UNK began its migration of faculty and staff Microsoft 365 accounts this month, with students expected to migrate on April 25 and 26. Once completed, students will log into their Microsoft 365 accounts by using their TrueYou usernames, which consist of their NUID number followed by @nebraska.edu.
The change is a part of the Future Ready Cloud Collaboration Workspace Project. It is led by Information Technology Services and will migrate all active directories and email tenants into one server.
“Today, email tenants, which is what the servers are called that house our Microsoft environments, are in completely separate environments,” said Andrea Childress, assistant vice president for Information and Technology Services. “Email is one thing, but using Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive across the campuses, which is becoming more and more common, is not user-friendly or necessarily intuitive.”
While students’ login information will change, their emails will stay the same. Students at UNO and UNL will also keep their original email addresses.
Childress said this was done to respect the brands of each campus. UNMC has its own IT department and is not included in this project.
The purpose of the project is to improve collaboration, increase security and save money.
According to the University of Nebraska System’s website, after the migration is complete, users will no longer face access restrictions when working with people on different campuses. UNO’s student migration is set to finish in July 2025, while UNL’s students won’t migrate until January 2026.
Nanette Hogg, chair of the Department of Communication, said while she thinks the migration is overall positive, she is currently facing issues emailing her students.
“Think of it as a clubhouse,” Hogg said. “I was in a clubhouse with all my students. I just left that clubhouse and went to a different clubhouse. Now my clubhouse doesn’t want to find your (student’s) email address, so I have to know what your email address is if I want to email you.”
This issue will be resolved at the end of April when all students have migrated over.
Frank Tenkorang, associate dean of accounting, finance and economics, encountered issues accessing his folders on OneDrive but said it was over within about a day.
“When I heard about the migration, my initial thought was, ‘well it should probably be done over summer so we can have time to fix issues,’” Tenkorang said. “However, in the summer, most of us will not be here, so we are not going to see the issues. So, thinking about that, I would say it was good that we did it at this time.”
Childress said there are multiple resources for students who have questions.
“I worry about students who can’t figure something out, and they just don’t reach out, and then they’re gonna have a problem, right?” Childress said. “Like they’re gonna miss an assignment or something, so please, please, get help if you need it. There are resources available, so just call, email or show up.”
Students who encounter problems or have questions can contact LoperTech at 308-865-8363, email nusupport@nebraska.edu or receive in-person help at the circulation desk of the Calvin T. Ryan Library. Reminder emails will also be sent to students as the migration date gets closer.
