Monthly Archives: March 2022

Transition to Microsoft 365 Email Platform

Dear Faculty and Staff,

We are pleased to announce that Baruch College is replacing our current Microsoft Exchange email system with Microsoft 365 (M365), a cloud-based email system that will greatly expand our capacity to store, share, and synch work files with students, faculty, and staff from a variety of devices.

All CUNY campuses are moving to Microsoft 365, and Baruch is fortunate to be among the first colleges to make this transition. Baruch’s student email platform made this transition more than 10 years ago, and both Queens and Lehman colleges have already moved to M365 for students, faculty, and staff, and we benefit from their experience.

This transition is an important milestone in the College’s move to a single account name and password for applications that support your work, such as Teams, Zoom, and Dropbox.

What’s Changing, What’s Not

Your email address will remain the same (firstname.lastname @ baruch.cuny.edu) and you will continue to have access to the messages in all your current Outlook folders. 

The change is mostly on the backend. Our current email is hosted on Microsoft Exchange servers running at Baruch. Moving to M365 will reduce our dependence on on-campus resources, increase reliability and availability of our email, and allow us to take advantage of newer features that Microsoft offers. As outlined below, BCTC will configure all Baruch computers for M365. However, if you currently read email from your personal devices, you will need to enter in the new server address. BCTC will help you with this (as described below) and we have scheduled time leading up to the transition to do this.

M365: Opportunities to Learn More

We have developed numerous ways for you to learn more prior to the transition, and to optimize M365 afterwards.

• M365 Transition FAQ page: This resource area provides answers to questions that we anticipate you may have. Please visit frequently for updates.
• M365 Transition Liaisons: BCTC has been working with a College-wide team of M365 Transition Liaisons who were appointed by Cabinet members to work with BCTC to understand M365, the schedule for implementation, and methods for troubleshooting any issues that may arise. The list of M365 Transition Liaisons is available on the FAQ page. Transition Liaisons will also be able to guide you through migration of items from the Baruch mail system to M365, and guide you through specific business issues you might have.
• Drop-in Zoom Sessions: Over the next few weeks, BCTC will be hosting a series of Zoom drop-in sessions that you can join to see a project overview and to have your questions answered. The dates are being finalized and will be distributed next week.

M365 Transition: Timeline

The transition to M365 will take place in the following stages.

• After close of business on Friday, April 15, CUNY will enable cloud-based M365 mailboxes that use your CUNY Login (firstname.lastname## @ login.cuny.edu). While you will use your CUNY credentials to log onto the system, your email address will not change. It will remain: firstname.lastname @ baruch.cuny.edu.
• From Monday, April 18, through Thursday, April 28, email will continue to go to your Outlook inbox as we prepare for the transition.
  • BCTC will configure Baruch computers to use the CUNY Login account for M365 access.
  • We will also offer guidance on how to drag and drop your old email and calendar appointments to the new M365 environment.
  • The Help Desk and facilitators in the Zoom sessions will guide you on how to set up your home computers and mobile devices to access your M365 mailbox, both with apps and on the web. 
• On Thursday, April 28, new email will start flowing into your M365 mailbox.
  • Your Outlook mailbox will remain available for reading and moving old email, but it will no longer receive new email. 
  • BCTC will ensure that mailing lists and other resources are available and working properly.

The Help Desk and the M365 Transition Liaisons will continue to be available after the final cutover on April 28.

We look forward to seeing you in Zoom and hope you will visit the growing M365 TransitionFAQ page for additional information. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and understanding as we make these important updates to our technology infrastructure, which will help make our suite of online tools more secure, flexible, and increasingly robust. 

Sincerely,

Michael Richichi
Assistant Vice President of Information Technology and Deputy CIO

Last update: May 4, 2022

The transition has completed but we will be working to resolve issues with some email clients. See https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/bctc/2022/05/04/may-3rd-email-status-update/ for details.

We have postponed the cutover of baruch.cuny.edu email to M365 to Tuesday, May 3rd to ensure that users are fully ready for this transition.

