Faculty and staff email and calendaring accounts will move over to Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365 this Family Day weekend, completing the year-long project. The move will mean greater storage capacity and more features than what Queen’s is able to provide with its current on-premise system.

“The move should be virtually invisible to faculty and staff, but there will be a couple of actions people will have to take once the process is complete,” says Mike Smith, ITS project manager for Office 365. “The IT Support Centre will be open all weekend long to provide assistance to anyone with questions.”

The upgrade of accounts is set to begin at 5 pm on Friday, Feb. 13 and should be completed by 8 am on Tuesday, Feb. 17. Access to email and calendars will remain available throughout the weekend, but users will have to take a couple of steps once their account is migrated.

Once a user’s account upgrade is fully complete, an email notice will be sent to that individual. To access your email in Outlook, you simply have to close the program, wait 10 seconds, and then re-open it. If you use Apple Mail, you will need to delete and recreate your email account in that program. You will also need to do so on any mobile devices.

There will be no changes or interruption of service when using the Outlook Web App to check email. 

For more details about what to expect before, during and after the upgrade, see the Office 365 email upgrade webpage, or contact the IT Support Centre at 613-533-6666 or through the online help form. The Support Centre will be open all weekend from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.