Questions before going to Outlook/Exchange

Your Outlook/Exchange pre-migration worksheet can be based upon the answers to the following questions... since the number of permutations is so high, there is no single easy flowchart that would cover all situations...

Questions:

1. Do you need shared calendars? With whom do you need to share calendars? Are they on exchange/using outlook?
2. What operating system are you using?
3. Are you using an ECN supported desktop with no administrative access?
4. How much email do you currently have in your inbox (/var/mail/ )?
5. How much mail do you have in other folders (~/mail?)?
6. What client have you been using so far? POP or IMAP?
7. If you use Windows, have, and expect to continue to have less than 500MB of email, then you can be moved to Exchange/Outlook pretty easily.
8. If you have less than 500MB of email, and you expect to have more than 500MB (let’s call this your “extra email”) in the future, you will need to address the following scenarios and options:    Will you have a need for the extra email to be available to you online from off campus? This limits your client and usability options.  Will you have enough space in either your N:\ drive or in a shared space to accommodate this extra email? (Remember that email stored in a shared space is available to others to view)
9. Do you have a laptop as well as a desktop? If so, availability of "extra email" will need to be discussed- having it in two places is a potential issue.
10. Does your desktop have a backed up Data partition?
11. Do you have RDP access to your desktop?
12. Is your main machine on a speed of at least 10/100/Sw/Auto? If not, that could be an issue.

Illustrations of possible options:

1. If using POP, do not attempt migration, but cutover.
2. If all mail is well under 500MB, set up Outlook per: http://eng.purdue.edu/jump/d9915  (ALL of the options changed there are REQUIRED- every one of those is changed for a reason.)
3. If you have say 1Gb of email (/var/mail + ~/mail), and you want to share calendars, and have been using thunderbird/IMAP, your best option would be to set up Outlook to open with the calendar, and use exchange as your acmainted mail delivery location, and set up thunderbird to use exchange as an IMAP client. You would then use your original email store as your folders, and use exchange as your active 500Mb inbox.
4. If you have

 Forwarding or redirecting your email out of exchange to another account has limitations- typically of cc: header stripping- that can be an issue for staff and faculty who need to see the cc:d accounts.

Feel free to discuss migration path options with the Raos.