Table of Contents

Overview of Office 365
How to Install Office Apps
Migration to Office 365 Email
Office 365 File Storage with OneDrive for Business

Over the next several months, Drexel will make significant improvements in the email and Microsoft Office services provided to faculty, professional staff, and students who have "@drexel.edu" accounts. (Improvements for "@drexelmed.edu" account holders will follow.) This special issue of Tech Update contains important information regarding these enhancements and details the changes in how we get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office applications, the migration of email accounts, and the use of OneDrive for Business for file storage.

We are working to ensure a smooth transition to the new services; your preparedness will help. If you have questions or concerns not answered by this issue of Tech Update, or our Web site at drexel.edu/it, please contact your IT professional or the IT Help Desk at consult@drexel.edu.

Overview of Office 365

Microsoft Office 365—often shortened to O365—is the name for the latest computer, mobile, and Web-enabled versions of email, Office, and related services. With O365, email storage will be increased to 50 GB, online file storage will be increased to 5 TB (that’s 5,000 GB), and versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook will be available to install or use online.

For more information on Office 365, go to drexel.edu/it/office365 or visit the Office 365 Learning Center. If you have questions about Office 365, please contact the IT Help Desk at 215.895.2020 or consult@drexel.edu.

How to Install Office Apps

Faculty and professional staff who would like to upgrade their Drexel-owned computer to Office 365 may do so via the installer available in Software Center for Windows or Self Service for macOS.

Note: If you already have an older version of Office installed, you may be asked to uninstall it. We recommend that you do so to avoid conflicts between versions.

The Office Pro Plus bundle (that's Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and a few other apps) can be installed on computers owned by students or on computers owned by faculty or professional staff (i.e., their personal property rather than university property). To install it, go to portal.office.com and sign in with your Drexel username (format: abc123@drexel.edu) and password then click the "Install Software" button near the top right.

To install Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, or PowerPoint Mobile on your phone or tablet, visit the Apple, Google, or Microsoft app stores. Each app is installed separately, not as a bundle like your computer. Note that, depending on the type of mobile device you have, the apps might be in "read-only" mode until you sign in. Once signed in, all the editing capabilities are unlocked.

Adjunct Faculty – Continued Access to Office 365 and OneDrive for Business

In line with our current Accounts policies, Adjunct Faculty may keep their email accounts/Office 365 access for one year from the end of the last term in which they taught.

Migration to Office 365 Email

Over the next several months, all "@drexel.edu" email accounts will be moved to the cloud. Drexel IT currently runs two different mail systems: local Exchange servers, which most faculty and professional staff use; and Webmail, which all students use. Accounts on the local Exchange system will be moved to the cloud-based Exchange server first, followed by accounts on the old Webmail servers.

Faculty and Professional Staff Mailboxes

Most faculty and professional staff use Drexel’s Exchange servers, so they’ll be the first to move on a department-by-department basis. Drexel IT will publish the schedule shortly and will notify each person in the department before his or her account is moved. Keep an eye on drexel.edu/it/office365 for updates made to the schedule.

Note: During Drexel's email migration, you will NEVER receive an email from us that asks you to click any link to confirm migration. ANY email that asks you to confirm/verify accounts or migrations is a FRAUD! Delete them immediately.To see examples of this type of email scam, see our Scam Gallery.

Just before your mailbox is scheduled to be moved, please clean it by deleting messages you no longer need, then empty the Junk Mail and Trash folders. This will help expedite the transition to the new service.

Email forwarding is no longer generally available for faculty and staff mailboxes. Forwarding to mailboxes "@drexelmed.edu" and "@coe.drexel.edu" will be available until those services transition to Office 365.

Messages in email archives (i.e. PST files) will not be automatically migrated. However, because of the additional space that’s available in the new mailboxes, some faculty or professional staff members might want to move archived messages back to the server. Information on how to do so will be available soon.

Shared Mailboxes

Shared mailboxes on the in-house Exchange servers will move to the cloud on the same day that user mailboxes in the department with ownership move. Users responsible for shared mailboxes on the older server will be contacted to provide information regarding who should have access prior to the department’s scheduled migration date.

Access to departmental or group shared departmental/organizational mailboxes will be managed by Drexel IT rather than by users sharing a password. Mailbox owners should contact the Accounts Office (accounts@drexel.edu or 215.895.2020) to grant or revoke access. Also note that shared mailboxes are not provided with OneDrive storage or other Office 365 services.

Student Mailboxes

Students use a different email server, one with severe capacity constraints. To expedite the moves of current email accounts from the old Webmail servers, empty mailboxes will be created in the cloud in lieu of migrating old messages, and email forwarding will be turned off.

The old Webmail service will remain in operation through June 2017 to provide students with time to access old messages. Students may individually move their old messages to their new mailboxes. We ask that students give the new service a serious try, but those who want to forward messages to another account may do so from portal.office.com.

Once Your Account is Moved

We ask that everyone test their new account. If you have a non-Drexel email account, send a message from it to your Drexel address and verify that it gets to your phones, tablets, and computers. Finally, try out the new Web access before deleting the test message.

Web Access: Access to email, calendar, and contacts will be through the Office 365 portal (portal.office.com). Sign in with your Drexel credentials, then click the "Mail" tile.

Computer Access: If you use Outlook on Windows, you might need to close and re-open it following your account's move to the cloud. If you use Outlook on macOS, you might need to reconfigure Outlook. The easiest way to do this is available via Self Service for macOS. (If your Drexel-owned Mac is not enrolled in Self Service for macOS, enroll now to expedite your return to service.) If you use Apple Mail, you will need to remove your Drexel account, then add it again. Although Apple Mail works with Office 365, Drexel IT recommends using Outlook.

Mobile Devices: Most early adopters of the new service have had no issues. If you notice that your mobile device isn't getting new messages, remove your Drexel account from the email app of your mobile device, then add it again.

Personal Aliases will continue to work. For example: If your Drexel address is abc123@drexel.edu and you have dragonsrule@drexel.edu as a personal alias, messages sent to either address will be delivered to your new mailbox.

Drexel IT is ready to help anyone needing assistance following the move of their mailbox. Contact us at consult@drexel.edu or 215.895.2020.

Office 365 File Storage with OneDrive for Business

Students, faculty, and professional staff receive access to 5 TB of file storage via OneDrive for Business, where you can access your files from anywhere with Internet access. This storage can also automatically sync a folder on your computer to the cloud so that your files are protected against a lost or damaged computer.

Note: Microsoft also makes a personal version of OneDrive available. That service offers individuals 15 GB of storage and is not connected to your Drexel username and password. We will always refer to the file storage service that Drexel provides as either OneDrive for Business or ODB.

OneDrive for Business is the only approved solution for security- and privacy-validated cloud storage, file creation, and file sharing at Drexel. With ODB, users can store, sync, and share almost any type of file. To use the service, you must comply with the Terms of Service at drexel.edu/it/about/policies/tos/OneDrive.

To access ODB on the web, sign in to https://portal.office.com with your Drexel credentials then click the "OneDrive" tile.

To install OneDrive for Business on your Windows or macOS computer so that it can automatically synchronize files to the cloud, see the IT Web site.