UKAT Announces Office 365 Updated Features for UK Community

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 9, 2015) — Today, technology allows people to access information wherever, whenever. As part of its commitment to the University of Kentucky community, University of Kentucky Analytics and Technologies (UKAT) is excited to make that access even easier with Office 365 in Education. 

Microsoft will host calendars and documents, storage and other productivity tools for educational institutions through Microsoft Office 365, an integrated communication and collaboration solution. This product enables UK to provide students and employees with UK-branded, advertising-free access to a variety of popular cloud-based tools at a low cost to the university.

Note: While UK HealthCare and campus exchange email users will receive the benefit of having Microsoft Office on five devices, OneDrive and enhanced collaboration ability, this upgrade will NOT affect their email. These users will continue to receive and send email with no change. Students currently using the Office 365 email system will be unable to access their email the evening of 4/10/2015 (Friday) during the update.

All current employees and students will be able to access their UK Microsoft Office 365 account beginning Saturday, April 11, with their link blue username followed by @uky.edu (username@uky.edu) and password. (The system will be off-line for current users of Microsoft O365 email the evening of Friday, April 10, during the update.)

At this time, the agreement between the university and Microsoft provides access to the core services: Calendar, People, Newsfeed, OneDrive, Sites, Projects, Tasks, Word Online, Excel Online, PowerPoint Online and OneNote Online. Users can also download Microsoft Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Lync), OneNote and OneDrive applications onto five separate personal devices. Please note, faculty and staff Office 365 installations onto university computers should be coordinated with their department or college’s IT support team. 

In addition, OneDrive offers 1 terabyte of cloud storage and allows users to share and edit documents, schedules and notes making group and team projects easier and more effective. OneDrive syncs to all related devices automatically, so files and documents are readily available anytime, anywhere.

OneNote users can type, write or audio record notes and use folders and binders for organizing. While these features are also available to the UK community for personal use, it is highly encouraged not to store documents online with confidential or personal information such as account numbers or social security numbers.

UKAT will demonstrate Microsoft Office 365 features Tuesday, April 14, from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. during its annual Tech Tips Live student event at the Hub in William T. Young Library. Additional technology services will be featured at the event and pizza and prizes will be given to students.

On Wednesday, April 15, a Microsoft representative will be available to discuss how best to use Microsoft Office 365 for teaching, project work and other needs. Students, faculty and staff can stop by Presentation U in Champions Court between 2-5 p.m. to speak with the representative.

For more information, students can review additional Office 365 information at http://www.uky.edu/ukat/content/office-365-student and faculty and staff can review information at http://www.uky.edu/ukat/content/office-365-staff.

Office 365 is a hosted solution, and support documentation is available at Microsoft Support. However, UKAT Service Desk can answer general questions if not found on the Microsoft site at 218help@uky.edu or 859-218-HELP.  

Not familiar with Office 365? Take a look at this video production from the Media Depot:

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Harder, 859-323-2396, whitney.harder@uky.edu