Everyone with an active account at Ryerson now has access to Google Apps at Ryerson. From Friday through Sunday we created 138,830 new Google Apps at Ryerson accounts, moved 19,266 people’s email to their Ryerson Gmail account, and moved 375 from GroupWise to RMail.
While we worked hard to design and execute a seamless transition to Google Apps it is not surprising that there were some problems on the way. This service alert is a quick summary of the problems we know about, what we have done about them, and also provides some suggestions on what you can do if you have experienced problems. If you can’t find the information you need here or on our support site: http://ryerson.ca/google please contact the CCS help desk.
Starting Tuesday faculty and staff who need assistance should call the CCS Help desk at 416-979-5000 ext. 6806 or write to help@ryerson.ca. Students should call 416-979-5000 ext. 6840 or write to help@ryerson.ca.
Before Tuesday you can write to gapps-support@ryerson.ca or leave a comment here and we’ll try to help. The CCS help desk is closed today (Monday October 8th.)
Missing GroupWise Email or Calendar Items
We are aware of several GroupWise accounts that did not copy over to Gmail or RMail correctly. Often this was because of an email message the migration script could not handle. In the cases we are aware of, we are re-running the migration process manually. If you were using GroupWise and find you have missing mail or calendar events please write to us at gapps-support@ryerson.ca and provide as much detail as you can about what is missing.
I Can’t Login to Gmail on the Web
There are many reasons you may not be able to use Gmail. The most prevalent seems to be people who were not moved to Gmail but thought they had opted in or thought they were automatically opted in. If you can log into RMail at https://mail.ryerson.ca then you have not been moved to Gmail. If you want to be moved to Gmail you still can. Beginning Wednesday you can log into my.ryerson.ca and click on “Manage My Online Resources: Self-serve password change and resource requests.” From there, click “Manage Ryerson Gmail Opt In Preference” to opt in to Gmail. If you opt in to Gmail after Tuesday you will be able to start sending and receiving new mail almost immediately in Gmail. Your older mail will take some time to copy over.
To log into any Google App on the Web, go to http://my.ryerson.ca, login, click on the Apps tab, and then click on the Google App you would like to use.
I Can’t Login to Gmail on my Mac, PC, iPhone, Android, or Blackberry
For instructions on how to connect please start here: http://ryerson.ca/google/usingapps.html
Note: Mac mail users often have to add their full email address as a username and their Google Token a second time in the Google SMTP (outgoing mail) server settings.
Problems with Contacts – Global Address List
During the transition to Google we had to turn off the global address list so that we could configure it properly. It was enabled again Sunday. You can search it by logging in to any Google App (Gmail, Calendar, or Drive for example) and clicking on Contacts in the top menu. When you search on part of a person’s name in the search field the search will most often include a section called Domain Contacts. Those entries are from the global address list. The global address list contains entries for all Ryerson employees but, for privacy reasons, does not contain student entries.
Problems With Contacts – Missing Contacts from GroupWise
We are investigating one report of GroupWise contacts not being copied over to Google Contacts. If you are now using Gmail successfully and find you are missing contacts please send a note to gapps-support@ryerson.ca. Please tell us as much as you can about what is missing including the email address of missing entries.
We have also experienced some problems with the software we used to move contact information from GroupWise to RMail. The vendor has provided us with an updated version and we are rerunning the process.
Problems with GroupWise Address Conversions to @ryerson.ca Addresses
There are some cases where GroupWise email user names were different from RMail user names. For example j999smit@gwemail.ryerson.ca on GroupWise might be janice.b.smith@ryerson.ca. Please do not try to convert old GroupWise addresses manually to @ryerson.ca addresses. In this example j999smit@ryerson.ca will not work. Search your Contacts for the right address.
Update Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 8:00 PM: Thank you to everyone who has called or written to us about missing GroupWise contacts, calendar items, and email. We have been able to re-run the migration process for people who moved from GroupWise to Gmail with some success. The process of moving missing email is continuing and we expect that things will be dramatically improved for most Gmail users by Wednesday.
Unfortunately, it has been more difficult to move missing data from GroupWise to RMail for a number of reasons. Re-running the process to move GroupWise data to RMail often requires we work with one person’s data at a time. While we work on these problems and escalate issues with the suppliers of the migration software, GroupWise is available in read-only mode. Please feel free to log into GroupWise to view your old contacts, calendar items, and mail. Please do not attempt to book meetings or send emails in GroupWise.
Many people have told us that they thought they would be automatically migrated to Gmail and were disappointed when they discovered they were moved to RMail. Starting Wednesday October 10 it will become possible to move from RMail to Gmail. Here again are the instructions on what to do:
Beginning Wednesday you can log into my.ryerson.ca and click on “Manage My Online Resources: Self-serve password change and resource requests.” From there, click “Manage Ryerson Gmail Opt In Preference” to opt in to Gmail. If you opt in to Gmail after Tuesday you will be able to start sending and receiving new mail almost immediately in Gmail. Your older mail will take some time to copy over.