Telework Resources for Employees

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Introduction

These pages are designed to provide technical guidance to Kern County Employees who need to work from home.

Notes:

Work at home policies and timecard issues are unique to individual departments and are not covered in these pages.
For general assistance with telework issues, contact your department's technical support.
For feedback on the content of these pages (e.g., to report errors or suggest additions), email webteam@kerncounty.com.
Special thanks to Jim Isbell at the Assessor’s Office for providing some of this content.

Getting Started

Prep Work for Using Your Home Devices for Work

Note: if you’re not comfortable doing these changes on your home computer, contact your department's technical support.

Computers/laptops:

Make sure your home computer has Windows 10 (or a recent version of MacOS) with the latest patches/updates.
Make sure that your computer has up-to-date antivirus software installed, such as McAfee or Norton or Windows Defender
If you do not already own a copy of Microsoft Office, and if your Department Head has approved using the County’s Office 365 license on personal devices, you can install it on your home computer under the County’s Office 365 license, which allows for installations on up to five devices for each named license. This is to be installed for work purposes only. How to do so: go to https://www.office.com/?auth=2 and sign on with your Windows username and password, then click the Install Office button at the top right of the screen.
Identify the resources you need to access and see if you can get to all of them without connecting to your work computer – the sections below spell out how to get to various resources and how to request access to your work computer.

Tablets/phones:

If you want to use these devices for work purposes, you can install the following:

The Outlook email client; alternatively, you can attach your work email account to the built-in mail client on your device.
Microsoft office applications if your Department Head has approved using the County’s Office 365 license on personal devices
Microsoft Teams

Saving files

Do not save any work-related files on your home computer. If you have questions, contact your department's technical support.

Pages You May Want to Bookmark

https://portal.kerncounty.com - this page allows you to access certain resources that are inside the County network without have to access your work computer.
https://www.office.com/?auth=2 - this is the menu that contains all of the Office365 resources including Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint sites, Teams, Word, Excel, etc.

What can I access from my home computer/phone?

Resources You Can Definitely Access From Your Home Computer

Resource	How to Get There
TRACs/Time Entry	Go to portal.kerncounty.com Sign in using your Outlook email and password (NOT your AuditorNet user name/password) Once you’re signed in, on the menu page click or tap AuditorNet and then sign into that site using your normal AuditorNet user name and password.
Other AuditorNet Resources	Use the same procedures as above to get to AuditorNet. If the section of AuditorNet that you are trying to use does not work properly, you can do two things: Report the issue to your department's technical support. See the section below about connecting to your work computer from home.
CountyNet	Go to portal.kerncounty.com Sign in using your Outlook email and password (NOT your CountyNet user ID and password) Once you’re signed in, on the menu page click or tap CountyNet.
Email	Go to https://outlook.office365.com/mail/inbox Click Sign in Sign in using your Windows user account
SharePoint Sites	Go to https://www.office.com/?auth=2 Sign in using your Windows user account Click the SharePoint icon near the top of the page.
Microsoft Teams	Go to https://www.office.com/?auth=2 Sign in using your Windows user account Click the Teams icon near the top of the page. Note: you can also install the desktop version.
OneDrive Files	Go to https://www.office.com/?auth=2 Sign in using your Windows user account Click the OneDrive icon near the top of the page.
Voicemail	To get to your voicemail from any phone: Call 661-868-5588. Press # to access your mailbox. Enter your 5-digit extension followed by #. Enter your voicemail password. Follow the remaining prompts. If you need to access Web Voicemail Login and Telephone Resources (https://voicemail.co.kern.ca.us/) see the section below about connecting to your work computer from home.

Resources You MAY Be Able To Access from Your Home Computer

Resource	How to Get There
Your department's Intranet site Other department specific applications/sites (E.g., Footprints for ITS, internal Accela resources for PSB and Fire)	Go to portal.kerncounty.com Sign in using your Windows user account If the resource you’re looking for is not listed, contact your department’s technical support to see if they can request to have it added. In some cases this may not be feasible and if that’s the case see the section below about connecting to your work computer from home.

What can I access ONLY from my work computer?

The following is a list of things you can ONLY access from your work computer:

Files located on your work computer.
Files located on your department's file server.
Some resources on AuditorNet.
- The portal.kerncounty.com option above works for some resources on AuditorNet, but not all.
Any departmental Intranet sites and other internal department-specific applications/sites that are not listed on the portal.kerncounty.com menu
Web Voicemail Login and Telephone Resources (http://voicemail.co.kern.ca.us/)

How can I access my work computer from home?

Overview:

Accessing your in-office work computer from home is a two-step process.

You need a VPN account/connection. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, and it’s a way to allow a secure connection to another network (In this case, the County's network) over the Internet.
Once you have used your VPN username and password to connect to the County network, you will then be able to connect to your work computer remotely using Remote Desktop Protocol, or RDP. Detailed instructions for doing so are below.

Requirements:

You must have been issued a device by the County. Accessing your work computer can only be done from a County-issued device.

How to Get Access:

If you feel that you need to access your office work PC, the process is:

Ask your direct supervisor to request a VPN account for you.
If your supervisor approves the request, they will put in the request and provide you with your VPN Account information.

How to connect once you get your VPN account

Tips and Tricks/Troubleshooting