Google Info for Employees

• Employees retain access to Google Workspace (Google Drive) storage and tools, including: Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and Sites, as well as Google Groups.
• Each employee has a minimum 5 GB storage allocation. Departments have the ability to increase storage for employees, but may not reduce any employees' storage limit below this minimum.
• Department-set storage allocations were implemented on March 15, 2024.
• Employees should work with their departments to determine plans for Google Drive data. 
• The Photos app has been discontinued. If an employee has data remaining in Photos, this will count against that employee's storage allocation and could cause an increase in storage costs for the department.

• Employees will retain access to Microsoft 365 products and services.
• The main change is that storage limits will be implemented in 2025. This includes:
  • Up to 25 GB of baseline storage allocated for use within the Microsoft 365 online environment (including OneDrive and Exchange Online).
  • Departments will have the ability to increase storage for employees, but may not reduce any employees' storage limit below the baseline. 
  • Departments will determine their storage allocation plans for Microsoft 365; a detailed schedule will be shared when available.
  • In the future (date to be determined), employees will need to obtain departmental approval to create new SharePoint Online and Teams sites.

Google Shared Drives

• Departments now manage Google Shared Drive storage. 
• Departmental approval is required to create new Shared Drives.
• To remain active, a Shared Drive must be “claimed” by a university department. This means that the department has agreed to provide for any storage used by the Shared Drive (i.e., to sponsor the drive).
• Employees may indicate their preference on what to do with any Google Shared Drives for which they are a Manager. To view your roles and storage totals in Shared Drives:
  • Log in to the MyCAT Tool. Scroll down and open the "Google" tab, and then open the "Shared Drives" tab. 
  • If you are listed as a "Manager" and you want to keep that shared drive, click the "Recommend" button to indicate your preference for that drive.
• Departments determine how much storage to allocate towards shared drives they have claimed. Storage plans were implemented on March 15, 2024.

Microsoft SharePoint and Teams

• In the future, departments will also manage storage for Microsoft's shared storage resources, SharePoint Online and Teams. 
• Dates for these changes to Microsoft shared storage are to be determined, and will be shared when available.

• The Google Photos app was turned off on Jan. 16, 2024. This means you can no longer access the app through your VT Google account.
• You can still export/download photos out of the app using Google Takeout. However, the storage left in the app will continue to count against your Google storage allocation, and could cause an increase in storage costs for your department.
• Employees should discuss storage needs for university photos with their departments.

More about this change, and how to prepare, are in the Google Photos export and relocation guide.

• Employees now use Microsoft Exchange Online for email and calendars.
  • Email and calendar migrations to Exchange Online were completed between Jan. 15 and March 1, 2024. 
• Employees no longer have access to Gmail or Google Calendar.

Employees can take the following actions to prepare:

• Check your Google storage totals. Be aware of the amount of storage you are using in Google.
• Work with your department to determine if any cleanup is required for your Google Drive. Storage plans will be decided by your department and new storage limits for Google Drive and Shared Drives began on March 15, 2024. Your department will communicate if any specific cleanup actions are required. Please keep university retention policy requirements in mind if you do decide to remove data.
• Transfer any personal files to a personal account.

Yes! The slide deck has been posted on our support resources page.

Log into mycat.ccs.vt.edu – your OU Admin(s) are listed near the top of the page.

OU Admins can view individual reports on storage totals for all their users.

Yes! The recording has been posted to our support resources page.

Alumni email addresses will remain the same (ending in @vt.edu); however, alumni email accounts will be capped at 5 GB.

The email benefit will include an email-only Gmail account with a limit of 5 GB. More information can be found on hte Alumni Information page.

We are providing guidance and tutorials, but Alumni are responsible for conducting their own data moves. Helpful resources include:

• Migrating files out of Google Drive
• Google Photos export and relocation guide

Yes, you can do the same room scheduling for your Zoom rooms through an Exchange Online resource calendar. Note, however, that permissions will not migrate, so those will need to be re-set.

You won’t be able to do it in Google, but you can share your Microsoft calendar with them to accomplish the same thing.

Both email and calendar will migrate.

The date will vary depending on your migration date. Once your email/calendar migration is completed, these Google services will be turned off for you. For alumni, the calendar function in Google will be turned off on March 15, 2024.

Appointments should all migrate, but some may migrate with errors. We recommend that before your migration date, you export a copy of your Google Calendar – that way, if there appear to be errors, you will have a file to check against your new Exchange Online calendar.

New employees are receiving Microsoft calendars (Exchange Online) and will not be able to view or be added to Google calendars within the VT space.

