Vice President for Administrative and Information Services

NO: 1

DATE: September 17, 1998

TO: College Community

FROM: Steven Schrier

Vice President for Administrative and Information Services

SUBJECT: CHANGE IN DESKTOP STANDARD FOR E-MAIL

Over the past three years, Pegasus Mail has been the college’s standard e-mail program for individuals with PCs in their office. Pegasus Mail is a [i]POP3 e-mail program. In addition, some individuals have been using Netscape Mail, MS Windows Messaging (both in POP3 configurations), or [ii]Pine e-mail. All of these programs have worked together to form a simple Internet-based mail system at the college.

In many respects, we have outgrown this system. It is necessary that we begin to provide greater communication capabilities, including collegewide shared and public folders, electronic forms integration, and document sharing and management. As a result, beginning with the faculty Universal Access computers soon to be deployed, the Office of Computer and Information Systems has selected Microsoft Outlook 97/98 to become the college’s standard PC e-mail program.

Initially, Outlook will run in POP3 configuration, similar to Pegasus. Later, as the college completes a migration to MS Exchange Server for e-mail and workgroup activities, individuals will have the option of keeping their mail on the server and accessing it equally from home or office.

Changing to Outlook: The migration of your saved mail from Pine or Pegasus to Outlook will not be effortless. The most reliable method may simply be to forward each message by folders to yourself from your old application, recreate your old folder structure and retrieve your mail into this new environment by using Outlook. A detailed set of migration strategies and instructions is available through the Office of Computer and Information Systems FAQ page at:

http://www.sunysuffolk.edu/Web/Central/IT/FAQ_index.html

Learning Outlook: Outlook is a Microsoft Office application, possessing good Help features, including a quick tour and the Office Assistant Wizard to walk users through individual tasks. Learning to move around in Outlook should be easy. To assist you in getting the most out of this and other MS Office 97 programs, computer-based interactive training will be available over the Web. The college is participating with SUNY in a contract to acquire a full compliment of training programs. The Office 97 modules should begin to be accessible in October. Information on the computer based training initiative may be obtained at:

http://www.sunysuffolk.edu/Web/Central/IT/CBT

The Office of Computer and Information Systems sees Outlook as an important tool to enhance communication and collaboration at the college. Learning any new program is difficult, but the rewards here are worth the effort.

[i] POP3 applications run on the individual’s local computer, retrieving mail to the PC from the college server. Once retrieved, the mail only exists in folders on the PC. Messages are composed on the PC inside the e-mail application. When sent, the application makes a connection to the college’s server, where it is then transmitted out to its destination.

[ii] Pine is a program running on the e-mail server and accessed locally through Telnet. With Pine, an individual’s mail resides on the server in folders created by the user.