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IT Services

Staff Email

Staff Email

Service Description

Staff Email is the email and calendaring service all staff and research postgraduates use for University-related business. The service is provided in the cloud by Exchange Online (part of Microsoft 365 for Education suite) in collaboration with the University.

Exchange Online is accessible from anywhere using Outlook on the web (often referred to as OWA) in a web browser, and by using Microsoft Outlook desktop client. These clients provide access to email, calendaring, task management, personal contacts and a global address list of staff and resources.

Users have access to a personal calendar to schedule meetings with internal or external contacts, and to share mailbox folders or assign delegation with colleagues. Shared mailboxes are created for groups of users who require more than one person to have access to a common mailbox. Resource mailboxes (room or equipment) are created to enable end-users to book resources.

Staff sign-in to their Exchange Online account using their University logon credentials:
(user-id@abdn.ac.uk)

Features

Email, Calendar and Tasks

  • Web-based access via Outlook on the web from anywhere
  • Client access using Outlook (MAPI), and other clients using IMAP, POP and EWS protocols.
  • Compatible with mobile devices using Exchange ActiveSync
  • 50GB mailbox storage (25MB maximum message size)
  • Virus and spam filtering in the cloud
  • Access to shared and resource mailbox types
  • Access to secondary accounts (‘p’ accounts)
  • Creation of personal contacts lists and groups
  • Calendar functionality includes scheduling meetings, sharing and delegation
  • Task management

Users

  • Staff
  • Research Postgraduates
  • Approved Honorary staff
  • 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year

Service Hours

  • 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year

Level of Service

Exchange Online is provided using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model whereby the software and associated data are centrally hosted in the cloud by Microsoft. Microsoft is responsible for the hardware and software infrastructure for the cloud service. IT Services is responsible for account (de)provisioning, password management and day-to-day user administration.

Availability

  • Exchange Online is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Backups

  • No automatic system snapshots or backups are taken of mailbox data.
  • The expectation is that users retrieve deleted items from the user’s own Deleted Items folder up to 30 days from deletion. After 30 days, deleted items can be retrieved from the user’s Recover Deleted Items folder for a further 14 days.
  • An administrator may be able to retrieve an item which has been deleted from the Recover Deleted Items folder for a further 14 days.

Restrictions

  • Outlook and Outlook on the web clients are supported by IT Services. Access by other desktop clients are not supported other than best endeavours.
  • 25MB send/receive message size limit
  • Mailbox items will not be retrievable once the item is no longer searchable by an administrator.
  • Manual backups of mailboxes will not routinely be provided to users. A user will be responsible for creating personal mailbox backups if and when required.
  • When a member of staff leaves University employment, the user account is disabled for a period of 90 days, after which time the account and mailbox are deleted. The mailbox is retrievable for a further 30 days by an administrator, after which it will be permanently removed.
  • If a member of staff returns to University employment after 90 days, a new user-id (and mailbox) will be created.

Support and Documentation

Request Process

  • Additional accounts can be set up to provide the following:
    • Secondary email accounts for a user, department or project group.
    • Shared accounts to enable more than one person to access mailbox feature(s).
    • Resource mailboxes for bookable rooms or equipment.
    • See our IT Accounts page on StaffNet for details.
  • Requests to search and retrieve messages which have passed the retention period in Recover Deleted Items folder are logged with the Service Desk. An administrator can only search for items for a further 14 days after expiry from this folder.
  • Requests for retrieval of mailbox items from a disabled account (within 90 day limit) are logged with the Service Desk.
  • For all requests, contact IT Service Desk- Service Desk contact details.

User Responsibility

Costs

  • No charge