That depends on whether the Google calendar originated at Virginia Tech. If yes, it will need to be changed to a shareable Microsoft calendar account. If it originated outside of Virginia Tech, then use of that calendar can continue. 

There’s no easy way to do that right now.

Eventually, all calendars will be moved out of Google (except retirees that retired 6/1/23 or prior), but the moves for conference room and classroom calendars will not happen at the same time as users are moved. More information will be shared on the timetable for these moves as it becomes available.

Google Groups are not changing. If you have a resource calendar that is used by a Google Group, it will need to be converted to an Exchange Online calendar.

To replace the Google Calendar, you can get a PACE account with an Exchange Online calendar that all your staff can contribute to in a similar fashion.

It depends on if you are using a calendar associated with an individual account or a GAE account. Individual accounts are going to be migrated according to the migration schedule. GAE accounts are still being planned.

Set up an Exchange Online calendar after the migration related to those accounts is complete. Exchange Online calendars can also be embedded on your website. See this article for more information.

The best way to do this is to encourage employees to use Shared Drives on Google, or SharePoint sites on Microsoft. 

Without knowing more about the specific situation, such as why there is a need to move the photos to Microsoft, and what methods have been tried, it is difficult to offer an answer. Submitting a ticket through 4Help for individualized support is a good idea in this case. 

Potentially yes, in some cases. However, it is important to note that on-premises storage (e.g., external hard drives or servers) comes with its own responsibilities for maintenance, security, and backups.

If you aren’t prepared to provide for that, external storage will not be a good approach. Employees should check with their OU Admins for additional guidance on this question.

After you delete the photos, you should make sure to empty your trash as well (the trash in Photos is separate from the trash in Drive, and also from the trash in Gmail). Even after that, sometimes it can take several hours or even a day or two for storage totals to reflect a recent deletion.

No, they won’t – but they may go read-only on March 15 if you have storage in excess of your storage allocation.

Not too bad! That’s an option, for sure – but just keep in mind that work-related VT files, even if they don’t contain any protected information, should stay within the VT environment. For personal files, moving them to a personal account is a viable option.

Either option works – you can empty the trash in your Gmail prior to your email migration, or it will be deleted automatically when your migration is completed.

That will depend on how your department, college, or unit chooses to allocate the storage provided through the central fund as well as any additional storage that they purchase. 

You can if you wish, but it is not necessary – they will be deleted when their migration is complete. 

Network drives are not going away – they are treated separately. If your department has network drive access, those should be considered as an alternative storage option.

For employees, you can still use Google Drive as long it is under your storage allocation. Whether the files are in an individual Drive or in a Shared Drive, it should be possible to ensure that your aggregation of data for this report continues unimpeded. Reach out to your department’s OU Admin to discuss your needs. 
 
Also, you mention ‘when the transition happens’ – this phrasing seems to indicate that you anticipate that files from Google Drive will be moved to another location at some point – this assumption is incorrect.

Depending on how your department / organization unit allocates storage, this may not be an issue. Reach out to your OU Admins to discuss your needs. 

It should not be necessary to move and rebuild in a different system as long as your department is aware of your team’s continuing need for storage in Google, and can allocate storage to support that (except for any files you have in Google Photos). You should not move work-related files to a private Google account.

As long as your OU Admins and your department are aware of your storage needs and can allocate sufficient storage for them, it should not be necessary to move a large number of files out of Google Drive.

That said, it is a good idea to review your files, exporting any personal data to an alternate location and deleting files that are no longer needed. In some cases, it may be necessary to move some work-related files. 
 
It will not be possible for individuals to purchase additional VT Google storage – all purchases of additional storage need to be made at the department level. 

In most cases, employees should be able to keep these native Google files in Google, preserving their metadata and permissions.  This will depend on planning of storage allocations at the department level.

Since you mention OneDrive, I’m assuming this data is currently stored in the Microsoft environment. Keep in mind that changes affecting Microsoft storage will not go into effect until 2025, which allows some time to plan. The university is currently developing guidance on current options for research data storage. Submitting a ticket through Research Data Compliance and IT Consultations (vt.edu) for a consultation is a good idea in this case.

Yes. OU Admins will receive a report of Hokies accounts that we are removing prior to their deletion.  

No. Everyone is keeping their existing email addresses and aliases.

No – your Gmail will be deleted for you, and will no longer be a factor in calculating your storage total in Google.

Former students who did not complete a VT degree, or employees who leave the university prior to retirement will not retain access to cloud services.

Gmail exports aren’t able to be searched offline, however, if you’d like to export some of your old emails to another Gmail account, you could use Google Takeout to do that. 

For employee email migrations, the maximum mailbox size needs to be 80 GB or less. Contact your IT personnel if you have questions.

