9/1/10 Newsletter

In this issue:

• What is Microsoft Online Services?
• Project Advisory Group volunteers needed!
• Current project activities

Welcome to the first Microsoft Online Services Project Newsletter! This is the project to replace BlitzMail and Oracle Calendar at Dartmouth with a suite of tools from Microsoft. Project Newsletters will be published on a regular basis to provide interested folks with timely project information and updates.

What is Microsoft Online Services?

Microsoft Online Services is a suite of tools that work together to support a wide variety of communication and collaboration activities including e-mail, calendaring, contact management, task management, document sharing, meeting management, discussion groups, web meetings and voice/video chat. Please see this brief presentation for additional information about Microsoft Online Services: http://www.dartmouth.edu/comp/docs/mos1.pdf.

Also, more information about the Microsoft Online Services implementation at Dartmouth is available on the project website site at: http://www.dartmouth.edu/comp/email-cal/initiatives/blitz/faqs.html.

Some advantages of this system for members of the Dartmouth community include:

• An increase from 600 MB to 10 GB of storage per mailbox
• A central repository for document sharing and collaboration
• Robust video conferencing right from your computer

Project Advisory Group Volunteers Needed!

We are seeking volunteers to participate on one of three project advisory groups: one for students, one for faculty and one for staff. The purpose of these advisory groups is to:

• Represent the interest and needs of their respective user communities
• Monitor project progress
• Advise on policy and procedure matters
• Provide feedback regarding project plans, activities, and deliverables
• Act a two-way conduit for project communication with respective constituencies

Each advisory group will meet approximately once a month for 90 minutes, with occasional special meetings scheduled if an urgent topic arises. If you are interested in representing your user community for the Microsoft Online Services project by participating on one of these groups, please e-mail susan.m.zaslaw@dartmouth.edu by September 24. We will be scheduling the initial meetings for these groups in early October. Our goal is to achieve broad representation, and space is limited, so volunteers will be taken on a first come, first served basis, by group affiliation.

Current Project Activities

Once the Microsoft Online Services decision was announced on August 5, a project team mobilized to begin the planning and execution of the implementation. Here’s a summary of the group’s activities to date:

• The project team is working with the version of Microsoft Online Services that will be implemented at Dartmouth. The group is learning the system so they will be able to provide support and training for the Dartmouth community. In addition, they are examining the features of e-mail, calendar and document sharing using a variety of operating systems, browsers, and mobile devices to be able to advise users how the functionality they are used to will work in this new system. Web and video conferencing functions will be evaluated at a later date.
• The project team is also evaluating a number of Dartmouth requirements to understand how these will be met in Microsoft Online Services. These requirements include:
  • Account nicknames
  • Dartmouth directory lookup
  • BlitzMail bulletins
  • Using Dartmouth username/password
  • Data migration processes

More information about our findings on these topics will be posted on the project website when it becomes available.

Feedback

To provide feedback or ask questions about this information, please e-mail: e-mail.transition@dartmouth.edu.