Home

Getting started on the new email system

Fri, 08/20/2010 - 9:18am — jblackhall

As Rush migrates to the new Outlook email system, I'd like to share some information on getting started. There's a lot of good information on here that not everybody knows, so I'd appreciate it if you would share this with your friends so that everyone is basically on the same page.

Getting Started

First, I understand that there are a bunch of people who have not yet accessed the new email system. I've found this is generally for 1 of 3 reasons.

  • There's a new email system? If have been living under a rock, Rush has migrated from Notesmail to Microsoft's Outlook. It's actually two systems. The student's email is hosted at Microsoft Online Services (meaning our email is hosted on Microsoft servers), while the faculty and staff's email is hosted in-house at Rush using Outlook/Exchange 2007. This is important to realize because while faculty and staff log in at http://webemail.rush.edu, students should log in at http://edumail.rush.edu, which will re-direct you to a log-in screen at red001.home.microsoftonline.com. The other reason it is important is because if you are trying to access your email via alternative methods, such as IMAP or on your phone, the servers will be different.
  • I don't know how to log in. There was an issue last week with migrating the medical college from Notesmail to Outlook. Everyone was supposed to have received an email with a username, temporary password, and further instructions, but due to technical difficulties, it never got sent. No one realized this until after our email was migrated. Another email was sent out to you with further instructions if your personal email address is on file with Student Services or the Registrar. I'll give the gist of that email here. In order to be able to log in to Outlook Web Access for the first time, you need to:
    1. Log into RUConnected. Under "Students" and "User Account," you should see a link called "Outlook Email Info". That page will give you a temporary password. It also contains documents on how to reset your password that a lot of people are ignoring, so I'm going to repeat the rest of the instructions here.
    2. You then need to change your temporary password to a real one. Note that this cannot be done at the regular email site, edumail.rush.edu. You need to log into "My Company Portal" on http://home.microsoftonline.com with your full email address and your temporary password from RUConnected. You will be prompted to change your password there. On the right side of the page are a list of requirements that your password must meet in order to be changed. If this page appears not to be working even though you're following all the rules, skip to the next bullet point.
    3. Once you have successfully changed your password, you can log into http://edumail.rush.edu with your full email address and your new password.
  • I can't log in. If you are trying to use your temporary password at edumail.rush.edu (which redirects to red001.mail.microsoftonline.com/owa), it won't work. Please see the above instructions. If you are trying to change your temporary password at the Microsoft Online Services My Company Portal and it won't let you, it means something about your temporary password wasn't issued correctly. You need to contact the Help Desk (help@rush.edu or 2-HELP) and ask them to reset your temporary password.

Using the system

Another important point about the new email system is that Outlook Web Access looks drastically different when it's viewed in Internet Explorer compared to any other web browser. The "Premium" version of Outlook Web Access is only available on Internet Explorer at this time. This Premium version offers a lot more customization options and a different, 3-pane user interface. You can still send and receive emails and do pretty much anything that you need to do from the "Lite" interface, viewable on any other web browser, so there's no need to worry. I just didn't want people to be surprised like I was when I logged into my email at school on Internet Explorer and the interface was so much different than when I was using Firefox at home.

Forwarding your email

With Outlook, forwarding of email is now officially sanctioned by the administration. I would like to point out that forwarding will work a bit differently than it did in Lotus Notes (at least for students). Although you can create a "mail rule" like you did in Lotus Notes, this will not forward your email. Students email is hosted by Microsoft, and they do not allow forwarding to "external" mail addresses (i.e. those outside of rush.edu) on their servers. Internet Services (IS) has worked around this by enabling forwarding before they reach Microsoft. Therefore, it's important to understand that if you forward your email, it will no longer show up in Outlook at all. It will be forwarded to the address you specify and it will never appear in your edumail.rush.edu account. Of course, you're still free to access your Outlook account and send email using the global address book or do anything else that you want. Just understand that new email will no longer show up there.

Last week, Bill Flemming sent out an email about forwarding, and if you responded to that email, he is working with IS to get the accounts forwarded. If you did not respond to his email, you now need to contact the Help Desk in order to set up forwarding. You need to provide them with the email address you'd like to forward to. They'll take care of the rest. If you created any "mail rules" in Outlook, IS recommends that you delete them. Remember that your new mail will no longer reach Outlook if you set up forwarding. If anyone at the Help Desk tells you that forwarding is "not allowed," please let me know.

Also, if you previously had set up Gmail to "mail fetch" by POP3, this will no longer work with Outlook. POP3 is disabled on Microsoft's servers.

Using other devices to access your email

I'd like to get guides online for accessing your Outlook email via iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and possibly IMAP. If anyone is interested in helping write one or more of these brief guides, let me know.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.