It's true, Outlook’s options for email sorting are different from Gmail’s. For some users, this will necessitate adaptation of workflows.

We recommend using the ‘Archive’ feature in Exchange Online to save emails, instead of exporting files in .pst format.

Your Contacts will not be removed when Gmail and Google Calendar go away.  
 
If you want to download your Google Contacts, you can use Google Takeout.

We assume you mean your Google Contacts? Use Google Takeout to download these if you wish, but if you’re an employee, your contacts in Google will remain.

To mimic Gmail's label functionality in Outlook, you can use a combination of folders, categories, and search features. While Outlook doesn't have an exact equivalent to Gmail labels, you can achieve similar results through the use of Outlook folders, subfolders, categories, search folders, rules, and quick steps. 

We will not be approving any 3rd party clients.

Yes – forwarding will be allowed, except that active VT employees and students will not be able to forward back to the VT Google environment.

No.

This depends on time cutoffs and limits, and information on when you graduated. File a 4Help ticket to address your unique situation.

No.

That is correct. Declining migration support if you are already on Exchange Online will prevent duplicated emails and calendar events from appearing in your mailbox and calendar. It will also keep your mailbox size down. Declining migration support in this case is not required, though.

For Gmail users, yes.

For your VT Gmail, yes. 

Messages in your Gmail trash will be removed during the migration process. For employees with very large mailboxes, the migration will begin sooner after the Jan. 15 start date to allow more time for the migration to be completed.

Not exactly. Labels in Gmail will become folders on Exchange Online; however, emails with multiple labels will only be assigned to one folder in Exchange Online. 

To mimic Gmail's label functionality in Outlook, you can use a combination of folders, categories, and search features. Outlook doesn't have an exact equivalent to Gmail labels, but you can achieve similar results through the use of Outlook folders, subfolders, categories, search folders, rules, and quick steps.

We aren’t sure about this. It’s possible that scheduled emails will just stay in drafts, and lose their scheduling details. Users should check on this and restart any scheduled emails after their migration is complete.

If all your email is already arriving in your Exchange Online account, it is fine to delete all your Gmail before the migration, or to decline the migration. Which you choose depends on details – for example, if you don’t want the contents of your Gmail but you do have Google calendars that you’d want migrated to Exchange, you could delete your Gmail and say ‘yes’ to the migration, which would in effect only migrate your calendar(s). 

If your email is already arriving in your Exchange Online account, and you don’t need any email or calendar info from the Google side, you can decline email migration support. You don’t need to delete data from Gmail – we will clean that up during the migration.

We have set the default selection for email migration support based on whether you are a current Exchange Online or Gmail user. If you want to skip the migration, you can make that selection in MyCAT. Your OU Administrator may also make this selection on your behalf – if that is the case, they should be notifying you about their plans.

This will depend on what exactly you mean by this. Please contact 4Help to get help with your specific question.

Yes – labels in Gmail will become folders on the Exchange Online side. However, emails tagged with multiple labels will only be sorted into one folder. There is not a perfect parity when it comes to features.

For now, we don’t need to worry about that.

See this campus notice - https://news.vt.edu/notices/2023/12/it-employee-email-migration.html for complete information.

Please see the employee email migration schedule.

Yes. To do this, select ‘Yes’ for migration support, then check to make sure that your Google Calendar is empty of events. That way, only your emails will migrate, and your Exchange Calendar should be unaffected.

Yes, emails in Gmail folders will be migrated (except trash and spam). There’s no need to back up your content.

To request migration support, go to MyCAT (mycat.ccs.vt.edu) and select ‘Yes’ to receive migration support.

Complete information on employee email migrations is available in this campus notice - https://news.vt.edu/notices/2023/12/it-employee-email-migration.html. This notice was posted on Dec. 6, and followed up by an email to all employees on Dec. 14. The email migration begins on Jan. 15 for all employees.

There should be no problem with migrating a mailbox of that size.

Yes, eventually.

You should look at the options that exist for what your GAE account provides. Some GAE accounts can be discontinued, or in other cases, moving files to a Shared Drive may cover your needs. Other GAE accounts may need to be turned into a Microsoft PACE or other account type. A consultation will help you determine which options are best.

Not as part of the broader employee email migration. Various options exist for GAE accounts; a consultation will help determine which options are best for your use case.

No, this will not happen automatically. Various options exist for GAE accounts; a consultation will help determine which options are best for your use case.

This question is unclear, but email aliases will continue to be available. Various options exist for GAE accounts; a consultation will help determine which options are best for your use case.

Yes.

There really is no need to stop using a Google Form. If the form originated from a Google Auxiliary Email account, it may be necessary to move it to another tool or account in order to keep using it.

