Due
to technical incompatibilities between the OpenVMS and
Sun ONE Messaging systems, all users' primary email
account (more than 3,300) passwords were reset to their
respective Intranet passwords. In addition, to be in
line with the provision of a unified electronic ID (EID)/password
as announced by CIO, the "Change Password"
function was enhanced so that users' Intranet account,
the e-Portal (Campus Pipeline) account and the primary
email account name and password pair can be synchronized
after the email server replacement exercise.
For those users who have multiple (or secondary) email
accounts, 788 new passwords were re-generated by the
CSC and sent to the users before the replacement. The
server replacement time has been carefully chosen to
give full support yet minimum interruption to the users.
The chosen date and time was finally fixed on 8 Oct.
(Tuesday) from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. This in fact is a
valuable experience in change management.
The majority of the users did not encounter any problems
during the replacement. For those that did encounter
some, most of them were related to the problem of password
synchronization. Despite the repeated announcements
and email notifications made before the replacement,
many of these staff were not aware that their passwords
have been reset, or they have even forgotten their Intranet
passwords.
As
far as the new features of the email server were concerned,
some staff were not aware that many of these have been
provided by the new server, such as changing password
or setting up email auto-reply (vacation notice). All
of the description can be found in the Staff Email Services
home page. The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Web
pages, available inside the Staff Email Services home
page, will be updated regularly to provide on-line,
useful, and up-to-date information for helping our users
to use the new email system more effectively.
The
CSC Help Desk has done a marvelous job on attending
and resolving quickly problems that were reported, thereby
eliminating long interruption to users that might possibly
happen during the replacement.
According
to the Help Desk, 213 calls were received on 8 Oct.,
115 on 9 Oct. and the number of calls resumed to normal
on the third day after the server upgrade. Analysis
showed that around 80% of the enquiries were password
related. 20% of the enquiries were to seek advice on
how to set a new or a more secure password. Few other
enquiries were on how to find old email, information
about the differences between intranet and email accounts,
etc. Almost all of them were resolved over the phone.
The
CSC does not receive any report of major problem after
the replacement exercise. However, if you do encounter
one, please do not hesitate to inform us by writing
to cc@cityu.edu.hk