We will be moving new email from going to the Baruch servers to the M365 system after 9am on Tuesday, May 3rd. If during the transition you find that you cannot receive mail on your Outlook client or mobile device remember that old email can be accessed on the web via https://mymail.baruch.cuny.edu; and new mail will appear on your M365 mailbox at https://outlook.office.com/.

We have had some issues with Outlook for Windows clients accessing Baruch email as we begin the M365 transition. This is partially due to the CUNY Microsoft 365 environment being configured for the Baruch email addresses and Outlook finding those addresses in the cloud. We are deploying a fix which mitigates many of these issues. In some cases you may need to temporarily remove your M365 mailbox. More information is available.

Please note that in most cases Outlook will work with the M365 mailbox; we are working on a solution to ensure you can still access your old Baruch mail without conflicting with the new M365 system.

Online help with M365 mailbox configuration issues will be available at the following times These will be “open house” style sessions where you can drop in and ask questions and usually receive direct remote support. You do not need to attend the entire session:

• Wednesday, May 4th: 9am-11am
• Thursday, May 5th: 9am-2pm

The sessions may also be staffed outside of these times or have someone available to help; if you connect and there are no BCTC staff in the room when you connect, wait a few minutes and they may enter the room to help if available. We are trying to provide self-service instructions for profile rebuilding for those who wish to do it on their own.

The following instructions are currently available:

• Configuring your M365 Email Account on Outlook for Mac
• Configuring your CUNY M365 Email account in Outlook for Windows
• Backing up and restoring your Baruch email to M365 with Outlook for Windows
• Configuring your iOS or iPadOS device for M365 with the Apple Mail app
• Using the Outlook Mobile App on iOS or Android to access M365 email

Please keep in mind that no email will be going to the Microsoft 365 mailbox until May 3rd when Baruch.cuny.edu email is changed from going to the Baruch servers to Microsoft 365.

At this point we are not recommending trying to have your new and old Baruch email in the same Outlook profile on Windows—they are incompatible and will produce unpredicatable results. We recommend using a separate email profile or access to https://mymail.baruch.cuny.edu for access to old email; and recommend using Outlook to create a PST file backup and restoring it to the M365 system.

Users can start moving their email to M365 at any point and do not need to complete moving email before the 3rd; the old email system will remain available in read-only mode and email can be moved at users’ convenience. Configuring the new email box in advance is to ensure seamless reception of email after May 3rd. New email until May 3rd will continue to go to your baruch.cuny.edu account; after May 3rd it will go to your login.cuny.edu account.

Keep in mind that even though you use your login.cuny.edu account to access M365, your email address will not change. Once we cut over on May 3rd your firstname.lastname@baruch.cuny.edu email address will work normally with your @login.cuny.edu account.

Resource Mailboxes

All resource mailboxes currently active will be available on the new system, and will be created on M365 in the next few days, with all delegations preserved. Users will be able to add their resource mailboxes to Outlook as they have in the past. Instructions will be posted when the mailboxes are created. If you wish to copy email in a resource account from the Baruch servers to M365, you should designate one person with access to the mailbox to do the transfer.

Recording Available

A recording of the March 31st information session is now available at this Dropbox link. You will need to use your CUNY Login to access the link. Slides are available here.

What is being done?

On Tuesday, May 3rd, Baruch College is replacing our current Microsoft Outlook email system for faculty and staff with Microsoft 365 (M365), a cloud-based email system that will greatly expand our capacity to store, share, and synch work files with students, faculty, and staff from a variety of devices. Moving to M365 will reduce our dependence on on-campus resources, increase reliability and availability of our email, and allow us to take advantage of newer features that Microsoft offers.

Please note that only faculty and staff (including retirees with email access) will be making this transition. Students have been on Microsoft 365 email for over ten years and their email system is not changing.

What happens to new email messages addressed to my @Baruch.cuny.edu address “before” and “after” the cutover?

