What is UC at Illinois?

UC is a major, campus-wide technological initiative to replace telephone, email, and calendaring services for faculty, staff, professional and graduate students. Like faculty and staff, professional and graduate students sign up for an Exchange email account and a Lync account. Unlike faculty, staff, and professional students, graduate students will only receive a Lync-to-Lync Account. Depending on unit/department provided information, professional students will receive a Lync Enterprise Account. For more information on what professional students will get when it comes to UC at Illinois, please switch to the Faculty & Staff Introduction to UC.

Graduate and Professional Student Provisioning

With the new semester upon us, CITES automatically provisioned 5,059 Lync-to-Lync accounts for professional and graduate students on Friday, August 24, 2012. This was a one-time processing to ensure a smooth transition into the University system for students who were identified by the University as active professional or graduate students as of Wednesday, August 22, 2012.

Graduate students with appointments and Professional students ARE eligible for Enterprise Lync, which includes the ability to make and receive calls outside of Lync. Graduate students must have an academic hourly or graduate hourly appointment to be eligible for Enterprise Lync. To request Enterprise Lync, the unit's Telecom Unit Coordinator to send in a CITES Service Request with an associated NCOS and CFOP. Find out about your account status at My UC. Log in with your NetID and AD password. If you can log in to the web interface, you'll see information about your account status, including whether or not you are Lync enabled.

If you can't log in to this interface, you can contact the CITES Help Desk for assistance in learning your account status and temporary number.

What are the benefits for graduate students?

As a graduate student, you will be able to use Unified Communications (UC) to send and receive email and instant messages. You will also be able to schedule meetings and share your calendar with other Unified Communications users. You can call other users of UC on our campus right from your computer using Microsoft Lync, the UC Voice software component. For information on downloading Microsoft Lync, please see: Installation Instructions - Lync.

In addition these conveniences, using UC helps protects the security of your communications. Graduate students often take on many different roles on campus, becoming closely involved in research and teaching activities. For this reason, graduate students need to be aware of security concerns when sending information through email.

Although it may be tempting to forward your campus mail to an external email account, graduate students, like faculty, staff, and professional students, should be aware of email security issues that can arise.

How do I access my Exchange account?

Some graduate students are automatically given an Exchange account, others may need to set one up. To check to see if you have an Exchange account or to set one up, go to:

https://partnercomputing.illinois.edu

With your new Exchange account, your email address will be netid@illinois.edu. In many cases, for existing University of Illinois graduate students, the way you check your email, store your contacts, and schedule meetings will be very similar to what you do now (using Microsoft Outlook). However, if you are using anything earlier than MS Office 2010 for Windows or MS Office 2011 for OS X, you will need to upgrade to the latest version from the University of Illinois Webstore.

• To upgrade MS Office for your UIUC-owned computer, click Unit Purchase.
• To upgrade MS Office for your personal computer (UIUC graduate student or professional student), click Personal Purchase.

You can also check your email online using the Outlook Web App. Existing University of Illinois students should note that the web address has changed to:

https://webmail.illinois.edu.

UC Training

WebStore Training continues to offer a number of workshops, and users can register for these classes now online. Webstore is even offering special workshops for Graduate Students, visit Microsoft Lync for Grad Students (external link) to sign up. FAST3 is also offering workshops for Outlook 2010 (Windows) and Outlook 2011 (Mac) as well. A registration form for all of these workshops is available for online sign-up on the FAST3 web site. Sign up today!

All UC at Illinois workshops for Outlook and Lync will continue to be offered at no cost to faculty, staff, professional students, graduate students, and retirees of the Urbana campus.

UC Privacy

To ensure that your UC account is safe, secure, and private, review the considerations & recommendations on the UC Privacy page.

Why should I use my Exchange account, rather than forwarding my mail to another email service?

Unless you are leaving campus, CITES strongly discourages faculty, staff, and graduate students from forwarding their email for the following reasons:

• You risk violating FERPA and other regulations. These laws protect student information or other confidential information from being disclosed to a third-party, which includes companies that provide email services.
• Your other account might be subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. University business records stored in a private email account may render the entire account subject to FOIA requests for searches for relevant documents.
• If you have a Lync Enterprise Account, you may not receive voice mail. The campus Unified Communications system relies on functionality within your Exchange 2010 account to deliver voice mail.
• CITES cannot provide support if problems ensue from forwarding your email. Due to how email traffic flows into and out of the campus Exchange system, redirecting your email will result in your email being delivered to two separate locations. Official University correspondence and email from any other Exchange user will be delivered to your official University email account (Exchange) regardless of your forward setting. You are solely responsible for any consequences resulting from this change.

 

Again, it is important to note that official University email correspondence (Exchange to Exchange) sent to your Exchange account will not be forwarded to a third-party email service. This remains true even if you opt to have email that is sent to you at yournetid@illinois.edu forwarded to a third party account through EDE redirecting. Therefore, it is important to check your Exchange account regularly to be sure that you are not missing any messages sent to you from campus units, faculty or staff.

Exception: Forwarding your email might be a good idea for those who leave campus. Your Exchange 2010 email account will be deactivated 30 days after you graduate, but email redirection will continue to work for approximately two years so that you can receive email sent to yournetid@illinois.edu alias and you have an opportunity to request that your contacts update their address books.

Glossary of Terms

Lync-to-Lync Account: For graduate students without appointments

• No phone number
• No voicemail
• Lync-to-Lync calls, instant messaging, and data conferencing
• No calls outside the Lync system
• Cannot receive calls from outside the Lync system
• Cannot place 911 calls

Lync Enterprise Account: For professional graduate students and graduate students with appointments (based on unit provided information)

• Unique phone number with voicemail
• Can make and receive calls outside of Lync
• Can make calls based on dialing policy
• Can receive calls from anywhere
• Can make 911 calls

NOTE: For full information on what professional students will get when it comes to UC at Illinois, please switch to the Faculty & Staff Introduction to UC.

Contact Us

For further information about the UC Voice bridge period, or anything UC at Illinois related, please contact the CITES Help Desk, 217-244-7000, consult@illinois.edu.