Office 365 for faculty and staff is coming!
What is Office 365?
Office 365 is a comprehensive online e-communication and collaboration service provided by Microsoft. The service provides virtually anywhere access to familiar Office tools (e.g., online versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint…), e-mail, calendaring, instant message, audio/video conferencing, and cloud storage services. Note that the online Office applications do not replace PC/Mac-based software. They are adjuncts to the software you may already have.
Migration
Account migrations will begin August 2017 with a pilot group and then rolled out in phases to the rest of the University. Your department/division will have 8 weeks of lead time to prepare for migration and receive training. For a detailed timeline, see the Office 365 website.
Pre-Migration Checklist
To prepare for your migration to Office 365, we recommend doing the following:
- If you are not currently using Outlook 2016, upgrade your software. If you have local computer support staff in your department, they will likely be responsible for the installation of any software on your work computer and you may already have Outlook 2016 installed. Check with them before you start. Outlook 2016 is available for free as part of Office through the Microsoft Campus License Agreement
- Update your web browser(s) to the latest version(s)
- If you use SAP GUI, update to the latest version
- Empty Junk E-mail and Deleted Items folders
- If you are on a Windows machine, make an archive copy of your PST file.
Training and Help
Information Technology Services will initiate a tri-campus wide education campaign for the available cloud services. The following resources will be available:
- The Organizational Development & Learning Centre will be providing training on using Office 2016. A list of training dates is available on office365.utoronto.ca.
- Instructions for setting up and using Outlook (on this website).
- Microsoft’s excellent online training resources - links to these are available on the office365.utoronto.ca website.