In spring 2021, Enterprise Technology & Services worked closely with Microsoft to join all USNH institutions into one Microsoft environment. Combining USNH’s separate email, directory, and Microsoft services instances improves the customer experience, provides better cybersecurity protections, and simplifies the management of this critical infrastructure, positioning the University System of New Hampshire (USNH) for the future.
The Microsoft 365 (M365) project consists of several parallel IT projects.
Active Directory (AD) Project - The AD Consolidation Project combined all individual institution directories into a single USNH-wide directory. USNH now has a single source of identity, usernames, passwords, and authorization information to share for all services, greatly simplifying all other management and support of IT services across the institutions.
All institutionally owned computers at Granite State College (GSC), Keene State College (KSC) and Plymouth State University (PSU) were migrated to the AD domain both manually and through remote software tools. Computers at GSC were joined to the USNH AD Domain in February 2021. PSU followed in May 2021, and KSC in June 2021.
Click here for more information on Active Directory Domain Services Overview.
M365 Name Change & Single Environment – All USNH institutions are now unified into one M365 tenant, with a single instance of email, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams, which facilitates better collaboration and communication across our institutions.
Rather than start a new Microsoft environment (aka tenant) from scratch, KSC and PSU were migrated to the existing UNH Microsoft environment to save time and money. GSC was already operating in the UNH Microsoft environment. ET&S renamed the UNH tenant from WILDCATSUNH to UNIVERSITYSYSTEMNH in April to reflect the shared identity. PSU was moved to the new tenant in May, and KSC followed in early June.
Moving to a single environment included updating email domains for GSC and KSC. At GSC, student emails were changed from @go.granite.edu to @granite.edu. At KSC, student emails were changed from @ksc.keene.edu to @keene.edu. UNH Durham and Manchester student emails will change from @wildcats.unh.edu to @unh.edu in August, , and UNH Law will change from @unhlaw.unh.edu to @law.unh.edu.
ET&S also created a USNH-wide standard for email aliases (firstname.lastname@primaryinstitution.edu). Faculty, staff and students with multiple roles within USNH institutions will have one account with sent emails reflecting the primary institution affiliation based on USNH HR and SIS data.
Outcomes
The Microsoft 365 Project will produce the following outcomes:
- Common log in page for all USNH students, faculty and staff
- All usernames and passwords will remain the same.
- Email distribution lists will remain unchanged.
- Each institution’s email directory will remain the same, scoped to each institution, but will now display ordered as first name last name. This will also apply to Microsoft applications, where initials will display ordered as first initial last initial.
- Calendar, file sharing, Teams and SharePoint will be integrated across USNH institutions and locations.
Box Migration Exploration
Because of changes to the storage limits and pricing structure of Box, Enterprise Technology & Services (ET&S) is exploring the feasibility of moving cloud storage to Microsoft 365. ET&S conducted a feasibility pilot in May 2021, during which individual ET&S staff Box accounts were migrated to Microsoft 365 services. USNH is currently in an experimental phase, analyzing Box use by individuals and departments, and investigating the business processes that leverage Box, and migrating additional departments who have volunteered.
For more details on the Microsoft 365 Project, go to https://www.usnh.edu/it/projects/m365.
