Email, Calendar Migration Moving Ahead

Information Technology Services has announced an update the University community on the project to move email and calendar from Google to Microsoft. As previously announced, this transition is required to ensure the protection of personal information for SLU's students, faculty, staff, physicians and patients.

Office 365 will ensure SLU's email and calendar services — particularly those involving personal health information — are securely protected in accordance with regulatory requirements. Throughout this process, ITS has engaged with the Office 365 Advisory team for feedback on the transition. The advisory team includes student, faculty, and staff representatives.

As part of the transition, ITS will standardize the primary email address to a single format: firstname.lastname@slu.edu. To avoid duplicate email addresses for individuals with the same names, there will be some variation to this format with the addition of a middle initial or a number to make the email addresses unique. After the transition everyone will still be able to receive messages at their current email address but the new email address will be visible when sending messages.

For faculty, staff and physicians who have access to protected health information, there will be a new return address of firstname.lastname@health.slu.edu.

Alumni will also have a new return address of firstname.lastname@alumni.slu.edu.

Online training materials will be provided in the coming weeks. Individuals will receive more in-depth training information as the migration approaches.

ITS and Dell have developed an anticipated timeline for account migrations. In an effort to minimize disruption, no email/calendar migrations will occur during the first two weeks of the Fall semester.

The anticipated migration dates are:

• Week of June 19: ITS staff
• Week of June 26: Pilot migration with a select group of individuals throughout the University
• July 3-31: SLUCare and individuals who have access to protected health information
• July 31-October 27: Faculty, staff and students

It is important to note that all current emails and calendar entries in existing Google accounts will be moved to the new Microsoft account as part of the above migration. While email and calendar are migrating to calendar, individuals will still have access to the rest of the Google applications (Docs, Sheets, Blogger, Picasa, Sites, etc.) for activities that do not contain protected health information.

Users will receive notifications four weeks, two weeks, one week, three days and one day prior to migration. These notifications will contain additional information regarding the transition to Office 365 and training materials.

“It is my top priority that we make this migration as easy as possible for the University community,” David Hakanson, vice president, COI and chief innovation officer, said. “We are working very closely with our partner, Dell, to ensure a smooth transition.” Dell and ITS will have extra resources on hand to help support the University community during the migration.

Additional information regarding the email and calendar transition is available at slu.edu/office365. IT support questions regarding the new Office 365 email/calendar system should be directed to the service desk at 977-4000. Questions regarding the service should be directed to Mark Anderson, associate vice president and deputy CIO, at markanderson@slu.edu.