February 15, 2006
To: UCOP Division and Department Heads
From: Kristine Hafner, Associate Vice President, Information Resources
and Communications
Dear Colleagues:
Beginning in April and continuing through the spring and summer, IR&C will migrate employees at UCOP to a new e-mail and calendar program, called Outlook. Our goal is to make this transition as painless as possible: We will communicate regularly with advice and "FAQ's," and will provide formal training classes, reference materials, and on-site assistance during each department's migration.
In keeping with UCOP's current desktop support model, we are relying on your departmental PC Coordinators to work closely with us on the "Go Outlook!" migration project and to provide technical assistance when your department migrates to Outlook. PC Coordinators are receiving Outlook training this week, and will convert to Outlook after training.
We are moving to Outlook because our current e-mail and calendar tools, Eudora and Corporate Time, are no longer commercially viable. UCOP employees also require the enhanced security and functionality, such as Web access to e-mail, that Outlook offers.
Outlook is a more expensive environment to support, however, and, we will need to reevaluate funding mechanisms, including new recharge rates, to address our ongoing costs to maintain UCOP's managed desktop environment. In the short term, IR&C has covered the cost of Outlook licenses and we will retain existing e-mail and calendar rates while we explore moving to a "knowledge worker rate," which most of our campuses have adopted. The "knowledge worker" concept bundles all the necessary productivity tools that employees require (e.g., network connection, phone and fax services, e-mail, and calendar) into a single rate, thus eliminating costly billing for individual services. As we develop a new recharge rate proposal during the months ahead, Carla Raffetto, IR&C Customer Relationship Liaison, will share information with your departmental administrators.
Your support of the Go Outlook! project will be critical to its success. Thank you in advance for allowing your PC Coordinators and employees to participate in Outlook training, and for your patience when we experience the inevitable "bumps in the road" that occur during such migrations. If you would like to arrange a meeting with Communication Services Manager Michael Shannon to discuss any concerns or questions your department has about Outlook migration, please contact Connie Geraghty at 987-0440 or .
To learn more about the benefits of Outlook, please refer to the note sent to all of UCOP on Feb. 8 ( http://www.ucop.edu/irc/announce/gooutlook.html). Stay tuned as we post more information on our Web site in the weeks ahead.
Again, thank you for your support.
