Frequently Asked Questions
:- Accounts will be created for all current Rutgers faculty and staff as part of the migration process, as each office has its turn.
- Note: Do not create an Office 365 account on your own. Information from private Office 365 accounts cannot be migrated to Rutgers Connect.
- New employees will be able to create accounts through the Service Activation link on the netid.rutgers.edu website.
- Sign In Address. This will always be in the format of netid@domain.rutgers.edu. If you would like confirmation on what your Rutgers Connect sign in information is, please visit the Manage Email address page at http://netid.rutgers.edu. Your sign in address can be found in the Rutgers Connect Account Information section.
- Primary Address. A primary address is the email address your Rutgers Connect account will send mail from. You can set your primary address using the directions found at: https://oit.rutgers.edu/connect/guides/changing-default-address
- Office 365 is compliant with HIPAA, FERPA, GLBA, and others. See: https://products.office.com/en-ca/business/office-365-trust-center-top-10-trust-tenets-cloud-security-and-privacy
- Microsoft has provided Rutgers with a BAA.
- Microsoft also has many documents on security and Office 365 including: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=401240
- Security for sensitive data needs to happen not just in the cloud but also on the Rutgers side, including how the data is stored, transmitted and handled in the given department/unit of the University and by the users who have access to that data. A department/unit handling sensitive data may also want to speak to the Rutgers Compliance office.
- For those units/departments that are HIPAA-covered entities, their outgoing email will be routed through Zix for further protection within Rutgers Connect. Please speak of your needs to OIT during the migration process. See more information on Zix in the IT Staff FAQs.
- In general, information on accounts on Rutgers services, including Rutgers Connect, is accessable only by the specific account holder, until it is shared by that account holder with others. However, as Rutgers is a public university, all information on Rutgers services may be subject to legal requests, such as Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests, court orders, or litigation.
- Aside from such requests, the only people authorized to see such documents other than the account holder, would be system administrators who have special privileges, usable under very limited circumstances, for this purpose.
- At Rutgers, only a few highly trained individuals working for OIT have this type of privilege. They work under clearly stated rules on privacy, user responsibilities, system administrator responsibilities, and violations handling. We take this very seriously. The specific circumstances are covered in the Acceptable Use Policy found in the Rutgers policy library.
- Microsoft also takes this responsibility seriously. For example, see
https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-trust-center-compliance
https://products.office.com/en/business/office-365-trust-center-cloud-computing-security
https://www.microsoft.com/online/legal/v2/?docid=24&langid=en-us
They also have a very detailed white paper on this topic: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26552 - Account holders should keep in mind that Rutgers email services are for work purposes and as such are not truly private.
Will it be necessary to reconfigure peoples mobile devices and desktop systems for those using Rutgers Connect?
Yes. Their mobile devices and desktops need to point to the new email and calendar service. The reconfiguration may be performed by the departmental/unit IT support staff or possibly by the end user themselves. Information on reconfiguration will be made available on the Rutgers Connect web site (https://oit.rutgers.edu/connect).
How do I create an alias for my Rutgers email?
To create an email alias for your Rutgers email address please follow the steps below
1. Navigate to http://go.rutgers.edu/i1k10ndy
2. Under personalized addresses, you may create an email alias and click the Add Personalized Address button to add the alias
After completing the steps above you should be able to receive emails sent to your alias in the accounts listed under delivery email account.
For further questions, please call the Help Desk at 848-445-4357.
What Rutgers email addresses do I have access to?
You can identify what Rutgers email addresses you have access to at https://netid.rutgers.edu/index.htm, click the "Manage Email Addresses" link. You will be able to identify your alias, delivery, and official Rutgers email addresses.
If you are a current student, faculty member, staff member, guest or alumni with Rutgers and you have activated the ScarletApps service at the "Service Activation" link on the same website, you will have access to a Scarletmail account. ScarletMail is the official email service for Rutgers affiliates. You can access this account at https://oit.rutgers.edu/scarletapps by selecting the “Mail” application. You would log in with your netid@scarletmail.rutgers.edu and your NetID password.
If you are a current faculty or staff member within the university, you are most likely auto-provisioned for a Connect (Office 365) account. Connect is slowly removing and replacing RCI accounts. Connect accounts are mostly administered within a department. Most departments have migrated to Connect, but the goal is to have all departments migrated in the near future. For existing users in a department that are not yet migrated, you will have to wait until your department has migrated your account or request one from your departmental IT personnel.
Your alias addresses are personalized email addresses typically in the form of “firstname.lastname@rutgers.edu” to provide an alternate, professional display. It allows the option of a different public address aside from your typical NetID address to provide to others. All mail sent to any alias address that you publicly display will be sent to your delivery address(es). Your delivery addresses can be your Scarletmail account, your Connect account, and/or a personal account depending on your role with the university. Your official Rutgers email address is the email address displayed for others that wish to locate your contact information through http://search.rutgers.edu/index.html.
Will retiree accounts be provided and supported?
