Purdue University Northwest / News / Announcements / Upcoming Microsoft 365 Environment Changes

Upcoming Microsoft 365 Environment Changes

June 13, 2024
A student sits at a table. There is a computer on the table in front of them.

Good morning,

In late July/early August, Purdue IT will begin the process of merging the Purdue Northwest and Purdue West Lafayette Microsoft 365 environments. Much more information about this merge will come soon, but here are some of the higher-level points:

How will this affect me?

  • PNW usernames, email addresses, passwords, etc. are not changing.
  • Other than a brief outage during the migration, there will be very little impact. Most users will not notice any difference after the work has completed.
  • We have engaged a vendor to handle most of this process. The vendor will be moving over your data (with few exceptions listed below.)
  • We expect a short service interruption during the migration in late July/early August. The timing will be communicated early and often so that you can plan accordingly.

What is being merged?

  • Exchange
  • OneDrive
  • Teams
  • SharePoint
  • Microsoft 365 Groups
  • Distribution Lists

Why are we doing this?

  • With two environments, it is becoming increasingly difficult to support. This merge will allow for more opportunities for support, hopefully decreasing support times and increasing reliability.
  • As we continue to do more work within the Microsoft 365 environment (SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, etc.) we are receiving more requests for collaboration options between the PNW and PWL environments. This merge will make that collaboration easier and more streamlined.

What will not be migrated automatically?

  • Personal 1:1 and group Teams Chats, Forms, Power Platform, and Yammer/Viva Engage will not be migrated.

Note: None of the work that was/is being done to migrate from the H, R, M, drives etc. (on premises storage drives) will be lost. In fact, it will make this process easier. All files moved to the PNW OneDrive/SharePoint will be automatically migrated. Care will be taken to ensure that no files are lost.

If you have any questions – please reach out to the CSC. More information will be coming soon.