My employer recently upgraded the email system at work (for the second time this year) and one wonders about the strategy employed, especially when our actual addresses were to be changed. Staff were informed via memo that, “From Monday 27 October 2008, your new DET staff email account will be available for use.” The memo went on to say, “Your existing “My email” link in the Portal will be renamed “My Archive Email” and will provide read-only access to the stored messages and contacts in your “My email” mailbox. You will not be able to send email from this mailbox. At some point in the ensuing month any messages stored in your “My email” mailbox will be automatically copied to your new mailbox.”
This all seemed reasonable when the memo was first read earlier in October. Unfortunately, the implications of this change are significant and remain, unresolved. To be more specific, here some examples of the challenges of this planned change.
Staff were not informed of the actual time work on the changes would commence. I was working away on Friday afternoon when all of a sudden my email was no longer accessible. This was very problematic at the time, as I could no longer respond to emails that needed attention before the weekend, or, at least prior to the new week rolling ‘round. If we had been, told at what time the work was to commence, all could be accepted and arrangement made.
I checked later in the evening and my new address was working but no archived emails were available. I checked with a few colleagues and they had access to archives.
We were all horrified to find that our new addresses no longer had our contact books. In other words, the hundreds of email addresses and distribution lists were apparently gone.
Ok – seems bad. Re-read the memo and discovered no mention made of contacts/addresses – start to assume the worst. Earlier in the year, an upgrade had resulted in the same thing – loss of all contacts. But wait, it did say, on Monday 27th October the new system would be available for use. Just be patient, Darcy, maybe it will be alright.
Monday dawns and the portal is down with no access at all. I phone the HelpLine and the helpful analyst has no information at all about the changes except the memo distributed to all staff. She doesn’t sound confident.
Anyway, I do have access to my ‘archived email’ but not contacts/distribution lists. I am told that by 3rd November, we may have these but no one seems certain.
The issue now, for many staff across the state using the email system, is the loss of time and uncertainty. Should I make new distribution lists (and I have very many eg welfare team, executive, class teams, learning teams, professional associations, branches, parent lists etc.) or wait? It is difficult to wait as life/work doesn’t stop and people need information.
This was planned change and one wonders how many businesses would have engaged in this kind of practise. The mismanagement of the Kevin07 laptop initiative is worrying all of us and this kind of imbroglio just reduces confidence even further (amongst the do-ers and enthusiasts).
The scale of the planned change was large and we all accept that things will go wrong but surely information to staff and us ‘users’ could be more plentiful. Gee, even, the portal will be down from 3.30pm until Monday 8am would have done me.
Thoughts?
Read the memo below.
CHANGES TO SCHOOL EMAIL SERVICES
Colleagues,
This is the second in a series of email messages explaining the changes to school email services being introduced over the remainder of 2008.
This message contains details of the changes to the staff email service.
From Monday 27 October 2008, your new DETstaff email account will be available for use. Your new email address will end with “@det.nsw.edu.au”. Your new mailbox will provide access to a global address list of all staff within the NSW Department of Education and Training and the students at your school.
The preferred way to access your new mailbox is through the DET Portal. A new link has been created under the “My portal” tab that looks like this:
Staff Email (e.g detuserid@det.nsw.edu.au)
Provides access to your staff email account.
Those staff memberswho already have two departmental email accounts (including all school principals and school staff members who have acquired an “@det.nsw.edu.au” email account at some time) may be familiar with the address “webmail.det.nsw.edu.au”. While this address will continue to provide access to your email, it will not allow you to see the global address list containing the email addresses of your students. Therefore, it’s best to use the “Staff Email” link in the Portal.
Please use your new mailbox to send email from Monday 27 October. Your existing “My email” link in the Portal will be renamed “My Archive Email” and will provide read-only access to the stored messages and contacts in your “My email” mailbox. You will not be able to send email from this mailbox. At some point in the ensuing month any messages stored in your “My email” mailbox will be automatically copied to your new mailbox.
If you currently have two departmental email accounts, the contents of your “My email” mailbox will be copied to your existing “@det.nsw.edu.au” email account before your “My email” account is deleted.
From Monday 27 October 2008, all new email messages sent to your “My email” address (ending in “@education.nsw.gov.au”) will be automatically redirected to your new mailbox and the sender will receive a notification containing your new email address. This redirection will remain in place until Friday 12 December 2008, after which all “My email” accounts will be deleted.
Support materials, including a user guide and frequently asked questions, will be available prior to Monday 27 October from Information Technology Directorate’s IT Supportpage on the Department’s Intranet. Further advice about online support materials for staff will be provided to schools via InPrincipal and email in the near future.
