Staff email migration in 2020

IT Services is working towards a cloud-first strategy, which will bring greater stability and resilience as well as a wide range of new features and possibilities for future development. Canvas and Panopto are examples of ways that cloud-based technologies have improved the experience for students and staff, but a lot of other background services have also been migrated and the work will continue this year.

Staff email accounts are being migrated to Microsoft Office 365 (as student accounts were about 4 years ago), bringing a better webmail experience and improved reliability. Spam protection will still be provided by Mimecast.

On this page

How will this affect Sussex staff?

Known issues and solutions

Issues on your computer

Issues on your phone or tablet

Other issues

How will this affect Sussex staff?

Improvements to staff email

The benefits of migrating your email account to the cloud include:

  • Improved stability and reliability
  • A more modern webmail experience
  • Email becomes independent of on-site systems (in the event of an issue on campus, email will continue to work normally)
  • Easier to set up on your mobile devices
  • Better compatibility with modern productivity tools like Office 365, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams
  • A range of future improvements are dependent on this change

Logging in to webmail twice

Unfortunately, you may need to enter your login details twice to access the webmail system once you've been migrated to the cloud.

  • When you go to the webmail page on the Sussex website, just enter your username (for example, ano123)
  • When you are redirected to the office.com login page, enter your username@sussex.ac.uk (for example, ano123@sussex.ac.uk)

You can skip the first login page by going straight to outlook.office.com.

This is a short term problem which we can fix as soon as all accounts have been migrated.

Known issues and solutions

Before your email account is migrated, Outlook is connected to our physical email server on campus. After you are migrated, it needs to switch to your new cloud-based account. You will probably see a popup asking you to re-enter your email account login details. You may also be asked to log in to any other email accounts that you check via Outlook.

If the popup window doesn't accept your login details, please check which account it is asking you to verify. Small text at the top of the popup window will tell you which account you're being asked to verify.

Resolving issues with Outlook for Windows

The only known issue with Outlook is the popup window above. If you encounter any other issues, please contact the IT Service Desk.

Resolving issues with Outlook for Mac

You may see a popup window asking you to re-enter your password. If the window doesn't accept your password, please try these steps:

  1. If the window will allow you to change your username, remove ad_us\ and simply enter your username followed by @sussex.ac.uk (eg ano123@sussex.ac.uk)
  2. If this doesn't resolve your issue, remove the account and re-add it. You can do this by following these steps:
    1. Click on the Outlook menu and select Preferences
    2. Select Accounts
    3. Select your Sussex email account and then press the minus button at the bottom of the screen to remove the account
    4. Press the plus button and then New Account
    5. In the popup window, enter your username followed by @sussex.ac.uk (eg ano123@sussex.ac.uk)
    6. Follow the steps to add your account to Outlook

Resolving issues with Mac Mail

If you use the Mail app on your Mac computer, you will need to remove your Sussex email account and re-add it.

To remove your Sussex email account, follow these steps:

  1. Go to System Preferences
  2. Select Internet Accounts
  3. You will see a list of the accounts set up on your computer. To remove your Sussex email account, select this and click the minus icon at the bottom of the screen.

To re-add your email account, follow these steps:

  1. Go to System Preferences
  2. Select Internet Accounts
  3. Click the plus icon at the bottom of the screen
  4. Choose Exchange
  5. Enter your Sussex email address
  6. Enter your password and follow the rest of the steps

Resolving issues with Thunderbird

IT Services does not support Thunderbird and our staff won't be able to help you resolve issues with this software. However, you can find the settings to add your migrated email account to Thunderbird on our website.

Fixing your email account on your iPhone

When your email account is migrated, you will lose access on your iPhone (or iPad). If you use the Outlook app then please use these instructions.

If you use the mail app on your iPhone, you will need to remove your Sussex email account and re-add it.

To remove your account, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Settings
  2. Go to Passwords and Accounts
  3. You will see a list of accounts connected to your iPhone. Select your Sussex email account.
  4. Press Delete Account

One you have removed your account, please follow these steps to re-add it:

  1. Go to settings
  2. Go to Passwords and Accounts
  3. Select Add Account
  4. Select Exchange
  5. Enter your Sussex email address
  6. Enter your password and follow the rest of the steps

Fixing email on the Outlook mobile app

You will lose access to your Sussex email account on your mobile device once your email account has been migrated. You will need to remove your account and re-add it.

We recomment you check your Sussex email account on your phone using the Outlook mobile app.

  1. On Outlook for iPhones or iPad, tap on your ID icon in the top left and then tap on the cog icon at the bottom of the screen. On Android, tap the menu button and the go to settings.
  2. Select your Sussex account. On iPhones or iPads there will be a red "remove account" option at the bottom of the page. On Android this option is called Delete account.
  3. If that was the only email account connected to Outlook, you'll be prompted to add a new account. Otherwise, you will need to select add account.
  4. Enter your Sussex email address. Your device will detect your other settings.

Fixing email on your Android phone or tablet

If you use the email app that comes with your Android phone, you will lose access to your Sussex emails when your account is migrated. Our staff will do their best to help you, but there are a lot of different Android email apps. This makes it difficult to provide effective support.

If you have trouble adding your migrated email account to your mobile phone, please check that your email app is updated to the latest version.

Our recommendation is that you install the Outlook app for Android and use this.

Selecting your time zone

The first time you log in to the new webmail system, you'll be asked to pick your time zone.

In the drop down list, select UTC+00 (Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London)

Webmail issues in Chrome

If you use Chrome to access the webmail, you might encounter problems with it logging in to the wrong account. Chrome will sometimes remember old settings or login credentials.

The best solution is usually to clear your cache.

You can also try use an incognito window.

Recreating your signatures

If you didn't save your signature before migration, and if it gets lost, please use the signature creation page to make a new one.

Recovering your password

If you don't know your Sussex password, you may be able to recover it using Sussex Direct. If you have trouble recovering your password, please contact the IT Service Desk.

Updated on 27 April 2021