Project Overview and Status

email and calendaring project

Project Overview

A project to move faculty and staff email and calendaring services to a robust Microsoft Exchange integrated system is underway:

Why move to a new system?

  • Due to stability problems and lack of vendor support with our current email and calendaring systems, ITS has decided that it would not be in the University's best interest to update these systems.
  • Faculty and staff have expressed a desire for integrated email and calendaring with improved support for mobile devices.

Why was Microsoft Exchange selected?

After extensive investigation and consultation, ITS made the decision, as have many other Universities, to move the current email and calendaring systems to Microsoft Exchange 2007. Since it is an industry-leading Microsoft product, we are confident that the required level of support will be there now and in the future.

How will this change affect you?

  • You will have more reliable email and calendaring services.
  • If you use Outlook 2007, Thunderbird (version 2.0 or newer), Entourage Web Services, or Mac OS X Apple Mail today, you may continue to do so after the move.  
  • If you use Entourage (any version other than Entourage Web Services), Netscape Mail, or Thunderbird v 1.x , you will be asked to upgrade or switch to another program prior to your scheduled move day. If you use Outlook 2003, we ask that you upgrade to Outlook 2007.
  • If you use WebMail now, after the move you will use Outlook Web Access (OWA).
  • If you use CampusTime via the web (cal.bc.edu) today, after the move you will access calendaring through Outlook Web Access (OWA) 
  • If you use Outlook with Oracle Connector for Outlook (OCFO) to access your calendar, you will no longer need OCFO. Outlook in the Exchange environment will provide full integration with calendar, contacts, and email.

Learn about other differences in Exchange.

More Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the Project

 

PROJECT UPDATE - November 2009

STATUS: During this pilot we discovered that a "fix" from Microsoft to address one issue resulted in a new problem. It is now back in Microsoft's hands for final resolution. The plan to move adminstrative departments to Exchange during November and December has been pushed back to commence in January 2010. A second small pilot group comprised of staff from University Mission and Ministry will be moved on December 7.

ITS PILOT PROGRAM COMPLETE

The Information Technology Services (ITS) Pilot Program is complete; all ITS staff are actively working in the Exchange environment for email and calendaring.

OCTOBER 20 ADMINISTRATIVE AREA PILOT

Select staff from the O'Neill Library, Law Library, Athletics and University Advancement were moved to the Exchange environment on October 20.

REMAINING ISSUES

During the ITS Pilot, ITS found some errors that were subsequently resolved. There are two issues remaining which ITS continues to explore with Microsoft:

  1. When users of Microsoft Outlook switch from using an IMAP to MAPI (Exchange), message flags (reply to, forwarding) are lost. They work with all NEW mail and are still visible if the person logs in to an IMAP mail client.
  2. Messages processed through Exchange always defaults to the user’s firstname.lastname alias.

INTEGRATED EMAIL AND CALENDARING FOR MAC USERS

Project teams investigated and tested several options for Mac users.

  • Snow Leopard
    Mac OS X (Apple) Mail and iCal running on Mac OS X Snow Leopard will offer integrated email and calendaring. This combination is being tested against the BC Exchange environment. However, Iron Mountain backup for Snow Leopard is not yet available.  ITS is not recommending that faculty and staff upgrade to Snow Leopard at this time.  The Email and Calendaring Project will begin in     Administrative Departments where there are fewer Macs.  We hope that by the time we are ready to move academic areas that Snow Leopard will have been fully tested and a backup solution from Iron Mountain will be available.
  • Entourage Web Services
    A recently released version of Entourage (Entourage Web Services) has also been tested and is another viable option for Mac users on campus. Entourage Web Services does not require Snow Leopard but does require Office 2008 with Office update 12.2.1.
  • Other options for Mac users were tested and ruled out as not adequate. These options included:
    - Mozilla Thunderbird with Lightning for calendaring.
    - Running Outlook on Mac OS X using CrossOver.
    - Use of Sync'Em to integrate Apple Mail and iCal.

UPGRADES

Windows users will be upgraded from Office 2003 to Office 2007 (if they have not already been upgraded through BCCR deployment). Learn more

Mac users may be upgraded to Office 2008 or, in the future, Snow Leopard depending on their email client choice and calendar usage. Learn more