Students experience issues during My Mail migration
October 9, 2010
Mercyhurst My Mail: Many upperclassmen have encountered this screen when attempting to sign into their migrated My Mail accounts at mymail.mercyhurst.edu.Most Mercyhurst College students check their WebMail daily to stay updated with their classes as well as events going on around campus.
Recently most students’ WebMail accounts have made the switch to My Mail, but many problems have occurred with the transfer.
Since the e-mail migration, many students have tried changing their passwords and have still been denied access to their accounts. Other issues students have experienced include students still getting their e-mail sent to their WebMail accounts, and their e-mail not being moved to their My Mail accounts.
The hangups come at a particularly frustrating time, given the timing in the current academic year. With projects, essays and tests requiring communication between students and teachers, a problematic e-mail system switch is unwelcome for most.
The Helpdesk is working to solve these problems. Even so, the workers are not able to fix all the issues.
“I work at the IT desk, and I still cannot get in my account,” senior Brandon Harper said.
System Administrator Lorraine Frownfelter is not sure why all of these issues are occurring.
“We do not know why the migration keeps hanging,” Frownfelter said. “We have been working with Microsoft over the past two weeks and thought the issues were corrected.”
Currently, Microsoft employees are investigating the problem and doing what they can to take care of all of the issues.
The migration is moving slowly. Students with last names starting with A through D on Erie’s campus completed the switch with only a few exceptions. As for students with last names falling in E through L, their accounts are migrated, but local access has not been turned off and is being mirrored from My Mail.
The goal is for the migration to be completed around early next week. By then all students should have a working account as well as have their inbox transferred over.
“At first it was huge inconvenience,” sophomore Paige Bosnyak said. “I had communication with criminal justice and with my teachers that were not going through, but I was happy it resolved quickly.”
To help the migration, students are encouraged to start up their My Mail accounts by visiting mymail.mercyhurst.edu and logging in with their username at the domain lakers.mercyhurst.edu.
As of Monday, Blackboard and other campus e-mail will be guided to the My Mail address. While issues are occurring and the migration still continues, the old system will remain running.
“Change always creates challenges, some expected, others not,” Frownfelter said. “It is our goal to handle all e-mail issues promptly and satisfactorily for everyone involved.”
Students who continue to experience problems are advised to visit the Helpdesk in the library for assistance.