Your email address will not change. All new incoming email addressed to your existing Baruch.cuny.edu email address will be sent to your M365 mailbox after cutover. You will know that cutover has happened for you when you receive a final email in your Baruch College mailbox stating where to find new messages addressed to you. (To clarify, email sent to your @Baruch.cuny.edu before cutover will go to your Baruch College Mailbox. Any email sent to your @Baruch.cuny.edu after cutover will go to your M365 Mailbox.)

Will my email address(es) change?

No. Your email address will remain the same (firstname.lastname@baruch.cuny.edu). If you have email aliases from previous Baruch email systems or for other reasons those aliases will also be moved over to the new system. Email addresses for departmental and resource accounts will also be mapped from the current Baruch system to the new system.

The system and login credentials you use to access your email will change. You will no longer use your Baruch Username (AD account) credentials to access your email. You will use your CUNYfirst login credentials (firstname.lastnameNN@login.cuny.edu) and log in to your CUNY M365 account like you currently do for Teams, SharePoint, and the Office applications on the web.

Why is it changing?

Currently, our email client system operates on local servers located at the college. Network congestion, service provider service interruptions, hardware issues, unplanned network outages caused by electrical blackouts, and other circumstances that are out of our control have placed a large strain on our system. This strain has led to more frequent service interruptions than we find acceptable.  Microsoft is developing new features for email in M365 first and is able to scale for performance and reliability in a way that we cannot.  Cloud-based email is the standard for nearly all organizations moving forward and has become the standard way to provide email in higher education.

What are the benefits?

The transition to Microsoft 365’s cloud-based email system provides increased reliability, enhanced cybersecurity features, efficient single sign on (using CUNYfirst credentials), 24/7 Microsoft support and accessibility features.

When will I have access to the new Microsoft Office 365 cloud mailbox?

The transition to M365 will take place in the following stages.

• Week of April 25th, 2022 (date TBD), CUNY will begin to enable cloud-based M365 mailboxes that use your CUNY Login (firstname.lastnameXX@login.cuny.edu). At this time your firstname.lastname@baruch.cuny.edu email will still be going to Baruch’s email servers.
• From Monday, April 25th, through Tuesday, May 3rd, email will continue to go to your Outlook inbox as we prepare for the transition.  This is the time you can configure your personal mobile devices to access your CUNY M365 mailbox, and you can start copying over calendar events and emails from your Baruch.cuny.edu email account to your CUNY M365 Mailbox.
• On Tuesday, May 3rd (after 9am), new email will start flowing into your M365 mailbox.

Your Baruch Outlook mailbox will remain available for reading and moving old email, but it will no longer receive new email. BCTC will ensure that mailing lists and other resources are available and working properly in the CUNY M365 environment.

How do I access my Office 365 Cloud Mailbox via the web?

To access your Office 365 cloud mailbox, go to https://login.microsoftonline.com/ or https://www.office.com/, and login using your CUNYfirst Login credentials: FirstName.LastName##@login.cuny.edu (XX being the last 2 or 3 digits of your EMPLID). Open your Outlook app to view new email. Please note that you will no longer receive mail in your old Baruch mailbox after cutover. You will be able to start accessing  the cloud mailbox about 10 days before cutover. This link will also replace the “Faculty/Staff Email” link in QuickLinks on the Baruch website.

Will I be able to access content from my old account/mailbox?

Yes. You will still be able to access content from the Baruch.cuny.edu mail server. You can migrate messages or folders from the Baruch.cuny.edu mailbox to the CUNY M365 mailbox by dragging and dropping messages in Outlook from your old email account to the newone. Outlook for Windows will not allow the old and new email accounts to exist reliably in the same profile so you may not be able to drag and drop between systems. Outlook for Mac may still allow both servers to be visible.

Will my Inbox/folders/emails from @Baruch.cuny.edu automatically be migrated to the new system?

No, your old emails will not automatically be migrated to the new system. If you wish, you may copy some or all of the content to Microsoft 365 email. Allow for an acceptable amount of time to move over your inbox/folders/emails as depending on the size, can take several minutes to several hours. Windows users can create a PST backup of their Baruch email and import it into M365; you can in fact do this multiple times and only changes will migrate each time. Instructions for this are available here.

