH. See the section "Timesheet & TIM" in the UNC and Genetics Onboarding.

  • Sick leave

    • If you are well enough to do so, set your slack status to "sick" and set up an out-of-office message for your email*

    • In the unlikely event that you are so sick that getting out of bed to log into the system is too much, in this case contact your supervisor as soon as possible by email. For the avoidance of doubt, relay that that you are too sick to log time in the system and will not be doing any work that day. Continue emailing at the beginning of each day of your absence until you feel well enough to log your accumulated leave in the system.

  • Vacation

    • At least one week in advance, set your slack status to "upcoming OOO" with the dates you will be away.* Communicate with your team the days you will be out and request support for items that may need to be completed in your absence. 

    • Set your slack status to "vacationing"* and set up an out-of-office message for your email

    • If on the Monarch project, add your planned OOO time to the shared "Monarch-Holiday" calendar. You gain access to this once you onboard to the project. 

• Importantly: Enjoy your vacation! Or, feel better soon if you are ill. 

* Not sure how to change your Slack status? See here. 

• Being a hybrid / remote team across multiple times zones and countries, it is important to understand communication best practices. Please review our Team Communication Best Practices here: http://tislab.org/team-comms 

• Contact Julie for any questions regarding communication.  

TISLab personnel should read and understand all policies and procedures listed at the top of the TISLab Operations page. Please contact your supervisor if you have any questions regarding these operational documents. 

• Share your contact information. This list is helpful for learning the best way to communicate with team members. 

• Email or Slack Julie to get added to the TISLab Airtable so you can add your contact information there. 

  • TISLab Team Contact List (Airtable)

• We make heavy use of Google Drive for all non PHI documents in TISlab. Step through the tutorial here to familiarize yourself with basic functions.

• Every document you create or edit while a member of TISLab must live in the appropriate shared Google Drive. Not only does this policy make for smooth, efficient collaboration between members, it is a vital means of Data Loss Prevention (DLP). If you are not sure where a document belongs, just ask.

• The list serve subscribed in "Communication: Email" above will confer access to TISLab Team Drive here

• Do you have google folders or docs at your previous institution that you need to migrate over to TISLab Google? Julie developed a nice guide (see this link). When in doubt, ask one of us.

• Add the TISLab shared calendar to you google account. This does not work for UNC enabled Google accounts. If you only have a UNC enabled Google Account you can simply view the shared calendar at the bottom of this page.

  • Go to https://calendar.google.com/ and make sure you are signed in.

  • On the left, above "My Calendars," click “Add” and then click “From URL.”

  • Enter the the following address in the field provided. https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/on97u45869cqrndggskcc199a4%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

  • Click Add Calendar. The calendar will appear on the left side under "Other calendars." You can hide or show it as desired.

  • Note: It might take up to 12 hours for changes to show in your Google Calendar.

• Request membership to TISLab's GitHub organization. 

  • https://github.com/tis-lab 

  • Please set your membership in the TISLab Organization to 'Public.' You can either do this when you first confirm that you are joining the organization or by finding your entry in the list of 'People' that belong to the organization. 

  • The TISLab GitHub Org is used primarily to host the TISLab.org website. Project-level work happens in the project GitHub orgs, rather than in TISLab GitHub org. It's still important everyone on the team is a member of the org. 

  • Ask Sarah for assistance if needed. 

• We are a big group; please do choose a picture or avatar for your GitHub profile in order to help us recognize you at a glance, whether in GitHub or in Slack.

• Update your GitHub notification settings:

  • Log in to GitHub.com

  • Go to github.com/settings/notifications and Unclick "Automatically watch repositories"

  • Go to github.com/watching and unsubscribe from all repositories. You can then go back and select the 1 or 2 you really do want to watch. Note that if you unsubscribe you will still get emails if you're involved (eg. author, assigned, or commenter). "Not watching" is generally the level you want at the repo level.

  • Go to github.com/issues/assigned to see the issues that you are assigned across all of GitHub

• Make a tislab.org custom Zoom Room address.

  • We, remote workers, need this very much. Use your ONYEN to login at unc.zoom.us to access your UNC zoom account (See what an ONYEN is in the UNC and Genetics Onboarding tab).

  • Everyone at UNC gets their own zoom room, but the long URLs can be unwieldy, as can separate passwords for entry. 

  • Follow the directions to get a password-embedded link followed by creating a corresponding tislab branded short link (more detailed directions can be found here) and create a pull request in the GitHub repo. 

  • Aren't sure how to create a PR? Watch the 3-min tutorial video here if you don't know how to make changes to a GitHub file. 

• Note: the tislab.org/xyz redirects can be made for more than just Zoom rooms. Please see the more detailed directions here for more information. 

• Add your details and image to the lab website.

  • Once you are a member of the TISLab GitHub Org (see above), do a Pull Request (PR) to add your details and your image to the lab website. 

  • Don't know how to use GitHub? No problem! Work with your Direct Supervisor or Sarah to add this content.  

• The source of truth for TISLab organizational items such as personnel lists, funding, software, etc, is stored in AirTable. 

• Contact Julie to gain access to the TISLab AirTable database. 

• We want to celebrate YOU! If you'd like to receive a shoutout on your Birthday and/or Workiversay, fill out this form and notify Tursynay you've added your information. 

• Whether you submit your info or not, we encourage you to join the #Celebrations channel in the TISLab Slack 🥳