The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s technology department presented a plan to change the campus email system from WiscMail to Microsoft Office 365, to Associated Students of Madison Coordinating Council Wednesday.
According to Chris Holsman, the Director of the Enterprise Internet Services at the Division of Information Technology, UW-Madison has an initiative called “administrative excellence” that tries to increase efficiency while cutting down costs on campus.
Over a period of eight months, an Administrative Excellence team discussed how the campus could redesign its email system. After talking with students and staff as well as looking at surveys, the team decided that Microsoft Office 365 would be an overall better system, cutting half of the current email costs.
“The email and calendar on campus was one of the areas that they identified where there could be potential efficiencies gained,” Holsman said.
Holsman said the system change will transition in two phases, beginning with the transfer from WiscMail’s email and calendar to the new Microsoft Office 365’s equal counterparts. In the second phase, each student will receive SharePoint, OneDrive and Lync, different applications that aim to improve campus communication.
“All addresses that are @wisc.edu are going to be moved from WiscMail to Office 365, so that’s everybody,” Holsman said.
Members of Coordinating Council gave their opinions on some aspects concerning the transition. One topic they discussed was when DoIT should start the transition process because there are over 60,000 students and staff currently using WiscMail and it will take a few months to finalize.
Legislative Affairs Chair Morgan Rae suggested DoIT start with incoming first-year students, so they can begin their first semester with the new system instead of becoming accustomed to the old system. Members also suggested DoIT start the transition in the summer.
Holsman said he believes the earliest the students will start this transition will be in three to six months.
“We are still in the forming stage, we’ve done a lot of the technical work, but how [we are] actually … going to implement this is still something that we are trying to sort through,” Holsman said.
