Best Practices, Migrating Email to ISC's Exchange Service
From Provider Notes
For more information about ISC's Exchange Service, visit the Provider Web at [1].
Best Practices: Migrating from various email services to ISC's Exchange Service
It is important to read supporting documentation, including the high level Exchange Migration Action Plan and Networking and Telecommunications' ISC Exchange Service [2] documentation prior to migrating users' email.
Step 1. Determine Strategy
Your email plan of action will be somewhat dependent upon what overall strategy you have adopted. The recommended path for larger groups or those with considerable scheduling needs across units is to migrate everyone's email first, followed by a coordinated migration of calendar for everyone. Another option for small organizations or those who do not depend on other units for scheduling is to do both email and calendar at the same time per user.
Even after the migration, users will be able to retain their pennname@pobox.upenn.edu, pennname@upenn.edu, and/or pennname@custom-domain.upenn.edu addressing.
The specific technical strategy for migrating mail depends upon a few things:
- Current email client (i.e. Eudora, Thunderbird, Outlook, Apple Mail, etc.)
- Current email protocol (IMAP v. POP v. "Blended")
- Future email client
Links to detailed instructions for each scenario are located on the Email Migration to ISC Exchange.
Step 2. Test strategy
Before migrating, support providers should test their planned migration paths thoroughly. It is not only possible, but likely that support providers will discover specific use cases for email and calendaring that are not covered in ISC's documentation. In particular, support providers should make note of clients that are likely to involve “exception processing” (such as those with smartphones) and attempt to test those types of configurations.
Side Note: Support Providers are strongly encouraged to update documentation on this wiki with information, tips, tricks and gotcha's discovered during their testing and migration. Your lessons learned could greatly help other Penn staff who are working towards the same end--you're not only being a good colleague, but saving valuable university time and resources! To get an account on the Wiki, please contact the Provider Desk, 3-4017.
Step 3. Develop and execute communications plan
Developing a communication plan is part of the high level planning that needs to be completed prior to migrating users' email. Users should understand that this is a significant transition, both in the clients they use and (probably) in the way they work at Penn. In particular, they should not be transitioned when there are major other work-related stressors, such as when they are out of town on University business, making other major technology changes, etc. Communication should set reasonable expectations and time lines. It should make clear that the transition is not a one day process and that not all users will be making the transition at the same time.
A recommended communications plan for this effort could be in the form of a table, where each row is a communication event. The rows should give information about date, audience, communicator, vehicle (email, newsletter, etc.) and message. Using this type of tool will make it easy to implement as the process goes along. Here are three sample entries to a communications plan about email migration. This plan is just an example (not in anyway complete...)
| Date | Audience | Communicator | Vehicle | Summary of Message Content | Status |
| August 15, 2007 | Staff in "x" unit | IT Director | Email staff@xxx.upenn.edu | Exchange is coming (benefits for users...) | Completed |
| September 5, 2007 | Staff in "x" unit | LSP Manager | Email staff@xxx.upenn.edu | Upgrade to Outlook 2007, timeline, suggested training | |
| September 10, 2007 | Staff in "x" unit | LSP Manager | Department newsletter | "Spring clean" your mail, delete, organize |
Step 4. Back up data
At a minimum, users should have one full backup of their email and calendar files. Instructions for making these will be included in ISC's technical documentation but typically involve saving the respective data folders for the user's email client and for Meeting Maker. See Making Local Backups.
Users may want to retain the email and calendar data from their previous applications, including the applications themselves, for a transitional period even when those applications are no longer connecting to their servers and/or if the user no longer has accounts on those servers. In that way, users have an archive of their legacy email and calendar information. All of the University's supported email clients will view the user's local email, and Meeting Maker will view the user's cached calendar without an account or a network connection.
Step 5. Decide where existing reflector lists and html files will reside
Exchange accounts do not include personal web space or reflector list capabilities. It is important to relay this information to users and to take an inventory of all lists and web pages currently hosted on POBOX. If html files and/or lists are used for departmental purposes, staff will need to determine a plan to migrate them to a different service.
Networking and Telecommunications provides the following services:
- For web pages, please see Developers on www.upenn.edu
- For list management services, please see Mailing Lists or establish a group account on POBOX Classic to host the reflector lists.
Step 6. Install and configure new software as needed
Note: The below instructions assume that users will be using Outlook for the first time. If your users are currently using Outlook with POBOX, you will need to create/configure the account by going through the control panel. See IMAP to Exchange.
- How to configure Outlook 2003 for Exchange
- How to configure Outlook 2007 for Exchange
- How to configure Entourage for Exchange
Step 7. Create Exchange Account with temporary password
Networking and Telecommunications has documented instructions about how to create an account.
Bulk account creation is also available through the online account administration tools for ISC Exchange.
Step 8. Migrate Email
To migrate email, please use the chart located at Email Migration to ISC Exchange to find the appropriate instructions for your environment.
Step 9. Migrate contacts
Users may have contacts from multiple sources which need to be migrated and merged into their new Exchange account. They may have contacts from their calendar, PDA and/or POBOX email client. Please see Contact Migration Strategies for more discussion about the issues related to contact migration and Email Contact Migration for specific instructions about how to migrate contacts from each of Penn's supported email clients.
Step 10. Test
Testing functionality and verifying folder organization with each user is an important step in the migration.
- Send mail from the user's account.
- Note where the "sent" mail is stored.
- Confirm that the "from" address displays a the user prefers (i.e. pennname@upenn.edu)
- Send mail to the user's account.
- Ask the user to look at the way their folders are organized.
- Does it mirror their previous client?
- Will they be able to find older messages that they need?
Step 11. Remove POBOX account from client view
One of the last steps is to remove the POBOX account from the user's view. This does not include deleting the POBOX account, but rather just removing its access from the Outlook client. To accomplish this, in Outlook select Options in the Tools menu. On the Mail Setup Tab, click Email Accounts. Highlight the POBOX account and click Remove.
Generally, an important consideration is also whether to keep the POBOX Classic account beyond the immediate transitional period. Default forwarding will not retain a copy of new messages in the POBOX Classic account; however, select users may prefer this configuration. Maintaining this kind of forwarding on the account will allow users to view email on POBOX Classic in an emergency, but provider should note that there will be quota issues to consider. As users become comfortable working in their new Exchange email environment, and they consult their Classic email archives less frequently, maintaining their POBOX Classic account becomes less of a concern. While this comfort level will vary from individual to individual, conservative expectations for maintaining the POBOX Classic account could range from three to six months. Also please note that while there are two full accounts in existence, departments will be charged for both the POBOX and Exchange accounts.
Step 12. Point users to resources
It is a good idea to point users to client documentation and training opportunities.
The following documents have been created to help you assist users with Outlook and Entourage:
In addition, classes are available through Technology Training Services
Finally, users may want to bookmark the Outlook web client. It can be accessed at https://mail.exchange.upenn.edu/owa/
Step 13. Help users recreate personal options
Although documentation is helpful, some users may require assistance setting up personal account preferences and options. Be prepared for users to have questions about
- filters and rules
- signature files
- vacation messages
- email text fomatting
- etc.
Step 14. Ask users to change password
The final step in a successful migration is to get users to change the temporary password to one of their choosing. To do this, users should visit ISC Exchange Account Service Tools. Users will need to log in with their PennKey and associated password.
