Penn Community Access Basics

There are a number of requirements for access to the new Penn Community, which fall into two general types:

  1. Approval and training
  2. Technical requirements and information

Approval Requirements

Users requiring access to Penn Community will complete an online access request as follows. Note that this is a temporary process until we can implement the full Service Catalog feature in Penn Community. Individuals should complete this request themselves, as there is a "terms and conditions" statement they must agree to.

Access Request instructions for users requiring PennKey Support access

  1. Make sure you are on PennNet. If off campus, ensure that you are using an appropriate VPN; see Technical Notes below.
  2. Tell your supervisor you are making an access request that will result in email to them (details below in the Supervisor section). The email to supervisors is currently very cryptic (and not easily modifiable) and does not give them instructions. We need you to help point them to the instructions below for supervisors.
  3. Log into https://www.penncommunity.upenn.edu with your PennKey
  4. Click the box that says, “Request Access.”
  5. Enter your Penn ID in the “Search Users” box.
  6. Click the magnifying glass to the right of the box. If you do not remember your Penn ID, you can find the 8-digit identifier in the top right of the screen. The search results should return a box with your Penn ID, PennKey, and name. Click the check mark on this box.
  7. Click “Next” at the bottom of the screen.
  8. Click “Browse all access items” below the image of a pointing hand in the middle of the screen.
  9. Click the check mark on the appropriate role:
    1. If you will be doing PennKey support, please select "PennKey T1 Support Access" (please ignore the T2 option; this was an early configuration that we are not currently using; we're trying to remove it)
    2. If you need view-only access, please select "Penn Community View Access"
    3. PLEASE only select ONE of the two options above.
    4. PLEASE do NOT select any other roles you might see listed.
  10. Click “Next” at the bottom of the screen.
  11. Click the speech bubble on the right side of the screen next to the word “Details”. PLEASE enter a comment with details, like, "I do PennKey support for the Wharton Computing service desk," or "I help HUP Residents reset their PennKey passwords when they forget their passwords." ("I need Penn Community to do my job" is not all that helpful to us; tell us the population and/or the services you support that require access to PennKey support functions in Penn Community. Consider avoiding acronyms we might not understand!)
  12.  Click “Save” when you finished your comment.
  13. Click “Submit” at the bottom of the screen.
  14. Click “Complete Form” on the pop-up window to view the PCOM Access Terms and Conditions. (Enable popups from Penn Community if necessary).
  15. Read and agree to the "Terms of use" statement.
  16. Submit your request by clicking “Submit Agreement.”

Note 1: you will not get a confirmation; you will just be returned to the Home screen. As long as your supervisor gets email you can take it on trust that your request has been submitted.

Note 2: your access will not be granted immediately by the PCOM service team; access will be granted after the Penn Community support team receives notice that your supervisor has approved the request.

Note 3: contractors do not currently have supervisors; their requests are routed directly to the PCOM team. We have *very few* of these by policy but noting here in case someone is expecting to get an approval request email and that email isn't coming.

Approval Instructions for Supervisors

The supervisor of record (as sourced from Workday/University or PennForPeople /UPHS, will need to approve this request online. They will receive email notification of the request, but that message is rather cryptic and the current email template does not include a link. Here are the instructions the supervisor will need to log in and approve the request. NOTE: you may have to have your supervisor go look for the email.

  • From: noreply@upenn.edu.
  • Subject: "Changes requested for <PennID> <PennKey> Last, First require approval" (example: "Changes requested for 12345678, testuser, Smith, Jane require approval")
  1. Make sure you are on PennNet. If off campus, ensure that you are using an appropriate VPN; see Technical Notes below.
  2. Log into https://www.penncommunity.upenn.edu with your PennKey
  3. At the right end of the top menu bar next to the logged in user name, look for a small "bell" icon (there should be a small red number next to it if there are approvals waiting)
  4. Click the bell icon, and select "Approvals"
  5. You should see a request for the person requesting access to Penn Community (there may be more than one, depending on the population you supervise)
  6. Ignore the "Approve All" and "Deny All" buttons immediately under the user's information
  7. Look for the "Approve" and "Deny" buttons on the far right of the access request. Immediately to the left of these two buttons, there is a "speech bubble"; if this has a number beside it, that means there is a comment that you may wish to review. Click on the speech bubble with the number to review the comment
  8. To enter comment a comment of your own, click the "speech bubble" icon immediately above the "Approve" and "Deny" buttons; this should permit you to enter a comment should you wish to do so; this comment will be available to the Penn Community admin team who makes the final approval for access
  9. Click "Approve" to approve the request (or click "Deny" if you don't want this individual to have Penn Community access)

Training Requirements

Training is required for access to be approved. Currently (July/August 2023), training is only available to existing users and email communications have been sent with specific instructions about registering for training.

This information will be updated when training becomes available for other potential users.

Technical Notes

Location: https://www.penncommunity.upenn.edu (PennKey login)

Network Requirement

Users of Penn Community will need to be on PennNet, by one of the following:

  • Physically on campus at a computer connected to a PennNet ethernet port
  • Physically on campus, connected to AirPennNet
  • Using the Penn Campus VPN (https://www.isc.upenn.edu/how-to/university-vpn-getting-started-guide)
  • Using another VPN that is correctly configured to meet the requirements (submit a Remedy ticket for assistance on determining what is required for your VPN to connect to Penn Community)
  • UPHS:
    • UPHS network users have been able to log in
    • LGH users should be able to log in as of 8/2/2023
    • PA College (Lancaster) users: WIP as of 8/2/2023

Logging in: Access is Via SSO (PennKey Login)

Configuring Your Home Page

While most options are available via the “hamburger menu” in the top left, it is possible to add shortcuts to your home page:

  • Click the little “Edit” button in the top right corner under your username
  • Click the option to “Add Card”
  • Select “Search” from the options (the others you won’t use often or won’t be available to you)
  • Click “Save” to return to the “Edit Home” area
  • Click “Save” again (upper right corner) to save your customized home page