Claude EnterpriseClaude, for everyone at Syracuse

What it is good at

• Thinking something through. Talk out a problem, pressure-test an argument or ask for the counterargument to a position you hold.
• Writing and rewriting. Draft from an outline, tighten something bloated, adjust the register for a different audience, or get line edits with the reasoning attached.
• Reading what you do not have time to read. Summarize a long report, pull the obligations out of a contract, or compare several documents and surface where they disagree.
• Learning. Ask for an explanation at the level you actually need, then keep asking until it lands. There is no cost to admitting you did not follow the first answer.
• Analysis. Attach a spreadsheet or dataset and ask what is in it, what looks unusual and what a reasonable next question would be.

Bring your own material

Attach PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, slides, images or code and ask questions against them. For work you return to repeatedly, a Project keeps a set of documents and instructions in place so you are not re-explaining the background every time you start a conversation.

Where it runs

In any browser, in the desktop app and on your phone. Conversations follow you across all three, so you can start something at your desk and pick it up later.

A good first ask

Give it real context and a real constraint. "Summarize this" gets you a generic summary; "I have 10 minutes before this meeting — what are the three things in this report I will be asked about, and what is the weakest claim in it?" gets you something you can use.

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What changes

Chat responds to one message at a time. Cowork takes on work with several stages — reading source material, producing something from it, checking that result and revising — without needing you to prompt each step. You are reviewing a finished draft rather than steering every turn.

The kind of work it suits

• Work that spans a pile of files. Pull a summary out of 40 survey responses, reconcile several versions of a document, or apply one change consistently across a folder.
• First drafts of real deliverables. Turn notes, data and a template into a report, a briefing or a set of slides you then edit.
• Repetitive work with judgment in it. Tasks too varied to script but too tedious to do by hand — reformatting, categorizing, cross-checking one list against another.

Review what comes back

Cowork does more on its own, which makes your review the important step rather than an optional one. Check the output before it goes anywhere — the work is yours, and so is the accountability for it. Start with a task where you can tell quickly whether the result is right.

Use the desktop app

Cowork is designed around working with files on your computer, so the desktop app is the way to use it.

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How it works

Point it at a project and it reads enough of the code to understand how things fit together before it changes anything. It edits across as many files as the change requires, runs the tests or the script, reads the errors and fixes what it broke. You describe the outcome; it does the loop.

Who it is for at Syracuse

• Researchers. Analysis scripts, data cleaning and processing pipelines — including in languages you can read but would rather not write from scratch.
• Data and BI work. Queries, transformations and the reporting glue between systems.
• Developers. Feature work, refactoring, test coverage and getting oriented in an unfamiliar codebase quickly.
• Anyone with a repetitive computer task. You do not need to be a developer to ask for a script that renames 500 files correctly.

Read the diff

Claude Code changes real files. Work in version control so every change is visible and reversible, read the diff before you commit, and stay deliberate about which commands you let it run. It is fast, which is exactly why the review step matters.

Where it runs

In the terminal, inside VS Code and JetBrains IDEs, and in the desktop app. Most people settle on whichever one is already open.

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What it is for

Plenty of University work lives inside a web application that will not export what you need. The extension is useful when the task is on the screen in front of you: pulling figures out of a dashboard, working through a queue of records, or carrying information from one system into another without copying it by hand.

You need Cowork access first

Claude for Chrome runs on Cowork, so the extension will not work until Cowork is enabled on your Syracuse account. Request it at getclaude.syr.edu (opens in a new tab), where you watch a short training video and then ask for access. Install the extension once Cowork is on your account, and sign in with the same Syracuse email address.

Installing it

Add it from the Chrome Web Store by way of claude.com/chrome (opens in a new tab), then sign in with your Syracuse email address. It is in beta and included with paid Claude plans, so your University account covers it.

You approve what it does

You decide in advance which actions Claude may take on which sites, and it will still stop and ask before anything irreversible. Give it access site by site rather than everywhere at once, start somewhere you trust, and keep an eye on it — this is the one part of Claude that acts on live systems under your login.

Where not to use it

Anthropic advises against pointing it at financial transactions, password managers or anything holding sensitive personal data. At Syracuse, add one more: the Responsible AI Guidelines apply to whatever is on the page. A system full of student records or personnel files is not somewhere to hand over the controls.

One thing worth understanding before you start — the extension reads the page, so text on that page can try to influence what Claude does. Treat instructions that appear in web content the way you would treat an unexpected email asking you to click something.

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