Google Forms will remain available, and Forms data does not count against your storage allocation unless it has a linked Sheets file or other output file.

There are no changes planned for Google Groups.

Google Groups will stay.

No.

There is no need to do this. There are no changes planned for Google Groups.

I don’t think that is accurate. Google Groups data is only counted at the university level, so it doesn’t count against anyone’s cap.

Not for the individual or the department.

The only way to completely get rid of data ‘trapped’ in the Google Photos app after Jan. 16 is to wipe the user’s whole account and re-create it (with zero data and default settings). For this reason, it is extremely important for all users to empty their Photos app ahead of the deadline.

Visit this page on our website for the most complete information on options for your Photos data - https://it.vt.edu/projects/license-changes/google-photos.html

The app is free, but the storage it uses is not. And unlike other portions of the Google Workspace, we have no administrative control over Photos. It was not part of our core service, and in a huge percentage of cases, the photos that people store on it are personal, not VT-related in nature.

Also, photos typically take up way more space than docs or other types of files. Given that we had to implement some limits on our total storage footprint in Google, all of these factors made it reasonable to decide that offering the Photos app was not in Virginia Tech’s best interest.

There’s no way to automatically wipe out all of the photos at once – you’ll need to select and delete batches of photos and video sequentially, until you get all of it.  
 
Partner sharing should not contribute to your storage. Note that sometimes after deleting photos or other files, it can take a few hours or even days for the decrease in storage to be reflected in your Google account. Be sure you empty your Google Photos trash as well as your Drive trash.

Google Sites data is only counted at the university level, so it doesn’t count against anyone’s cap (individual or department). Yes, Google Sites will continue to be available.

Here’s a starting point - https://4help.vt.edu/sp?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0012305

Microsoft 365 (formerly called Office 365) provides a range of security features that enhance the protection of user data, applications, and communication. Here are some of the security advantages that Microsoft 365 offers:

1. Azure Active Directory (AAD): M365 uses Azure AD for identity management, which provides Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Conditional Access policies, and Identity Protection to secure user identities.
2. Advanced Threat Protection: Microsoft Defender: This includes features like Safe Attachments and Safe Links to protect against threats in emails and attachments.
3. Azure Information Protection: Allows you to classify, label, and protect sensitive information, and control access to documents and emails. 
4. Endpoint Security: Microsoft Defender Antivirus: Real-time protection against malware, including viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.
5. Microsoft Cloud App Security: Threat detection, data loss prevention (DLP), and behavior analytics.
6. Microsoft Threat Intelligence: Offers insight into global threat trends, provides threat intelligence to help us stay ahead of evolving cyber threats.
7. Security Compliance Manager: Provides tools to assess and track compliance with regulations and standards. 
8. Microsoft Teams Communications Security: Includes end-to-end encryption, Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and secure meeting options for Teams.
9. Security Score: Provides a numerical representation of an organization's security posture, suggesting actions to improve security based on best practices.
10. Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA): Provides reporting and auditing capabilities to detect and investigate suspicious activities within the network.

That’s going to depend on a lot of factors. Right now the storage limit on individual Microsoft accounts is set at 5 TB, but in 2025, lower account limits will apply. 

The main changes coming on the Microsoft side is that storage limits will be implemented in 2025. These limits include:

• Up to 25 GB of baseline storage allocated for use within the Microsoft 365 online environment (including OneDrive and Exchange Online).
• Departments will have the ability to increase storage for employees, and set storage allocation plans for SharePoint ant Teams sites. 

A detailed schedule for the Microsoft storage changes will be shared when available.

The storage baseline for individual employees will be 25 GB.

The Microsoft storage limits will go into effect in 2025, but they won’t be 5 GB – the baseline storage in Microsoft will be set at 25 GB.

Your allocations will be set by your Organizational Unit Administrators.

The baseline employee allocations for Google and Microsoft are different (5 GB and 25 GB, respectively), but ultimately, an individual employee’s allocation will depend on decisions made at the departmental level.

Yes.

We need more information. The best thing to do is submit a ticket through 4Help to explore what’s going on.

Visit this Knowledge Base article (KB) - https://4help.vt.edu/sp?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0013989 and scroll down to the part of the table that says Employee + Alumni. All the possible combinations of VT audience groups are outlined there.

In order to retain those Shared Drives, a department will need to claim them, ideally, prior to Feb. 15, when unclaimed shared drives go read-only. However, you should take a look at what’s in those drives first – it may be possible that by just saving or moving a few files, it may no longer be necessary to keep the drives.

We’re sorry that’s been happening – we’re working on segmenting messages better. 
 
