*** Coming August 3, 2015 ***

It's that time again. That's right folks. Email and calendaring as we know it will be changing once again. Coming August 3, 2015, all Stanford faculty and staff will be migrating to Office 365. [Note: Current students, GSB and Law school will continue to use Google mail and calendaring services.]

Why is Stanford moving to a different email and calendaring system?
Stanford needed a better tool to manage email and calendars, both for individuals managing their own email and calendar, as well as for those who manage other faculty and staff email and calendars. Although there are many benefits to moving to Office 365 that go beyond email and calendaring services, finding a solution to the problems of email and calendaring was of the highest priority.

What is Office 365?
Office 365 is a cloud-computing service by Microsoft that brings a host of packages and services to its subscribers, some of which include:
    * Exchange (email, calendar, contacts, tasks)
    * Office (Office suite of products)
    * Sharepoint (collaboration document management software)
    * Lync (business-class instant messaging)
    * Skydive and web-hosting (cloud storage)

Phase One of the project will focus on email and calendaring, which also includes migrating Zimbra tasks and personal contact lists. Users will be given 50GB of storage, which should accommodate the ever-expanding Inbox. Users will also retain their "@stanford.edu" mail extension. IT Services is recommending that users clean up their mailboxes before they are migrated over to Office 365.

Will users be able to continue using Thunderbird and Apple Mail?
Yes, both of these applications will be compatible with Office 365. However, you will need to make some minor settings changes within the application in order for it to work properly with Exchange.

Will group accounts be supported?
Group accounts will be supported in some manner. Details about how group accounts will work are still being worked out. As soon as details around group accounts are finalized, we will inform SUL staff.

Some Stanford staff have already migrated to Office 365 and another wave of early adopters will migrate by end of June. Whether you are an early adopter or migrating in August, it is recommended that you begin to learn about Office 365 through this online course, Outlook Web App (OWA) 2013 Essential Training , offered by lynda.com.

For more information, please check out the IT Services news site for Office 365