While we were gone, G-Day struck

While everyone else was enjoying their winter break, the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) was busy moving over 20 million e-mails to the new G Suite server.

A G Suite account, according to the Google Support page, includes not only a Gmail address but also access to cloud storage, Google Docs, spreadsheets, video chat, and more. Features such as these are something that Chief Information Officer Allan Chen was looking for in a new server.

“There was nothing wrong, per se, with our previous email and calendar solution, based on the Novell Groupwise platform,” said Chen, “However, it did not offer any of the collaboration tools that are not only common but also all but required for today’s learning environment. These included cloud storage, online document creation, and easy sharing of files.”

As part of the switch over, OIT had to migrate, or move, twenty million faculty e-mails off the Novell Groupwise server into G Suite, which was no small task. Even moving five emails at a time, one per second, took three months and 75% of the whole OIT team.

The official switch over occurred on Dec. 28, when the Groupwise email could no longer send emails to other Groupwise inboxes. From this point on, campus could only send emails through G Suite.

To further help the campus adjust, on Jan. 2 OIT held G-day, an all-day G Suite information session to help members of the community in the transition onto the new server and how to utilize some of the new programs on G Suite. The event also included giveaways and raffles.

Students overall seem to like the new G Suite.

Kristiane Olson, ’17, already had a personal Gmail account and, like many other students, was already familiar with the system.

“I don’t think anyone in the real world uses GroupWise,” said Olson. “[G-Suite] is more compatible because so many things use Google software.”

Benjamin Starr ‘18, agreed, adding that the biggest benefit was having documents of all sorts under one account.

“It’s just kind of the norm, now,” said Starr. “[Google] is the leading provider in all these services. Everyone uses them, so it’s really convenient.”

As with any system, though, the system isn’t perfect. Even today some students are still having trouble with the inbox on their phone.

Alexandra Liebman, ‘18, said that she’s having trouble printing from the Wepa printers, saying that she can’t access her Google Documents all the time on the printers.

“Other students were having this trouble too. It would say ‘please wait,’ and it just wouldn’t work,” said Liebman, “So you’d have to do it manually.”

Despite these complications, Liebman said she’s overall happy with the system. She said the biggest perk is that it doesn’t crash as often as Groupwise did. She explained that, on the old server, sometimes, while filling out a survey for a club that needed to be completed in a certain time slot, her e-mail would crash.

“It was frustrating,” said Liebman, “because you’d need to check back every five minutes to see if it was up.”

Through G-Day and additional training, Chen says OIT is working to make the transition as easy as possible.

“There is certainly some frustration around campus about a change this significant, and we’ve tried our best to address those concerns through support, training, and simply listening and being open to requests of all types,” said Chen. “Success of the G Suite project is a two-way street, and the community has been fantastic about trying the new system, about changing the way they work, and being open to new ideas. That doesn’t mean the transition is easy, but it’s been a great partnership between OIT and the college community to get through this process.”

Overall, Chen said the change has gone well.

“And at the end of the day we moved 20 million emails, tens of thousands of calendar events, created a few thousand accounts and integrated it all through a brand new Application Portal in 6 months,” said Chen.