Moving to Google Apps

Our current campus email and calendar product, the Sun Java Enterprise System, is actually two discrete servers: an email server and a calendar server. 

Email
The SJES email server has been compatible with most Windows and Mac email clients including Outlook for Windows (2003 and 2007), Outlook for the Mac (2004 and 2008), Entourage for the Mac, Mac Mail, and Mozilla Thunderbird for Windows and Mac. These have been the "officially supported" clients by ITS although we have still assisted users using Pegasus, Eudora, and other email clients when possible.

People who only use email and do not use the calendaring system will not be forced to change clients as we migrate to our new Gmail-based email service, unless they are using an unsupported client application. ITS will continue to support Outlook for Windows (2003 and 2007), Outlook for the Mac (2004 and 2008), Entourage for the Mac, and Mac Mail for email. Support for other email clients will no longer be offered by ITS, but we will assist you in moving from an unsupported client to a supported configuration as part of your migration to Google Mail. If you choose to continue using a non-supported client or configuration you do so at your own risk.

Calendars and Calendar Sharing through Outlook
Calendar services are an entirely separate issue. People who have used the SJES calendar server the past few years will probably share the opinion that calendar services have been "finicky" to say the least - especially for those people who use their calendar heavily and/or share calendars. Windows Outlook users have been only been able to use Outlook 2003 due to a piece of software, the Outlook Connector, that facilitated communication between the SJES calendar server and Outlook.

The new Google Calendar system is significantly different from the SJES calendar server and will definitely change the way that you work with your calendar. Outlook users who wish to share calendars in the new Google Calendar system must upgrade to Outlook 2007. Calendar sharing between the SJES and Google systems is incompatible, thus if a department relies heavily on calendar sharing all the members of that unit should migrate around the same time.

Try Google Apps!
We strongly urge you to try out the native, web-based Gmail interface. The Gmail interface is incredibly functional and ensures that your interaction with your email is the same regardless of where you access email from: at work, at home, or on the road. The way that Gmail handles email in "conversations" and uses "labels" instead of "folders" is very powerful and subtly different from how most email clients organize email. Use of Gmail also makes interaction with the other Google services, such as Google Talk, Google Calendar, and Google Docs much simpler by providing a unified interface to all of these services.

One of the only operations that is not easily done natively in Google Apps are mail merges. If you must perform mail merge operations we suggest that you follow the directions below for migrating from Outlook and continuing to use Outlook. You can still use the Google Apps native web interface most of the time if that is your preference, but when you need to perform a mail merge Outlook will be there and properly configured for those operations.

Migrating from your current email and/or calendaring to Google Apps takes a few steps, but is not difficult. Please click on the link below that best describes how you currently use email and calendaring for instructions on migrating to Google Apps.

Windows PC Users
* Eudora, Pegasus, and Mozilla Thunderbird are no longer be supported by ITS. The instructions for these products are provided as a courtesy and to help you move to a supported email/calendaring configuration.


Mac Users
 
Mobile
Many members of the campus community use smartphones or mobile devices to access campus email, calendars, and contacts. Click the appropriate link below for instructions on how to configure your mobile device for use with Google Apps. For the entire list of mobile options available through Google Apps click here.
Please note that ITS only supports university-owned equipment; the links above are provided as a courtesy. If you are the user of a UNC Asheville-owned Blackberry please contact ITS in advance of your migration so that we can schedule the configuration of your Blackberry to coincide with your migration to Google Apps.

Already forwarding your current '@unca.edu' email to a personal Gmail account?