What if I do not have a CUNYfirst account?

We are working closely with CIS to provide a full list of individuals associated with Baruch College. These individuals will have email accounts configured in the new system. We will provide updates regarding this process.  In nearly all cases anyone affiliated with Baruch has an employee account or has been created as a Person of Interest (POI) with CUNYfirst access.  Also we are working on properly converting users with multiple affiliations; in the event that your primary affiliation is another CUNY campus using M365 cloud email, your primary affiliation will control the default sending address for your account (but replies will default to the address the message was originally sent to).

What if I’m a retiree?

Retirees who have retained access to Baruch email will continue to do so after the transition. We are identifying retiree accounts and working with CUNY to make sure you have a CUNY Login to access the system.

Can I still send email from mymail.baruch.cuny.edu after the cutover?

No. On the date of implementation/cutover, you can only access new content and send email from your Microsoft 365 account.  Mymail.baruch.cuny.edu will no longer be configured to send or receive email to ensure that everyone makes the transition to CUNY M365 email.

Will we lose our old emails? Are we able to keep all emails we have stored?

You will not lose old emails. You will retain and have access to your old emails. However, you must manually move email over to the new email account if you wish to have your new emails and old emails in the same place.

Will a student’s (whose student access was already available to them) account combine after the transition with their staff/faculty email?

No, they will remain separate. you’ll log into your student account with @baruchmail.cuny.edu and to your staff/faculty account with your @login cuny.edu.

Is this system CUNY-wide?

All faculty and staff at any CUNY campus can access most Microsoft 365 services except for email at this time.  Queens, Lehman, and some other campuses have already moved email to Microsoft 365 as well.  Several other schools will be migrating to M365 email at the same time as or shortly after Baruch does.  Eventually most if not all CUNY campuses will be using M365 for email.

Are my old emails being migrated? Does transfer of email content happen automatically?

No. this transition does not include migration of old email content to the new system. We are in the process of creating documentation training videos and resources so that users can migrate or transfer or copy the emails that they want into the new system.

What about contacts and calendar items?

Calendar items and contacts can be migrated with the PST file migration above.

Will the rules I’ve set up in my inbox for different accounts transfer as well?

You will need to export and import your rules to transfer them. Rules can only be exported and imported with Outlook for Windows. Otherwise you would need to recreate them in M365

How many days, will the old system be running or accessible for us to have enough time to do the migration ourselves?

We will keep the old email system available for the foreseeable future.

What methods for accessing my email will be supported?

We will continue to support the native Outlook clients on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android and will configure Outlook on all Baruch-provided Windows computers to access email on the new system and provide instructions on how to configure personal and home devices to access these services.  We will also support M365 on the web which will be a much updated version of the Outlook Web App you’re used to using on the web to read and send email.  We also suppor the standard mail apps on macOS, iOS and Android for sending and receiving email and synching with native calendars and contacts as appropriate.

Although not formally supported by BCTC any POP or IMAP client that supports modern authentication will also work with Microsoft 365.

In order to migrate email from the old account to the new system, which email clients will I be able to use? Can we migrate email via a browser?

Email copying from the old system to the new one will be fully supported by BCTC in the Outlook app for Windows and MacOS. Emails cannot be copied in Outlook Web App or the M365 Web application because multiple accounts cannot be loaded into a single web interface.  Other ways of copying email may work but will not be supported by BCTC.

What training is being offered?

We will provide full documentation, offer virtual training and additional resources.  We will be having several Zoom open houses to describe and demonstrate the M365 environment, and then after your CUNY M365 mailbox is enabled we will have sessions to show how you can copy your information from the Baruch email system to your CUNY M365 mailbox.

In addition, we are working with representatives from the schools and divisions to support the user community. These divisional liaisons will be able to guide you through email migrations, client configuration, and other departmental-specific items that you may need assistance with.

Is this system accessible?

Yes! Microsoft 365 is constantly being updated to support the latest accessibility standards. Read more about accessibility features here.