Take a look at this Knowledge Base article - https://4help.vt.edu/sp?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0013989 it contains a table that will explain what you can expect as an employee who is also an alum. Your changes will follow what is outlined in the Employee + Alumni table.

We’re sorry that’s been happening – the more groups you actively belong to, the harder it is to segment messages.  
 
Take a look at this Knowledge Base article - https://4help.vt.edu/sp?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0013989 it contains a table that will explain what you can expect as an employee who is also an alum. Your changes will follow what is outlined in the Employee + Student + Alumni row. Your status as an Employee supercedes the other groups you also belong to.

For students who are also employees, you will be getting what employees in your department get. You will have to use a portion of that storage for your student work.  
 
Take a look at this Knowledge Base article - https://4help.vt.edu/sp?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0013989 it contains a table that will explain what you can expect as an employee who is also a student. Your changes will follow what is outlined in the Employee + Student row.

To encourage continued participation by emeritus faculty, your department could consider adding the emeritus faculty member as a member of one or more departmental SharePoint sites or Shared Drives.

Unfortunately, no. As you will be retired before employee email migrations begin, your email will not be migrated. Please refer to the Retiree Information page and Timeline for more information about upcoming changes for retirees.

It depends on how you’re being paid, and upon your retirement date. You will most likely receive what employees in your department get as well as what retirees in your group get.  
 
Take a look at this Knowledge Base article - https://4help.vt.edu/sp?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0013989 it contains a table that will explain what you can expect as an retiree who is also an employee. Your changes will follow what is outlined in the Employee + Retiree rows, but the exact information will depend on whether you retired June 1, 2023 or before vs. June 2, 2023 or after. 

It will depend on the date of your retirement – the Retiree Information page has all the details.

If you retired June 1, 2023 or before, you will get 10 GB of Google storage, including email. If you retired after that date, your email calendar service, and storage allocation will be in Microsoft, but you will also continue to have a Google account set at 0 GB – this will allow you to collaborate on Google files created by others.

Yes, and it already took place – the info session for retirees took place on Thursday, Nov. 30. You can view the recording and slides here: https://it.vt.edu/projects/license-changes/retirees.html 

Yes, you can keep your email and aliases. However, you will not be able to keep your email in Gmail. Your email and calendar will be moved to Exchange Online, and your primary online storage benefit will also be in Microsoft. Visit https://it.vt.edu/projects/license-changes/retirees.html for more information.

Changes were needed across all audience groups, and our time to implement changes was limited. Limiting the changes solely to alumni accounts would not have been sufficient to address the larger changes to  Virginia Tech’s Google storage service model, which has been in need of additional consideration for several years.

For employees, March 15 is the day that departmental storage allocations go into effect. This means that if your MyDrive is over the allocation that has been set by your department, your Google storage will go read-only, meaning that you can still view and download files, but you won’t be able to edit or create new files until your storage falls below your designated storage cap.

The best suggestion we have is to understand the changes, review your storage, and take action now. 

No, Zoom will remain available.

No changes are planned for Slack.

For interdisciplinary teams working in Google, you will still need one department to take on the cost of the storage that the group will need on an ongoing basis. Teams can develop cost-sharing agreements to distribute the costs of the overall program, perhaps where one department covers the cost of online storage, another covers equipment, etc.

Note: the above question was edited for length. Full question: 

My understanding is that the change from G-Suite to Microsoft-provided solutions was for two reasons: Google announced they were changing pricing for storage and an audit of VT's storage in Google cloud-based storage showed that a few users had very large storage use. But I also seem to recall that IT stated much of that usage was from alumni users; it is quite uncommon for schools like VT to provide alumni access to these services, much less unlimited access. Why was this change not considered instead of this more disruptive approach?

Eliminating storage access was considered, but it was not sufficient to resolve the issues identified. Also note that when discussing storage, characterizing these changes as going “from G-Suite to Microsoft” is inaccurate — only email is moving to Microsoft for students and employees; storage and tools will remain available to employees and students in both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

It’s true that this is taking a lot of time now, while the implementation of the changes is ramping up, but the fact is, we’re not going to be able to do this just once and then forget about it. The ongoing management of our online storage costs is going to be something that Virginia Tech needs to do from here on out. We’ll get better at it, and eventually, this will just be a routine facet of our work lives at Virginia Tech. We aren’t alone in this.

Google mail’s security features did not stack up well when compared with the features offered by Exchange Online. Since email is the #1 vector for cyber attacks, strengthening the security of our email and calendaring solution was a high priority.

The costs are being subsidized significantly – that’s where 5 GB baseline for individual employees and the 40 GB per employee of pooled storage come from, in addition to the email and calendar.

