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Google to Microsoft 365 Transition

Google Workspace services, including student email, storage, and digital collaboration, will move to Microsoft 365 in 2024, unifying our community on one platform.

How to Prepare

UConn Students

Faculty and Staff

  • Clean up your files; it’s fewer to move and fewer to organize later.
  • Move any non-UConn files with Takeout, including Google Photos, to a different storage solution.
  • Reach out to the Technology Support Center if you are using Google Classroom and other teaching tools. They will talk to you about alternatives.
  • If you sign into a non-UConn app or service with your UConn Google account, you need to update how you log in before we discontinue Google.

Alumni

Note: Alumni accounts will be closed on
April 30, 2024.

Before this date:


timeline

Timeline

July - September 2023

Initial communication to community 

Opt-in for new Google account disabled 

Alumni notified of changes

October 2023

15GB storage limit applied to student accounts under the limit; students over the limit notified. 

December 2023

Informational updates to community 

January 2024

15GB storage limit applied to all student accounts 

All new email accounts created on Microsoft 365 

Alumni Forwarding Service made available 

March 2024

Staff migrations begin 

Shared Drive creation disabled

April 2024

Migrations continue 

Alumni, Early College Experience, ineligible, and staff* accounts deleted on 30th
*some exceptions

May 2024

Student migrations begin (View detailed timeline for students)

Faculty migrations begin when student migrations are finished 

August 2024

Migrations complete 

Why is UConn Making this Change?

Where we are now: Two communication and collaboration platforms

The University offers both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 to our community. Google is currently the email and storage environment for students, although faculty and staff can set up an account and use the apps within this suite. Microsoft 365 is the email and storage environment for faculty and staff, although students have accounts and can use all the apps except for email and calendaring.

The capabilities provided by these two cloud-hosted solutions overlap greatly. Google gives everyone storage and office apps, such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Through the University’s Microsoft 365 agreement, everyone has access to Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) and the communication, collaboration, and storage apps in Microsoft 365, such as Teams and OneDrive.

A key difference between the two products is that Microsoft meets our security requirements for data storage. All work-related data, including emails, should be stored on this infrastructure. This is why the faculty and staff email and calendar services are hosted on Microsoft 365 and not Google.

What changed: Google updated contract

Until this past year, Google offered free and unlimited storage to educational institutions, and we could extend this benefit to all active students, employees, and alumni. However, Google unilaterally updated their terms and conditions and moved to a fee model, where the cost is determined by the total amount of storage consumed. UConn, like many large universities, stores a substantial amount of data, and this means that the cost to accommodate our storage needs is significant. With this update to the terms, the University is now paying for duplicative services, and our students either partially or fully bear the expense. Plus, what we can offer to our community with the updated contract is now effectively no better than what you get by setting up a personal account.

Cost is not the only issue. Having a community split between two platforms causes problems. Files and technology are not compatible, which impedes file sharing and collaboration. With two different email systems, students and faculty/staff cannot leverage all of the features that facilitate scheduling, file sharing, and online meetings. Many employees have to switch back and forth between the two systems to interact with students.

Where we are heading: Migration to Microsoft 365

After carefully considering cost, security, capabilities, and complexity, we decided to unify our community on one platform. Microsoft 365 is essential for university operations and provides better IT security and more features to our community. Therefore, we are transitioning accounts and data for active students and employees to Microsoft 365 and phasing out Google services at UConn.

Benefits

  • It will unify our community on one, feature-rich platform. Everyone at UConn will create, communicate, and collaborate with the apps in Microsoft 365, removing conflicts between the two systems. 
  • Students will gain experience with the applications they will most likely use after graduation. Businesses and other organizations primarily use Microsoft 365.