Microsoft 365 Tenant Merge – FAQ

There are currently multiple Microsoft 365 environments at the various Purdue campuses. These have been supported by a unified team for the past several years (prior to any Purdue IT re-organization.) As the environments become more complex, it has become more difficult to support and secure. This consolidation will ultimately benefit all users across the Purdue campuses.

Note: Email addresses for PNW users are NOT changing. If you currently have an @pnw.edu email address, that will stay the same after the tenant merge.

The date for the consolidation is November 18, 2024.

If anything happens that temporarily prevents access to email for PNW users, information will be shared at PNW.EDU/STATUS.

This merge will not affect student email, access to Google email, etc. However, student employees with Microsoft Exchange mailboxes will be affected.

Students with .STW email addresses will begin signing into their email account with their username@purdue.edu career account but will continue to send and receive emails using their username.stw@pnw.edu email address.

All Purdue Northwest users will be affected in some way. Faculty and staff will be impacted more than students, as students currently utilize Google for their email.

This information will also be shared in multiple emails leading up to the merge.

macOS Users

1. All macOS users will need to sign out of their devices.
2. You will need to sign back in using “username@purdue.edu” instead of “username@pnw.edu.”
3. This will continue to use your same password.
4. Note: Email addresses for PNW users are NOT changing. If you currently have an @pnw.edu email address, that will stay the same after the tenant merge.

Office Users

1. All Office users will need to sign out of their Office programs (including Outlook).
2. You will need to sign back in using “username@purdue.edu”
3. This will continue to use your same password.
4. Note: Email addresses for PNW users are NOT changing. If you currently have an @pnw.edu email address, that will stay the same after the tenant merge.

Microsoft Applications

1. All users of Microsoft applications on mobile devices will need to sign out of those applications
2. You will sign back in using “username@purdue.edu”.
3. This will continue to use your same password.
   1. Alternatively, users can uninstall the Microsoft apps, and reinstall – which will prompt to sign back in.

No. The PNW email addresses will not change.

Though you will be asked to authenticate to Microsoft applications, and macOS devices with your @purdue.edu email address – emails you send/receive will still come from/to your @pnw.edu email address.

Nothing will change with your pnw.edu email address.

As with all PNW users, retirees will now need to use username@purdue.edu to authenticate to any Microsoft service – including outlook.office.com. This is a change from before.

Additionally, some retirees (non-emeritus) may have retained access to all Microsoft applications after they retired – including Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, etc. With this tenant merge – these licenses will be reclaimed.

Retirees will continue to have access to their @PNW.EDU email address indefinitely – this does not change that. Access to that email address will be from Outlook on the Web – outlook.office.com.

• All users of Microsoft applications on mobile devices will need to sign out of those applications, and sign back in using “username@purdue.edu”. This will continue to use your same password.
  • Alternatively, users can uninstall the Microsoft apps, and reinstall – which will prompt to sign back in.
• If you use a non-Microsoft email app (Apple Mail, Samsung Mail, etc.) you will need to sign out of your @pnw.edu account and sign back in using “username@purdue.edu” and the same password.
  • This will not change your email address – it will remain @pnw.edu once you have signed in.

If you have access to a shared mailbox, such as a departmental mailbox, your access will not change once this is done.

When you sign back into Outlook (or other desktop mail client) those shared mailboxes will continue to appear.

This will not change.

When you sign into your mail client “using your username@purdue.edu”, your alias email address @pnw.edu will continue to be your default “send as” email address.

1. All macOS users will need to sign out of their device
2. You will sign back in using “username@purdue.edu” instead of “username@pnw.edu.”
3. This will continue to use your same password.

Note: Email addresses for PNW users are NOT changing. If you currently have an @pnw.edu email address, that will stay the same after the tenant merge.

Your profile should remain the same – but be sure to backup your files to OneDrive/Google Drive (depending on your preference) just in case. (You should be doing this anyway, as we do not recommend storing important files on your computer.)

If you are a retiree:

• Some retirees (non-emeritus) may have retained access to all Microsoft applications after they retired – including Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, etc. With this tenant merge – these licenses will be reclaimed.
• Retirees will continue to have access to their @pnw.edu email address indefinitely – this does not change that. Access to that email address will be from Outlook on the Web – outlook.office.com.

If you are not a retiree and believe you should still have access to these applications:

• Please contact csc@pnw.edu or call (219) 989-2888 for assistance. They will review your current status and determine if you are not being given the appropriate Microsoft 365 license.

No, all files stored with these services will be automatically transferred during the merge. If you are missing any files after the merge has been completed, please notify the CSC. No files will be lost during this merge. If they do not appear post-merge, they can most likely be recovered.

Note: Box, Google Drive, etc. are not affected by this.

There are various articles online about backing up your Teams 1:1 chat. This data will NOT be backed up automatically. Microsoft has a support page here with instructions.

From approximately Friday, November 16 until Tuesday, November 19, it is possible that voicemails will only deliver to your phone, and not show up in your mailbox. These voicemails are not lost – they just may not deliver to your email during this transition. If, after Tuesday, you are still not receiving voicemails to your mailbox – please contact the CSC.

As Microsoft Forms will not automatically transfer, Forms creators will need to take action to duplicate their current forms and import them into the new environment. The export must be done before Sunday, November 17^th. You can then log into Microsoft Forms with your username@purdue.edu as soon as today to import those Forms into the new environment. If you do not export your forms by this weekend, you will need to contact the CSC to have the Microsoft administrators retrieve your forms for you, which may take some time.

Backup and restore instructions can be found here.