The fact is, the ongoing management of our online storage costs is going to be something that Virginia Tech will need to do from here on out. It’s easy to say that $1 million is ‘easy’ for the university to cover, but that cost will only grow and grow as our storage totals grow.

Google mail’s security features did not stack up well when compared with the features offered by Exchange Online. Since email is the #1 vector for cyber attacks, strengthening the security of our email and calendaring solution was a high priority. 
 
If anything, learning to use a second collaboration platform while at Virginia Tech would be a positive addition to the resumés of many students, given that many corporate environments rely on Microsoft solutions.  
 
Students will still have access to the Google Workspace, so they will not be hindered in using it. 

Note: the question above was paraphrased due to length. Here is the full original question: 
'The Google drive, Google calendar, and Gmail interfaces are critical resources for external partnerships. I am on a major (11.5 million dollar) federal grant right now, (half a million currently under my purview). The grant is expected to run for the next five to ten years, and the entirety of our national team collaboration, communication, and content is coordinated through Google Drive. I am concerned that VT shifting away from that resource (losing access to any of these features with a VT Gmail account for example) will negatively impact my work and productivity on this and other projects. Some faculty (myself included) work in content-heavy, data-heavy research. Larger scale storage access and sharing capacity is crucial for distributing research globally and having the impact demanded of researchers at an R1. The bulk of professors may not be in this particular situation, but some of us certainly are. Expecting faculty to pay for their own additional storage, or squeezing that out of already meager department budgets, is akin to asking public school teachers to buy supplies for their own classrooms. We need such storage to teach, to store student media works, to do our work as educators and researchers, and to do the projects that bring in indirect funds that support the university in very tangible financial ways. Will the university step up to facilitate continuity of access for the faculty and researchers for whom this continuity is crucial? I don’t think it is reasonable to ask individual departments to shoulder this cost alone. For some fields in this institution the additional costs will be nominal, but for my field in particular, given the amount of media we move around and large file sizes, it may indeed be costly to our school.'

Answer: 

Individual departments are not shouldering this cost alone. The university is centrally funding a significant portion of the costs for these solutions, but storage and its associated costs needed to be managed and distributed. Talk to your OU admins and figure out the costs for what your research group needs. 

That’s a worst case scenario that will only impact cases where an individual employee, their OU Admin(s) and their departmental leadership all fail to respond to repeated requests to take action.

We’re doing all we can to get in contact with people who need to clean up their data, and there will be multiple opportunities to move files or expand storage so that employees do not lose any files. We will stress the potential for data removal more strongly as the new year begins.

I haven’t seen calculations that address that question, but it was likely considered earlier during the assessment. The option of just ignoring the need to manage storage and control costs was infeasible in the long run.

The two solutions are not equal when it comes to security. Microsoft email and calendar offer significantly superior tools for security. Since email is the #1 vector for cyber attacks, strengthening the security of our email and calendaring solution was a high priority.

Our vendor partner in completing this migration of email and calendars is called Foresite.

Go to mycat.ccs.vt.edu and log in with your VT credentials. Once in, scroll down and expand the portion of the page that says ‘Google’ – within you will see a list of the shared drives that you are a member or manager of. The drives that you manage will have a button appearing that says ‘Recommend’ – you can click this button to indicate what you would want your department to do with this Shared Drive and its contents. 

OU Admins will approve the creation of new Shared Drives, based on the storage available, and in communication with departmental leadership.

New Shared Drives start with 0 GB. Storage is allocated by the OU admin for the requestor. The size of the drive will depend on what the OU admin allocates for it.

A content manager can only create, edit, or delete content, but can’t manage the other features of the Shared Drive, for example, modifying permissions or adding/removing members.

Shared Drives down have ‘owners’, only managers. That’s been one of the things making them so difficult to administer, especially after multiple members of a Shared Drive leave the university.

The ‘recommend’ button allows you to indicate to your OU Admin(s) whether you would like to Keep, Migrate, or Delete the Shared Drive in question.

If Shared Drive 'Managers' from more than one department claim a Shared Drive, the OU Admins from the two departments will need to discuss which department will actually sponsor the Shared Drive on an ongoing basis.

No. There should be no problem with continuing to collaborate on Shared Drives originating outside Virginia Tech.

OU admins will decide this, taking into account the preferences indicated by the various managers of the drive.

They do not impact your individual storage limit, but they do have to be accounted for within your department’s storage allocation.

Talk to your OU Administrators over in Continuing and Professional Education – it may not be necessary to move any of your files out of Google. 

To ensure that your Shared Drive remains accessible for your office to use, be sure to request sufficient storage to be allocated for it. 