Yours sincerely,
Stephen Wilson
Chief Information Officer
darcymoore
Hi Darcy
Hearing you loud and clear. Unfortunately
as more DET schools migrate to centralised ICT control,in our case North Coast Institute of TAFE,the service just keeps getting worse.
Its a deplorable fact that our school is worse off, in ICT terms only, than we were last century, ie 1999.
Over the last decade control of our school’s computer system has been merged to a non school education body, namely NCI. Sure they have earnest techies, BUT with little real empathy or responsiveness for the needs of a high school.
Luckily this latest email debacale we avoided, as we are already on @det addresses.
Our grievances with DET are far more simple. The fact that a simple inexpensive monitor and globe in a key learning position in the shared TAFE/senior campus/junior campus facility known as the theatre, cannot be upgraded due to petty mindedness over ownership/cost/resonsibility. Its made a $100,000 learning facility largely unusable for most of 2008. Mighty agrieved, you bet.
Is this the pain we have to have before the gain? I wonder?
Thanks for this comment, Tony. The centralisation of IWB purchases through DET Fleet Management hasn’t been a stunning success either. Reading Maralyn Parker’s article didn’t help my mood the other day: http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/maralynparker/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/schools_restructure/
I logged on that morning and the DET had upgraded the filter to now block ALL webmail sites, including my University of Sydney email account.
By the afternoon it was unblocked – perhaps someone had taken the time to request this. I guess someone at the other end of the filter had the good sense to agree that such a blanket blocking of webmail may have implications for the number of teachers who are enrolled in postgraduate study!
One word: Amateur.
Trying to login and nothing working, then suddenly, it worked…distribution lists painstakingly transferred (I just had to do send out the Indigenous Education e-letter to the 200 subscribers before an important meeting) made me feel like an amateur. I love my school. I had a great time at school when I was teenager. Yet in regards to ICT I feel that DET and agencies make me feel like an amateur.
Interestingly my school’s ICT/service has improved under the control of an external body. We still have issues with the server filling up- the classic situation get the kids engaged, teachers embracing ICT learning leading to the server being almost totally useless but not one attempt from our school to upgrade, instead wating for State government intervention…
Troy, unfortunately you have hit the nail upon the proverbial, with one swing of the hammer. We are a (s)lumbering beast in this respect and need to be ably to act independently, with support not more regulation. Thanks for posting a comment – much appreciated!
My Region will have emails and distribution lists migrated by Nov. 19th – a month after the process started.
What does one say?
Hi Darcy,
Well said.
A non teacher friend said, tongue in cheek, upon listening to me lament… now that’s something you should strike over!
The mac experience had these and its own issues to deal with. The new email link never arrived in my portal until I logged onto a pc and selected the outlook light version. Of course I found this out by accident after nearly 3 days of waiting. We have always been treated as lepers with the light version so it’s not new, however this version is virtually useless at anything but sending an email to a person whose email you know… adding contacts, editing distribution lists viewing/adding to your addresses, amending attachments, calendars etc are all tormenting experiences at the very best. I am forced use my macbook pro to run xp for email only… led to extreme embarrassment when I was at the apple store the other day let me tell you
btw you are lucky they’re migrating your contacts. We aren’t so fortunate… well they haven’t communicated that message and communication isn’t one of their strong points
R
My DLs/Contacts and archived emails were migrated last night (squeaky wheel) with only one problem, several of the DLs were empty. However, I am better off than many other colleagues in the region who have 3 weeks to wait.
Other weird stuff – when I checked my ‘new’ email box I had 18 emails from Teachertube thanking me for my email. I got a confirmation email to my DET email address months ago but haven’t sent any to them. In the changeover it appears to have generated multiple emails to teachertube. Bet they were happy!
Lyn, I had multiple teachertube emails too – not that many though. What I did have was dozens of notifications about meetings (that I had attended) and already responded too – weird!
‘A non teacher friend said, tongue in cheek, upon listening to me lament… now that’s something you should strike over!’
I agree.
I know I’ve already commented on this but my frustration level is zooming up at the moment. Has anyone figured out how to add the email addresses of messages you are receiving to your contact lists in the new email system? Maybe I’m missing something but it seems much more difficult than the previous system. it looks like I have to type in all the addresses and info manually?
Hi Lyn,
I click reply and then right-click on the name/address to ‘add to contacts’. Make sense?
I went through my address book and highlighted the old @education address then right-click to paste the new @DET address over it.
That’s as fast as it gets.
Please ring/email/post if you need more info.
Thanks Darcy! I really needed that help. Julie’s asked me to talk about email distribution lists and the discussion board at the Branch meeting at Annual Conference.
I can send you some guidelines on Monday that could be distributed, if you need.