Retirees can open ScarletMail accounts to replace accounts on systems which are being decommissioned (e.g., rci.rutgers.edu). Migration to ScarletMail will not be part of the Rutgers Connect migration. OIT will notify retirees with RCI accounts when they need to migrate to ScarletMail and will provide some level of migration support, yet to be determined. Departments maintaining retiree accounts on their own systems should encourage their retirees to create and move to ScarletMail accounts now. Guest accounts on Rutgers Connect can be requested for retirees actively working with a department (e.g., a professor emeritus). If a retiree is also listed as current Rutgers Faculty or Staff, that person can have a Rutgers Connect account for as long as that Faculty/Staff role is active.
What type of virus protection is available? Are OneDrive files covered by it?
Microsoft provides its own virus protection service which covers all data (email, files) stored on Rutgers Connect.
What are the benefits of Office 365?
Office 365 is a cloud-based email and calendaring system that will provide better collaboration within and between departments, improved email and calendaring services, excellent spam and virus filtering, a resilient system with 99.95% uptime, and a service that provides many other useful collaboration, education and business tools. For more information, see https://products.office.com/en-ie/academic/office-365-education-plan
How long will the forwarding of existing email domain aliases remain?
Migrated aliases will remain "forever". However, situations where multiple aliases forward to the same email should be cleaned up, and not all aliases will be migrated and supported. A general cleanup of accounts, distribution lists, groups, ACLs, etc., is strongly recommended.
How do I get an account?
Is there an equivalent to the RUMail/Zimbra "Briefcases" or other file servers?
Yes. This can be discussed further during the kick off meeting with the department/unit IT staff, OIT and Comparex.
What are the Security Features of Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) ?
Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) acts as a second layer of protection for attachments and links included in email messages for Rutgers Connect. ATP is compromised of two components:
Attachment Scanning:
All attachments never before seen by Rutgers Connect, including those attached to external and internal messages, will be thoroughly checked for any possible malware components by ATP. If ATP detects a malicious attachment, it will remove the attachment and deliver the email with a note regarding the removed attachment.
This scanning may delay the delivery of a message by a few seconds or minutes.
URL Scanning and Wrapping:
ATP will scan and follow all web addresses (URLs) arriving from outside Rutgers Connect for known malicious content, including both malware and phishing sites. Links viewed in plain text mail will be rewritten to link first to a safelinks.protection.outlook.com address and will likely be longer than the original URL. Non-harmful links will act normally when clicked on, while links identified as harmful will redirect the user to a warning page.
The protections afforded by ATP also extends to Office 2016 ProPlus desktop applications. Harmful links found in Office documents will be protected by the same webpage-scanning and link-blocking technologies described above, adding a layer of protection to the desktop environment.
Additional information regarding Advanced Threat Protection for Rutgers Connect can be found at https://rutgersit.rutgers.edu/rutgers-connect-advanced-threat-protection-deployment/.
Is faculty/staff email be included in ScarletApps?
Rutgers Connect is the official Mail and Calendering system for faculty and staff, however any faculty or staff member can create a ScarletMail account as well.
Why is the from field in Outlook not my primary email address?
Rutgers Connect supplies users with two identifiers:
Outlook will show your Sign In Address in the from field:
This cannot be changed. Messages sent out via Outlook will be sent from your Primary Address, despite the From field displaying your Sign In address.
What types of files can be migrated from various email services?
This document was provided by our migration consultant. It explains what types of files can be migrated from various email services.
Is the Active Directory service deployed for the migration part of the proposed Enterprise Active Directory service?
Some level of Active Directory services will be operating as part of the migration. This will likely be a subset of the eventual enterprise-wide Active Directory service.
Is it safe to store Non-Public Personal Info (NPPI), HIPAA, or other restricted data on Office 365 (cloud)?
Is it safe to store Non-Public Personal Info (NPPI), HIPAA, or other restricted data on Office 365 (cloud)?
Is Rutgers Connect/Office 365 HIPAA, FERPA, GLBA, etc. compliant?
Is it better to store this type of data on a local fileserver (which is kept updated and firewalled) within our building or in the Office 365 cloud (OneDrive)?
Can I send email as an address other than my actual Rutgers Connect address?
Yes. Rutgers Connect allows users to send mail using a Personalized Email Address. To select a Personalized Email Address to send mail from, please see the directions located at:
https://oit.rutgers.edu/connect/guides/changing-default-address
How private is the information I keep on Rutgers Connect? Who (beyond the sender and intended recipient) has access to emails and other documents stored by the enterprise version of Office 365, and under what circumstances?
Will an organization with accounts on multiple email services be migrated per-service or per-department?
Migration will occur per department and will involve migration from whichever current mail servers the department uses (keeping in mind the one-account-per-person requirement). For example, a department whose members have accounts on both RUMail and RCI will have those accounts migrated at the same time. Other departments which also have accounts on both RUMail and RCI will have those accounts migrated when it is that department's turn.
Will existing mail tags be retained after migration?
Tags migrated from Outlook/Exchange-using accounts, but the color choices will be lost.
Tags from other mail programs (for example, Zimbra) cannot be migrated.
Note: the color highlighting used in SquirrelMail (the webmail client for RCI and Andromeda) cannot be migrated to Rutgers Connect.
When are we migrating?
A migration schedule is currently available. It should be considered more a rough order in which units are to be migrated rather than a specific timetable, to allow for addressing unexpected problems