Making the switch to microsoft's live@edu services
Jace Laakso, Kathy Garramone · 2010
In 2009, the University of Montana switched student email from a campus hosted system to Microsoft's [email protected], which we labeled UMConnect. During Fall Semester 2009, approximately 4800 students voluntarily signed up for UMConnect accounts. On February 22, 2010, UMConnect accounts were created for the remaining 10,000 students. What happened? What could have happened? What problems didn't we anticipate? At 8:00 AM Monday, we waited for the anticipated long lines of students asking for help, complaining or just being puzzled. Only 23 students came in that day and by week's end, there were less than 200 students needing activation help, despite the fact that over 6000 students had "Activated" their UMConnect accounts that first week.