The centrally funded data provided to departments is based on the number of employees. Departments receive 40 GB per full time employee that can be allocated as desired (i.e., towards shared drives or for individual employees). Each individual employee also receives 5 GB as baseline storage.

Without incurring additional costs, a department would get a 5 GB individual allocation for each employee as well as 40 GB of departmental storage that could be divided between individual allocations and Shared Drives as needed. So for a department with 10 employees, each employee would get 5 GB (50 GB split equally between 10 people), plus the department would get an additional 400 GB to allocate as needed (450 GB in total).

To be able to answer this question accurately, we will need additional information. Please submit a ticket at 4help.vt.edu so that we can review your setup.

Yes, official pricing for 10 TB has been posted on the Software Service Center page. The cost is $1,476 per contract year for each 10 TB portion.

No, that is incorrect. A department with 300 employees would receive an additional 12,000 GB to reallocate (12 TB) from the central fund, in addition to the 1,500 GB that goes to the 300 employees for their base allocation (5 GB x 300).

If by ‘Setting up a Google Drive’ you mean a Shared Drive, then yes, your department would need to account for the storage used from their departmental allocation. It would not come out of an individual’s storage allocation. Keep in mind that for this reason, departmental approval is now required for the creation of new Shared Drives.

However, if you set up a new folder in your individual Google Drive (My Drive), which you then shared with your colleagues, then files created and stored in this folder would count against your individual storage allocation.

That depends on a number of factors. Ultimately, your allocations are going to depend on whether you are an employee or a student. Your professor’s lab may have additional storage allocated by their department.

$1476/ 10 TB per contract year. This can only be purchased by departments.

No.

For graduate students, storage allocations go into effect on January 16, 2024 – on this date, student Google Drives over 5 GB will go read-only until total storage is brought under 5 GB. Check the website for complete details.

Yes, on a per capita basis, when it comes to the centrally funded allocation. Departments can also purchase additional storage.

The figure of 45 GB is a combination of 5 GB for the individual employee’s baseline allocation, and the 40 GB that comes to the department for each employee that they have. 

The 45 GB is only for Google: 5 GB for the individual allocation + 40 GB for the department to assign either to individual drives or to Shared Drives as needed.  

You do not need to remove files from Microsoft at this time.

No, the Gmail storage total will be cleared from user’s Google accounts after their email migration is complete.

Yes, you will still have access to Google Sites and Forms, etc. Sites and Forms do not count against your Google storage, but files created in other apps, such as Docs and Sheets do use storage.

This will occur in 2025. More details will be shared when available.

Individual employees cannot purchase Google storage from Virginia Tech. Your department, however, can elect to pay for additional storage to meet your needs. Discuss your needs with your OU Administrator.

If you have personal files on your VT account, you may also consider opening a personal Google account and moving those files there.

Your department can purchase additional storage – contact your OU Admins to discuss your needs. 

Departments can see the cost for additional storage purchases on the Software Service Center page.

Google Sites data does not count against individual or departmental storage. Your VT Google credentials will remain the same.  

MyCAT uses Duo Mobile for 2-factor authentication, and the log-in procedure has been fully vetted and approved.

If you’re seeing errors in the CAT tool, the best way to get help is to submit a support ticket through 4Help.

Yes.

Before allowing a web page or linked file to load, Safelinks checks all links and attachments to determine if they are malicious or safe, which significantly improves security. Besides, if you hover over the Safelink in Outlook it will show you the URL for the original link.  
 
We do need to provide additional training on Safelinks so that people understand what they are for, and how to recognize them.

No change is needed in the auth protocol for Exchange Online.

That is correct – after the migration, the Gmail usage will be subtracted from your overall Google storage total. Once this takes place, the new storage totals will be reflected in the planning tool (CAT) and in each user's Google storage summary. 

In this case, the migration service will result in some amount of duplication. The best option may be to decline migration support.

The migration service will result in some amount of duplication if both mailboxes are in use. In these cases, the best option may be to decline migration support.

No. Exchange Online / Outlook will be the only supported clients for employee and student email.

OU Admins already have this capability.

"Department" can indeed be amorphous when it comes to this program. Where your storage is being managed is a decision of your unit/department/center/college, etc, not the Division of IT. We recommend talking to your local IT and/or dean, director, or department head to determine the correct point of contact.

Slack is not being "replaced" by Microsoft Teams at Virginia Tech. Use of Slack has always been up to university departments/groups, who must purchase licenses through VT Departmental Software to use the service. Some groups may decide to collaborate using Microsoft Teams, others may choose to use Slack.

Please contact the library to inquire from them about additional training. You can also use the Professional Development Network and LinkedIn Learning to get additional training.

