Migration of University Staff Email from MS Exchange to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online
- With the University email systems for student and alumni successfully migrated from the on premises systems
to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online ("M365"), Microsoft's cloud solution for educational institutions, in
early 2013; the Information Strategy and Governance Committee (ISGC) has endorsed the migration of the University
email system for staff from the on premises Microsoft Exchange ("Exchange") to M365. The migration of staff
mailboxes from Exchange to M365 will be done department by department.
- Via your departmental DNA/RNA, your department will be consulted on the preferred date for migration and
individual staff will be informed on the confirmed date via email. The entire Exchange mailbox (including Email,
Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Notes, and all mailbox properties e.g. personalized rules and settings) will be migrate
to M365. During the migration period:
- You will NOT be able to access Exchange.
- If you will be out of office on the day, you can connect your mobile device and off campus PC to M365 first
then attend to your office PC any time after you are back in the office, i.e. there is no need to connect all
your PCs/devices to M365 in one go right after the migration until you wish to use them for email.
- If you wish to migrate on another date, please send an email to the Postmaster (postmaster@ cityu.edu.hk) at
least 1 working day before the scheduled date for migration, please indicate your preferred date/period for
migration and we will try to accommodate, if possible.
- Before the Migration
- Ensure that your email clients and email apps on your PC and mobile device, e.g. MS Outlook, iOS and Android, are
up-to-date with the latest software patches applied; otherwise, you may have problem connecting to M365 that runs on
the latest version of MS Exchange. For MS Outlook, MS Outlook 2013 SP1 or MS Outlook 2010 SP2 is required. Please note
that M365 is not designed to work with MS Office 2007 and therefore MS Outlook 2007 is not recommended.
- Recall the password for the Exchange account to be migrated, especially if it is a secondary account that you log
in occasionally, since the password may have been forgotten. If there is a need to reset the password, please use the
Reset Password function (http://www.cityu.edu.hk/cityu/staff).
- Please read the FAQ on "What you should do after your mailbox has been migrated to Microsoft 365 (M365)?"
(http://www.cityu.edu.hk/csc/deptweb/support/faq/email/o365staff/what_to_do.htm).
You may wish to save this and the "What you should do .." FAQ document to your local disk for handy reference.
- On the day of migration:
- Make sure all operating system and email client updates have been applied on your PC and mobile device.
- Please logout from Exchange on your PC before 1:00 p.m., i.e. exit from Outlook and Outlook Web App (OWA that
runs on web browser).
- If you have not restarted your PC and mobile device for some time, you are recommended to restart them to release
idle resources.
- During the Migration Period
- During the migration period you will have no access to Exchange. Your entire mailbox
will be transferred to M365 then the one in Exchange will be abandoned.
- Emails sent to you (sent to either @cityu.edu.hk or @um.cityu.edu.hk) during the migration period will be stored
in M365 and you can read them later when you start to use M365.
- If you try to access Exchange during the migration period, depending on the email software you use, you will get
error messages like "Cannot Get Mail", "You weren't able to sign in because the mailbox is being moved .", etc.
- The migration of your mailbox should be completed by 2:00 p.m.. If you wish to check whether your mailbox has been
migrated to M365, simply check if your email account is on the "Migrated Account List" after 2:00 p.m.
(https://wiki.cityu.edu.hk/sites/o365migration/SitePages/Home.aspx).
If your account is not on the list yet, please wait and check again later.
- After the Migration
- Please be reminded that apart from providing your password as prompted during the necessary steps for connecting
your mobile devices/PCs to M365, please do not tell anyone your password or reply to any email with your password. If
you have any doubt please contact the CSC Service Desk.
- When the migration of your mailbox to M365 is completed, you can start to use M365. As the setup from Microsoft
Outlook to M365 requires more steps and time, you may consider setting up the connection to M365 from your
smartphone/pad/tablet and OWA (browser) first, and to see that the mailbox, calendar, etc. have been migrated successfully.
Please refer to the FAQ "What you should do after your mailbox has been migrated to Microsoft 365 (M365)?" for
respective steps.
- Please note that:
- Your Username for log into M365 is in the format EID@um.cityu.edu.hk, and the password is the same
as your AD account password (i.e. the same password for log into Exchange).
- Your valid M365 email addresses are EID@cityu.edu.hk, email-aliase@cityu.edu.hk, EID@um.cityu.edu.hk, and
email-aliase@um.cityu.edu.hk. Emails sent to all of the above email addresses will be received in M365.
- Further information on M365
The functions and features of M365 are very similar to Exchange as they are both based on Microsoft Exchange.
More information on the M365 cloud service is available in the "FAQ for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online" at
(http://www.cityu.edu.hk/csc/deptweb/support/faq/email/o365staff/o365.htm).
- Supplementary Email Accounts
Please note that M365 is the University email service for staff and is used for all staff related email correspondences.
For teaching and communication with student via the social learning tools, staff may use a supplementary account on the
student M365 email service. For other usages that require another email technology, the University also provides Google
Apps Educations Edition as an optional email service.
Return to FAQs on CityU Microsoft 365 for Staff
IT.ServiceDesk@cityu.edu.hk
