Transition to Microsoft 365 Email Platform

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