Information on departmental storage costs can through your OU Administrator, or through the CCS Admin Tool (CAT) for those who have access.

The feature sets between calendars within the two environments is not one to one. Therefore, there may be some business processes that you have to rethink as we move to the Exchange Online environment. This Knowledge Base article shows some ways to share a calendar publicly.

The service decision never included maintaining a Google Calendar for employees and students. More details about the service decision can be found on the License Changes website.

Consider requesting a VT PACE account. It is a shared mailbox with a calendar, but does not have any storage attached to it (i.e., SharePoint). PACE accounts are currently the only way to create a shared calendar group. Additionally, Google Groups are available for group email lists; however, no shared calendars are available through Google Groups.

Gmail and Google Calendar are no longer available to employees. Email and calendar data was migrated to Exchange Online for employees who opted into migration support.

Your drive will become read only until you reduce storage below your allocated amount.

At this time, our plan is to notify OU Administrators via email when their users are at their limit. Individuals will see notifications from Google in the interface.

Gmail data for employees and students will eventually be deleted. You may not see this data be removed from your account until late April 2024. The exception is alumni accounts as they are allowed to keep their Gmail service. Employees and students who are also alumni will keep their Gmail mailboxes but they will be required to work in Exchange Online while being active as employees and/or students.

Unfortunately, there is no "easy" way to move files between My Drive and One Drive. This is particularly the case if you have large amounts of data to move. The best way to proceed is to delete unneeded files, and then to organize remaining files into smaller folders, and download these in smaller batches to increase the likelihood of a successful download. You will then need to re-upload these files into OneDrive. 

Each department has its own plan for allocating storage for individual employee Google Drives and Shared Drives that the department owns. Please contact your OU administrator and/or department leadership for information on their storage plans for you.

Unfortunately, there is no longer a way for individuals to delete data left in the Google Photos app. Since the app has been removed, the only way to erase data in Photos is to delete and reinstate the user's entire Google account, which will clear all Drive, Gmail, and Photos data and user settings, including third-party log-in settings. Users can still download a copy of their pictures using Google Takeout.

If your My Drive becomes read-only due to being over your storage allotment, then you can reverse this by moving/deleting data until you are under the limit. Alternatively, you can talk to your department's leadership or IT team to discuss options for increasing your Google Drive storage allotment if it is best for you to keep this storage in Google.

We are currently investigating this topic.

There are different Views available in both desktop and web versions of Outlook. In addition, the desktop client defaults to pulling only the last (3 months) of emails down into its cached file. This timeframe for cached mode can be adjusted but does have a performance impact on the desktop client. The web interface is going to be more "accurate" in that sense.

Yes. To determine the status of your migration, visit MyCAT (mycat.ccs.vt.edu).

Compromises happen often in email and SafeLinks are a Microsoft best practice to mitigate the risk. While inconvenient for some, they are not going away.

We are not planning on extending our support beyond what is currently available.

We currently do not have any information to provide on this feature.

Please see this Knowledge Base article for guidance on removing duplicate emails from Exchange Online.

No. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is now considered the definitive email solution for employees. You should use the Outlook client on Exchange Online to send and receive email.

Yes. From your Outlook email app, go to Settings. Select "Layout" from the menu. Under the options for "Focused Inbox," select "Don't sort my Inbox."

The Knowledge Base article Understanding sharing versus delegating email, calendar, or folder in Outlook offers guidance for email delegation. If you need further assistance, please file a ticket at 4help.vt.edu

All employees are now using Exchange Online for their Virginia Tech email and calendar. Employees who are also alumni will may retain a Gmail inbox, with 5 GB email storage space, as part of their alumni benefits; however, email will be routed to Exchange Online as long as they remain a Virginia Tech employee, and they should use Outlook.

More information about how services are determined based on your role with the university can be found in this article, Understanding Storage and Services for Google and Microsoft Based on Consitutent Groups.

For the purposes of this program, "Departments" are units defined by 4-digit Banner codes within the university. Managers of Shared Drives could make recommendations, but those were only recommendations.

Organizational Unit (OU) administrators (typically your local IT professionals) were the individuals responsible for actually setting the plan for the Shared Drive. The intent and instruction was to use the recommendations from shared drive Managers to help with the process.

In order to claim a Shared Drive, reach out to your OU Administrator. They will be able to make the claim for you. Please visit MyCAT to find out who your OU Administrator(s) are. Instructions for using MyCAT are in this Knowledge Base article.

Shared Drives created and managed solely by students went read-only on Feb. 15, and will be deleted starting April 12. It is possible that the former student who created the drive has deleted it. You can always submit a ticket to 4Help to get it investigated.