Move to Zimbra starts in March
Geoff Rands
Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: News
All school-related e-mail services are about to change.
Webmail, Western's familiar purple-and-grey e-mail client, along with all other e-mail and calendar clients besides Zimbra, will be phased out starting March 1, when Zimbra's current 4.5 release will be upgraded to a 5.0 release.
"Migration" to Zimbra 5.0 will begin March 1, when current Zimbra users will be moved from version 4.5 to version 5.0. On March 5, certain members of the student body will be migrated from Webmail to Zimbra.
"All of the RAs and the major student organizations that gave me their membership will be migrated on (March 5)," said Teresa North, assistant to the executive director at Technology User Support Services. "We use the RAs as a large group since they are oftentimes the first resource for the students living in the halls."
Students who wish to be migrated early from Webmail may sign up at www.wiu.edu/guava/email.sphp between March 5 and 16. Though North said the goal is to have students migrated as soon as 24 hours after they sign up, she admitted that her department would be unable to process more than 1,000 or so migrations per day.
All remaining students will be migrated beginning March 17, with TUSS first processing freshman accounts, sophomore accounts next, and so forth.
Upon migration, users must go to zimbra.wiu.edu in order to log in to their university e-mail, though users' previously saved e-mails and address books will be available through Zimbra.
Zimbra 5.0 will have several changes from Zimbra 4.5, including a new Western-themed appearance.
"We have six students that serve on the e-mail task force that have told us what they like about it, to give us an idea of our selling points to students," North said.
In addition to the six standard Zimlets, or add-ons, in the current version, there are 31 extra Zimlets available in Zimbra 5.0, including links to Google Translator and Wikipedia.
"In the new version, pieces only load when you ask for them. The way 4.5 worked was it all loaded at once, whether you wanted to use those aspects or not," North said. "It's going to load a lot faster."
Webmail, Western's familiar purple-and-grey e-mail client, along with all other e-mail and calendar clients besides Zimbra, will be phased out starting March 1, when Zimbra's current 4.5 release will be upgraded to a 5.0 release.
"Migration" to Zimbra 5.0 will begin March 1, when current Zimbra users will be moved from version 4.5 to version 5.0. On March 5, certain members of the student body will be migrated from Webmail to Zimbra.
"All of the RAs and the major student organizations that gave me their membership will be migrated on (March 5)," said Teresa North, assistant to the executive director at Technology User Support Services. "We use the RAs as a large group since they are oftentimes the first resource for the students living in the halls."
Students who wish to be migrated early from Webmail may sign up at www.wiu.edu/guava/email.sphp between March 5 and 16. Though North said the goal is to have students migrated as soon as 24 hours after they sign up, she admitted that her department would be unable to process more than 1,000 or so migrations per day.
All remaining students will be migrated beginning March 17, with TUSS first processing freshman accounts, sophomore accounts next, and so forth.
Upon migration, users must go to zimbra.wiu.edu in order to log in to their university e-mail, though users' previously saved e-mails and address books will be available through Zimbra.
Zimbra 5.0 will have several changes from Zimbra 4.5, including a new Western-themed appearance.
"We have six students that serve on the e-mail task force that have told us what they like about it, to give us an idea of our selling points to students," North said.
In addition to the six standard Zimlets, or add-ons, in the current version, there are 31 extra Zimlets available in Zimbra 5.0, including links to Google Translator and Wikipedia.
"In the new version, pieces only load when you ask for them. The way 4.5 worked was it all loaded at once, whether you wanted to use those aspects or not," North said. "It's going to load a lot faster."
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