First Time Account Setup

USC Aiken students, faculty, staff and affiliates have two groups of accounts: USC University Services Accounts and USC Aiken Campus Accounts. Between the two groups you'll have five accounts.  Five accounts may sound like a lot, but you'll only use one or two on a typical day.

Setup is fairly simple.

Assuming you have all required information available when setting up accounts, setup of all five accounts takes less than 10-minutes.

We're here to help with any problems.

If you run into any problems setting your accounts up, contact the USC Aiken Help Desk and we'll walk you through the rest of the process step-by-step.  Not on campus? Give us a call phone (803-641-3391) or send an email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). On campus?  Stop by the Help Desk for a walk-in appointment anytime.  We're open Monday through Friday all year.

You need three pieces of information and access to phone/email.

Before starting account setup, make sure you know this information:

• Legal Last Name
• Birthdate
• VIP ID (students only) (this is included in your acceptance information)
• Last 4-digits of SSN or USC ID (faculty/staff/affiliates only)

You'll also need access to your personal email account and your mobile phone:

• Personal Email Account (used to receive and confirm account verification codes)
• Mobile Phone (used for multifactor authentication - don't have a phone? you'll have another option)

Avoid account problems your first day on campus.

Complete all steps below in the order presented.  Each account builds on the one set up before it.  If you try to set accounts up out of order or skip setting up an account, you'll run into problems.  

Part 1: USC University Services Accounts

Accounts used to access USC university services are assigned by USC Columbia University Technology Services (UTS) and include:

• VIP ID
• Network Username (sometimes referred to as Enterprise ID or Blackboard ID)
• Multifactor Authentication (MFA)

• Self-Service Carolina (SSC)
• Financial Aid
• Housing
• Class Registration
• Grades
• Blackboard
• Library Journals
• Emergency Notification Settings
• HR/Payroll (faculty/staff/student workers only)
• PeopleSoft (faculty/staff only) 
• Banner (faculty/staff only) 
• Data Warehouse (faculty/staff only) 
• Millennium (faculty/staff only) 
• Other administrative sites and those containing PII or FERPA data (faculty/staff only) 

Account Management Menu provides a single interface of options needed to setup and manage these accounts. The menu offers these options:

• Account Claiming
• Update Account Settings
• Forgot Password
• Forgot ID's
• Need Further Assistance/Reclaim Account

USC Aiken students, faculty, staff or affiliates, should keep the following in mind:

• Choose a "Preferred Email Address" ending in @usca.edu if prompted
• Choose "Aiken" or "USC Aiken" for any settings or links which offer multiple campuses as options  

*** Setup your USC University Services Accounts:

To setup or manage your USC Services Accounts, go here: https://myaccount.sc.edu and click Account Claiming.

Part 2: USC Aiken Campus Accounts

USC Aiken campus accounts are created by your USC Aiken Computer Services Division (CSD)/Help Desk team and include:

• Pacer Account
• @usca.edu Email Account

Campus accounts allow access to these systems and services:

• PACERNET and PacerStudent Wi-Fi
• Classroom and Lab Computers
• @usca.edu Email
• Office 365
• Impulse SafeConnect
• Pulse Secure VPN
• Shared Drives (J/K/Art)
• PacerPrint Printing
• Other usca.edu Websites

Setting up USC Aiken campus accounts is a simple two-step process:

• Set a new password for your Pacer Account
• Sign into Office 365

Those two steps are detailed below.

*** STEP 1: Set a new password for your Pacer Account

All USC Aiken students, faculty, staff and affiliates are assigned a Pacer Account.

To set a new password for your account, use the appropriate information listed below and go to: http://reset.usca.edu 

All Student accounts and Faculty/Staff/Affiliate accounts created after March 31st 2019:

• Username: Your Pacer Account username matches your Enterprise ID. (To find your Enterprise ID, go to: https://myaccount.sc.edu and click "Forgot ID's")
• Password: Your initial password is the last 5-digits of your VIP ID number followed by the characters USCA#  (Example: If the last 5-digits of your VIP ID number are 12345, your initial password is 12345USCA#)

Faculty, Staff and Affiliate accounts created before April 1st, 2019:

• Username: Nothing has changed. (You will continue using the username you've always used.)
• Password: Nothing has changed. (Your password has not changed and is whatever you last set it to.)

*** Step 2: Sign into Office 365

Office 365 includes web access to your @usca.edu email.  This is where you'll also find Office web apps, Office 2016 Pro downloads, 1TB OneDrive for Business storage, and more.

To sign into Office 365, use your email address and password as explained below, and go to: https://office.com

• Email: Your email address is your Pacer Account followed by @usca.edu (Example: If your Pacer Account is: somebodyj99 your email address is: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You also selected this as your Preferred Email when setting up your USC Services Accounts.)
• Password: Your email uses your Pacer Account password. (Wait at least 5-minutes after reset before signing into Office 365.)

IMPORTANT: Before setting up your @usca.edu email account on a mobile device, or in any other email client, first complete setup by signing into Office 365 and clicking the Outlook icon.

For more information on your @usca.edu email account and your Office 365 benefits, please visit the Office 354 page.