Projects – Page 3 – IT Connect

Microsoft Teams to Replace Skype for Business in 2024

Skype for Business (SfB), which has served SMU for many years, formerly as Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Communicator, is now stepping aside.

Soon, Microsoft Teams will replace SfB as our primary instant messaging and communications platform. This will include your SMU phone number being moved to Teams! As this is a major undertaking, it will require changes to telephone devices on campus. While we are still working on our roadmap, here are a few things you can expect during the transition. Continue reading Microsoft Teams to Replace Skype for Business in 2024

Exchange Email Migration to the Cloud Nears Completion

In late January, OIT began migrating our on-premises Exchange mailboxes to the Microsoft 365 cloud platform, where our student email accounts have resided for many years. We will complete our final migration by the end of April! As we conclude this project, faculty and staff email accounts will receive a higher storage quota of 100GB. In addition, faculty and staff will be assigned access to a variety of office applications that are part of the Office 365 suite at the end of April. These include Continue reading Exchange Email Migration to the Cloud Nears Completion

OIT’s ’22-’25 Strategic Plan Status Update

Preview of page 4 of the 2022 OIT Progress Report discussing the OIT Strategic Plan. 2022 brought forth OIT’s new Strategic Plan for serving the SMU community through 2025 and beyond. This comprehensive plan provides a framework of goals and aspirations that will lead us toward future success and innovation in SMU’s journey to R1 status. We would like to update you on the progress already made in our primary areas of planning: Research, Teaching and Learning, Excellence, and Innovation. Continue reading OIT’s ’22-’25 Strategic Plan Status Update

Focused Inboxes To Be Disabled by Default in Outlook and How to Enable

One of the benefits of our move to the cloud in the Mailbox Migration project will be to provide easier configuration options for email clients, better security, and more mailbox storage capacity. To get there, we need to change some current configurations and security settings. Some of these, have already been completed, but come next Monday, January 23, 2023, we will set the Focus Inbox feature to off by default as another step in this project. Continue reading Focused Inboxes To Be Disabled by Default in Outlook and How to Enable

A New Chapter of Identity Management on The Hilltop

Article compiled by OIT staffers Tommy & Pery Doan.

The Office of Information Technology has embarked on an exciting multi-year, multi-project journey to modernize Identity and Access Management (IAM) services at SMU. One of the primary objectives is to replace our in-house developed Account Maintenance Automation (AMA) system, which since 2010 has managed most default services required by faculty, staff, students, and sponsored users. Replacing AMA will be a significant step toward increasing the maturity level of our IAM program. Doing so will involve implementing several new open-source applications that will replace AMA and introduce new features and capabilities.

During the second half of 2022, the IAM team successfully completed Continue reading A New Chapter of Identity Management on The Hilltop