NIU’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT) will begin the cutover of student email from Gmail to the Office 365 platform Monday, May 23.
This switch represents the final phase of a multi-year project to bring all of NIU into a single collaboration environment.
After the move, students will send and receive email in the Outlook Web App (similar to Outlook.com), or the full Outlook client if they chose, while having access to the NIU faculty/staff Global Address List (GAL).
The unified GAL will allow students and faculty to look each other up for email communications, meeting invitations, and professional level video conferencing with the Skype for Business app. This move will complete the student transition to Office 365 that started in 2014 when DoIT provided access to free Microsoft Office downloads and 1TB OneDrive for Business accounts for all students.
No Google Apps or Gmail data will be lost in this move; however, DoIT will not migrate student email and data. Instructions on how to export Gmail and Google Apps data will be provided. GMAIL accounts will remain accessible for data exports following the cutover, – though not for sending and receiving new email – until Dec. 16.
For more information, call (815) 753-8100 or email ServiceDesk@niu.edu.
