March 5, 2024 Employee Information Sessions Questions & Answers
We appreciate all who attended the employee information session on March 5, 2024 and submitted questions. Below are answers to these questions, including those addressed during the event and those we did not have time to address. Questions are grouped by category, and duplicate questions have been combined to simplify the list. All answers were reviewed and approved by Collaborative Computing Solutions. The questions we received were sorted into the following categories:
Please reach out to 4Help if you have additional questions!
Administrative
"Department" can indeed be amorphous when it comes to this program. Where your storage is being managed is a decision of your unit/department/center/college, etc, not the Division of IT. We recommend talking to your local IT and/or dean, director, or department head to determine the correct point of contact.
Slack is not being "replaced" by Microsoft Teams at Virginia Tech. Use of Slack has always been up to university departments/groups, who must purchase licenses through VT Departmental Software to use the service. Some groups may decide to collaborate using Microsoft Teams, others may choose to use Slack.
Please contact the library to inquire from them about additional training. You can also use the Professional Development Network and LinkedIn Learning to get additional training.
Information on departmental storage costs can through your OU Administrator, or through the CCS Admin Tool (CAT) for those who have access.
Calendar
The feature sets between calendars within the two environments is not one to one. Therefore, there may be some business processes that you have to rethink as we move to the Exchange Online environment. This Knowledge Base article shows some ways to share a calendar publicly.
The service decision never included maintaining a Google Calendar for employees and students. More details about the service decision can be found on the License Changes website.
Consider requesting a VT PACE account. It is a shared mailbox with a calendar, but does not have any storage attached to it (i.e., SharePoint). PACE accounts are currently the only way to create a shared calendar group. Additionally, Google Groups are available for group email lists; however, no shared calendars are available through Google Groups.
Data / Storage Management
Gmail and Google Calendar are no longer available to employees. Email and calendar data was migrated to Exchange Online for employees who opted into migration support.
Your drive will become read only until you reduce storage below your allocated amount.
At this time, our plan is to notify OU Administrators via email when their users are at their limit. Individuals will see notifications from Google in the interface.
Gmail data for employees and students will eventually be deleted. You may not see this data be removed from your account until late April 2024. The exception is alumni accounts as they are allowed to keep their Gmail service. Employees and students who are also alumni will keep their Gmail mailboxes but they will be required to work in Exchange Online while being active as employees and/or students.
Unfortunately, there is no "easy" way to move files between My Drive and One Drive. This is particularly the case if you have large amounts of data to move. The best way to proceed is to delete unneeded files, and then to organize remaining files into smaller folders, and download these in smaller batches to increase the likelihood of a successful download. You will then need to re-upload these files into OneDrive.
Each department has its own plan for allocating storage for individual employee Google Drives and Shared Drives that the department owns. Please contact your OU administrator and/or department leadership for information on their storage plans for you.
Unfortunately, there is no longer a way for individuals to delete data left in the Google Photos app. Since the app has been removed, the only way to erase data in Photos is to delete and reinstate the user's entire Google account, which will clear all Drive, Gmail, and Photos data and user settings, including third-party log-in settings. Users can still download a copy of their pictures using Google Takeout.
If your My Drive becomes read-only due to being over your storage allotment, then you can reverse this by moving/deleting data until you are under the limit. Alternatively, you can talk to your department's leadership or IT team to discuss options for increasing your Google Drive storage allotment if it is best for you to keep this storage in Google.
Email / Exchange Online
We are currently investigating this topic.
There are different Views available in both desktop and web versions of Outlook. In addition, the desktop client defaults to pulling only the last (3 months) of emails down into its cached file. This timeframe for cached mode can be adjusted but does have a performance impact on the desktop client. The web interface is going to be more "accurate" in that sense.
Yes. To determine the status of your migration, visit MyCAT (mycat.ccs.vt.edu).
Compromises happen often in email and SafeLinks are a Microsoft best practice to mitigate the risk. While inconvenient for some, they are not going away.
We are not planning on extending our support beyond what is currently available.
We currently do not have any information to provide on this feature.
No. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is now considered the definitive email solution for employees. You should use the Outlook client on Exchange Online to send and receive email.
Yes. From your Outlook email app, go to Settings. Select "Layout" from the menu. Under the options for "Focused Inbox," select "Don't sort my Inbox."
The Knowledge Base article Understanding sharing versus delegating email, calendar, or folder in Outlook offers guidance for email delegation. If you need further assistance, please file a ticket at 4help.vt.edu
All employees are now using Exchange Online for their Virginia Tech email and calendar. Employees who are also alumni will may retain a Gmail inbox, with 5 GB email storage space, as part of their alumni benefits; however, email will be routed to Exchange Online as long as they remain a Virginia Tech employee, and they should use Outlook.
More information about how services are determined based on your role with the university can be found in this article, Understanding Storage and Services for Google and Microsoft Based on Consitutent Groups.
Shared Drives
For the purposes of this program, "Departments" are units defined by 4-digit Banner codes within the university. Managers of Shared Drives could make recommendations, but those were only recommendations.
Organizational Unit (OU) administrators (typically your local IT professionals) were the individuals responsible for actually setting the plan for the Shared Drive. The intent and instruction was to use the recommendations from shared drive Managers to help with the process.
In order to claim a Shared Drive, reach out to your OU Administrator. They will be able to make the claim for you. Please visit MyCAT to find out who your OU Administrator(s) are. Instructions for using MyCAT are in this Knowledge Base article.
Shared Drives created and managed solely by students went read-only on Feb. 15, and will be deleted starting April 12. It is possible that the former student who created the drive has deleted it. You can always submit a ticket to 4Help to get it investigated.