Florida State University students attempting to access their myFSU emails last week were waiting up to five days for full service. Rather than seeing their inboxes, students were instead greeted with error messages and frustration, soon finding they were temporarily unable to access their accounts.
The resulting frustration was largely due to a university-wide email upgrade, which took five days to complete. The transition process began last Thursday, lasting five days, as FSU Information Technology Services (ITS) transferred all student and alumni email accounts from the former Outlook email platform to Microsoft Office 365. The transition was forewarned with an “Important Announcements” email from ITS, stating that an email upgrade would occur between Aug. 8 and Aug. 12, inhibiting email access.
“I tried to log on to check my email while I was on vacation but the system wouldn’t let me on,” FSU student Brooks Reed said. “I had seen the email about the changes to the system, but it was from a while ago and I couldn’t access my inbox to figure out how to fix the problem.”
Office 365 can now be accessed via the myFSU portal or at https://outlook.com/my.fsu.edu and allows students up to 25G of storage space. In addition to the my.fsu.edu email account students get a second, personal Microsoft account with SkyDrive storage space accessed through https://skydrive.live.com with the Blackboard student username and password.
“I appreciate the effort that the school is making to ensure that we have the best tools available,” Reed said. “Even if it means a few days of inconvenience.”
FSU Information Technology Services stated the reasoning behind the switch was to keep up with the size of email space and offer improved Mac support, allowing Mac users to use Outlook.
“With Office 365, you will have access to a powerful, cloud-based email and calendar tool that can help you connect and collaborate in real time with classmates and friends,” according to the Information Technology Services website.