Page 1 STUDENT E- MAIL AT USC Rita Anderson, University of South Carolina Ryan Rucker, SC Department of Transportation

Page 2 Previous Environment Exchange 2003 –On-site (USC campus) –Students limited to 50 MB mailboxes –Automatic Inbox cleanup –EVERYONE has an account on all campuses

Page 3 Previous Environment (cont.) Bundled with Faculty/Staff –Students, faculty, staff share same domain –One GAL (Global Address Book)

Page 4 WHY Outsource? Reduce Cost & Increase Service Level –Eliminate Servers –Save $125,000 per year –Offer Students Significantly More Storage Limited Staff Protect USC Network Bandwidth

Page 5 The RFP? Vendor Chosen Via RFP –Microsoft was a natural fit for USC USC Was Already Familiar with Exchange Key Decision was Whether to Outsource Both Faculty and Staff and Student or… Just Student . Decision Panel Included: –Graduate Students, Student Affairs, Faculty, and Research Support

Page 6 Some or All? Whether to Include Faculty and Staff Was the Primary Question. –Key Benefits Obvious Cost Savings of Eliminating On-Premise Exchange System Not So Obvious Cost Savings of Supporting anti-virus, spam management, and other tools. Significantly More Storage 25 GB SkyDrive

Page 7 Some or All? Key Stakeholder Concerns –Recent ‘Painful’ Migration from GroupWise to Exchange –Privacy and Confidentiality –Disaster Recovery –One-Size-Fits-All Spam Management –Severe Limits on Volume/Frequency per User

Page 8 Decision #1 Decision: Outsource Only the Student System –At Least for Now –Gartner Predicts that Hosted Will Become the Norm in Higher Education –All USC Student Will Be Hosted By Microsoft –All Student Traffic Would NOT Pass Through the USC Network.

Page 9 Decision #2 Decision – Require an Address Change for the Students –On-Premise Exchange Serviced Both Faculty & Staff As Well as Students –Forced One Group to Change Address 40,000 Students Vs. 10,000 Faculty & Staff Easy Winner: Faculty & Staff –URL for Also Changed

Page 10 Mitigating Factors 6 Month Transition Plan for Address Change Launched in January, 2010 On-Premise System Available Through Spring Semester. Automatically Forwarded to through Spring Semester Automated Address Updates –Blackboard, Listservs, All University Administrative Applications Shutdown at End of Spring was Hardly Noticed.

Page 11 Decision #3 Decision – Force an End Date on the Account Enables ‘ for Life’ –But Sheer Volume of New Accounts Each Year Would Be Overwhelming –Funding for Alumni Support Was Unclear –Decided to End Account When Active Directory Account Ends –Goal Was to Provide an Optional Alumni Account –Deferred Until USC Banner System Implementation is Complete

Page 12 The Implementation A Few Customizations…. –FERPA Compliant Address Book –Campus Branding –Password Synchronization with Active Directory –‘Hide’ Direct Login Sites and Social Network –…Challenge is to Maintain the Customizations Through Multiple Microsoft Releases.

Page 13 The Implementation Contracted with CSI Technology Outfitters for ILM & PowerShell Expertise. Developed Extensive Use Case Documentation Implemented Password Synchronization Upgrade From Release 3 to Release 4 –Managing Restrictions through User Groups to Defining Role Based Policies

Page 14 Testing Functionality of –Test Exchange POP3, and IMAP configuration in multiple clients Outlook 2003, 2007, Express, and Entourage –Test in multiple browsers IE, Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome –Test on mobile devices iPhone, Droid, Windows Mobile, Blackberry

Page 15 Testing Functionality of Skydrive –Identify what is the Skydrive and how can it be used? –Test in multiple browsers IE, Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome

Page 16 Testing Student Interns –Four I.T. undergraduate majors –Assisted in the testing and creating FAQ’s and support documentation of Outlook Live –Planned for Student Pilot

Page 17 Training After testing was completed: –Created all FAQ’s and Support Documentation Included mobile device configuration, client configuration, using Skydrive, social networking, and other features. –Worked with PR staff and Web team to develop website for FAQ’s/documentation –Once site was up, edited and tweaked until everything site looked perfect –

Page 18 Training Trained UTS Staff –iCare Technicians –Help Desk Staff iCare Technicians Learned Detail Instructions to Migrate the Contents of Old Exchange mailbox to Numerous Instructional Reminder s to Students

Page 19 Demo Demo system

Page 20 Early Deployment Team Had Originally Planned For: –Student Pilot –Opt in Group Ran out of time so only Student Pilot Students Test Drove Completed Survey of Experience Xbox Giveaway

Page 21 Student Pilot Results Please rate your experience: It was easy to log into the new system and read . Answer Count Percentage Very easy (A) % Some trouble (B) % Too difficult (C) % No answer %

Page 22 Initial Go Live Go Live Date – 1/5/10 –4 Days Prior to Spring Semester Start –Several Weeks After Microsoft R4 Upgrade Help Desk Call Volume –Over 400 Calls in the First Week –Highest Volume of Calls for Semester Start Where and How to Login Account Provisioning Errors (R3 to R4 Related) Forwarding Was Broken by Upgrade Some Failures

Page 23 One Month Later… Help Desk Call Volume Back to Normal Project Team ‘Racing’ to Upgrade Tools to R4 In General, Students Were Happy with New System. By May, –We Shutdown the old Exchange Student with no complaints. By August –Incoming Freshmen Had No Problems with E- Mail

Page 24 Lessons Learned Limit Customizations Requiring an Address Change or a Webmail URL Change is Difficult Maintain Separate Domains for Faculty & Staff and Students Involve the Students from the Start Students are Adaptable Have a Solid Support Plan Alumni Has Not Been a Key Factor, but It Seems to be an Opportunity Missed. Works Great for Our Students!

Page 25 For More Information…. Ryan Rucker Rita Anderson