Texas A&M University is moving its Exchange email to Microsoft 365 to increase service stability, enhance security, and introduce powerful collaboration features. As a result, your email and calendar will soon be moving to the cloud.

Technology Services – Student Affairs has already migrated to the cloud!

Technology Services – Student Affairs migrated to the Microsoft 365 cloud on September 13th, 2021. We wanted to be a test subject before anyone else in the DSA. The migration was transparent to most users. A few reported having to restart Outlook.

Here’s a few things you need to know:

• The migration will happen in the very early morning hours and will be complete prior to the start of your work day.
• Your email account and calendar will be available during the migration.
• If you use the Outlook desktop client to access your email, you may have to restart your email client.
• If you use a web browser to access your email, you will log in to https://outlook.office.com starting on the day of your migration.
• For web browser access to student worker mailboxes and other shared mailboxes, you will log in to https://outlook.office.com/owa/emailaddress (where emailaddress is the full address of the mailbox).
• If you use a mobile device to access your email, you may have to recreate or modify your account on the device.
• If you share your calendar, you may need to reset your calendar permissions.
• Complete information for configuring your email, and more, can be found on the Microsoft 365 – Email Migration page.
• The Microsoft 365 desktop applications will not be rolled out on DSA workstations in conjunction with this migration. You can continue to utilize the 365 applications online at microsoft365.tamu.edu. More information regarding the desktop applications will follow the division’s migration.

To learn more about what to expect during the migration, and the new features of Microsoft Outlook 365, visit the Email Migration Overview page.

Other Considerations:

A new feature available in Microsoft 365 is the function of the “focused/other” view in the primary inbox. This is a feature of Microsoft Outlook 365 that helps sort your inbox into two tabs based on priority. The feature can be turned on, or off, as desired. You can read more about it at Microsoft’s website https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/focused-inbox-for-outlook

After your department has migrated to the cloud we also recommend keeping an eye on your junk email folder. It may require some time for the cloud to understand the sorting rules for junk email. When Technology Services – Student Affairs migrated, some users reported occasional work emails landing in the junk email folder. Users were able to just move them to the inbox and add them as a trusted sender so it does not reoccur. You can do this by right clicking on an email, going to the junk option and selecting your preferences there.

For More Information on Outlook in the Cloud:

For more information you can always check out DoIT’s Outlook Training Page that features video training from LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda Learning).

So When is Your Department Migrating to the Cloud?

DSA email account will be migrated to the cloud by departments beginning on October 11, 2021, as shown in the table below. Technology Services – Student Affairs will send each department several direct email communications leading up to the migrations to help make the transition as smooth as possible. You can learn more about the migration by visiting the Division of IT MS365 Migration Page.