There are three phases of a M365 mailbox upgrade: (1) activating your new CUNY M365 mailbox; (2) migrating your mailbox contents and calendar; (3) upgrade complete: all email flows to your new M365 mailbox. ITS will communicate with you via email throughout the process. Most mailbox upgrades are completed within five days.
Learn how to prepare your mailbox to help ensure a smooth upgrade.
(1) Activation of Your Microsoft 365 Mailbox
What to expect:
- Email sent to you from other CUNY M365 mailboxes and CUNY central systems will go to your new mailbox: Upon activation, all messages from CUNY central systems (e.g., Dropbox, Blackboard) and from any CUNY employees that already moved to M365 (including Brooklyn College employees) will be sent to your new M365 mailbox. You will be able to access your M365 mailbox on the web.
- Email sent to you from old Brooklyn College mailboxes and external parties will go to your old mailbox: Until your mailbox migration is complete and confirmed by ITS network support, all messages sent to your Brooklyn College email address (@brooklyn.cuny.edu) from outside CUNY and from Brooklyn College employees that have not yet moved to M365 will only be available in your old college mailbox.
- You will need to check both mailboxes (M365 and your old legacy mailbox) during this time to avoid missing any messages. Both your local mailbox and M365 mailbox will be active during the migration period (usually 3-5 days from the start of your migration). We recommend keeping your local Outlook desktop profile in place and checking your M365 mailbox on the web at outlook.office.com (sign in with your CUNY Login). Upon completion of your migration, all email will be routed to your new M365 mailbox.
- You can continue using your shared/entity/office mailboxes the same way until the migration is complete for both your mailbox and the shared mailbox.
What you should do during this time:
- Periodically check your new M365 mailbox on the web once it is activated: Your new M365 mailbox will be activated at the start of your migration. You can check your new mailbox on the web at https://outlook.office.com/mail/. (Sign in using your CUNY Login credentials.)
- Avoid making major changes to your local college mailbox, such as deleting or moving messages and folders, to reduce the likelihood of synchronization issues.
(2) Mailbox contents and calendar migration
What to expect:
- The email messages, folders, and calendar entries from your old mailbox will start appearing in you new CUNY M365 mailbox. Depending on the size of your old mailbox, it could take up to a week or more for everything to appear.
What you should do during this time:
- Continue checking both your new M365 mailbox and your old mailbox during this time to avoid missing any messages. You can check your new mailbox on the web at https://outlook.office.com/mail/. (Sign in using your CUNY Login credentials.)
(3) Upgrade complete: all email flows to your new M365 mailbox
What to expect:
- Email redirection: Once all your saved messages and calendar events are copied to your new M365 mailbox, you will receive a final confirmation message from ITS to your old mailbox.
- Your old mailbox will be deactivated. After receiving the email confirmation, your legacy email account will be deactivated and you only need to check your M365 account going forward.
- Other employees might get an undeliverable auto-response when sending you email: College employees with local college email accounts (not yet moved to M365) might receive an undeliverable auto-response when trying to send you email if their local address book is pointing to your old mailbox. Here’s a simple solution.
- You might get an undeliverable auto-response when sending email to employees that are still using old mailboxes (not on M365). Since the upgrade to M365 is happening in phases, college employees not on M365 might not show up when entering their name in the To: field. Use their full college email address (username@brooklyn.cuny.edu) for now. (You can lookup email addresses in the college directory.)
- Note: The M365 directory includes all CUNY employees (not just Brooklyn College). When searching by name, be careful to select the proper user by inspecting and confirming the username. CUNY is planning to add college codes to the directory in the future to avoid confusion.
What you should do during this time:
- Check your new mailbox: Examine your new mailbox for any discrepancies and report them to the ITS Helpdesk.
- Remove your old email profile: After receiving the confirmation email from ITS that your mailbox was moved successfully, you can safely remove your legacy email profile from Outlook and other email clients and exclusively use your M365 account.
- Add your new M365 profile to Outlook and your mobile devices: Configure your email clients to access your M365 account. Contact the IT Helpdesk for assistance, if needed.
- Review your new mailbox: Inspect your M365 mailbox to ensure all emails, folders, and calendar events appear as expected. If you notice any issues, missing emails, or have questions or concerns, contact the IT Helpdesk immediately.
- Training: Familiarize yourself with some of the new CUNY Cloud and M365 features and functionalities by visiting our CUNY Cloud Productivity Tools page. Although email works the same, there are many new time-saving productivity features in M365.
If you have any questions or concerns during the upgrade process, don’t hesitate to contact the ITS Helpdesk.