As part of an ongoing process to expand services and improve efficiency, UMW Information Technologies will implement Office 365 across the university system. Over the next few months, all employee mail, calendar and contacts will be migrated to the Microsoft Office 365 cloud. This migration will combine our student, faculty and staff emails in a single system that will allow for better collaboration, common address books, and a more secure and productive environment.
Important Notes:
- Microsoft has designed Office 365 around the concept of collaboration. As a result, many of the Office 365 applications will default to an open-sharing mode. Please be aware of the default setting when you are using these applications as you do NOT want to accidentally share information that should be private!
- While the Office 365 platform allows for file sharing in the Cloud, it CANNOT be used to store or share highly sensitive data. Please refer to the UMW Policy regarding the Electronic Storage of Highly Sensitive Data.
HOW is Office 365 Different?
- It is cloud-based, meaning hosting will be provided by Microsoft servers and UMW IT servers
- It is subscription-based service, giving UMW IT easy access to the latest software releases.
- It offers web-based access to software previously limited to a local installation.
WHAT this Means for You
- If you have an account on the UMW IT Exchange service, you will be upgraded automatically to Office 365’s Outlook.
- An increased email quota (50 GB compared to 2GB today)
- The ability to download and use the official Microsoft Outlook Mobile App (from your app store) on your smart phone/tablet.
- In the future, you will be able to take advantage of Microsoft applications hosted online by Office 365, such as OneDrive, which allows users up to 1 TB of space to store and share work files.
The biggest change that the average user will experience is an increase in the number of cloud-based services available. We encourage you to visit the Microsoft Office Help to learn more about some of the apps that will be available over the course of the project.
Office 365 Support Help
To learn more about Office 365 products, please visit the Microsoft Office Help which includes:
- Training materials
- Library of courses
- How-To’s
- Tips
When will you find out when your email and calendar account is moving? IT will notify you/your department when you will be migrated.
Do you have to learn a new email or calendar system? No. With Office 365, you will have the same email and calendar system you are using today. Office 365 works with Outlook 2010 (Windows), Outlook 2011 (Mac), Outlook Web App (OWA), and Apple Mail/iCal, as well as with Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone, and other devices.
How do I set up my phone or mobile device to connect to Office 365?
IT highly recommends using the Outlook app for email and calendar access for Office 365. Microsoft provides comprehensive instructions for configuring mobile devices using their app. The instructions are located at this link: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Set-up-Office-apps-and-email-on-a-mobile-device-7dabb6cb-0046-40b6-81fe-767e0b1f014f?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US.
For more information or issues please contact the Help Desk http://technology.umw.edu/helpdesk.