ICT services will migrate Oamk user accounts to the same environment with the University of Oulu in the spring of 2024. We aim to make the transition as easy as possible for everyone, but this is a large project that will inevitably result in tasks for users as well. The change will also affect logins, especially for those individuals whose usernames will change.
We have compiled on this page questions posed by users along with their answers. We will continuously update the page.
- What does the migration of user accounts mean?
- Do I need to do anything before the migration?
- Will my username change?
- Will my Oamk email address remain?
- Will all my files be available in the new environment?
- Will Teams files and Outlook archives transfer automatically?
- I have shared my files with others via links, will these links remain?
- Will I still be able to access Oamk’s old M365 environment after May 20th?
What does the migration of user accounts mean?
Until now, Oamk has had its own environment (a so-called tenant) in the M365 cloud service, as has the University of Oulu. In February 2020, Oamk and the University of Oulu formed a joint service organization that provides internal services to both institutions. At that time, Oamk’s IT services merged into the joint ICT services of Oamk and the university. The goal of the merge is, among other things, to eliminate redundancies.
In practice, the elimination of redundancies leads to more reliable services when maintenance resources are shared, and the universities also save on costs by using shared services: the saved costs can then be used, for example, to cover the increase in license costs, additional service expenses (such as AI features), and minimizing security risks. Cooperation between the Oulu higher education institutions is also easier when all users are in the same environment. Some digital services are already shared (such as Moodle and YuJa). Now the consolidation of M365 cloud services is finally possible.
We are now migrating (transferring) Oamk user accounts to the same environment as the University of Oulu. We will also copy the contents of users’ M365 accounts from Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint to this environment, which will henceforth be the common environment for the Oulu higher education institutions.
Do I need to do anything before the migration?
Please ensure that you have followed Oamk’s data handling instructions when storing your files in the M365 cloud. Note that it is not the correct place for information classified as secret. We have already informed about this separately in the staff intranet on January 31 and in the student intranet on February 8.
Your task:
Additionally, if you have content in the M365 service that the administration cannot copy for you, you must back it up before the transfer:
If you have OneNote files in your OneDrive, back them up in the OneDrive application (not in the browser) before the transfer, so you can move them to the shared environment. See Migrate OneNote Office 365 from one tenant to another – Microsoft Community.
Will my username change?
The majority of users get to keep their username in the same format. Your username will change if:
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- you already have a username in the university’s tenant, or
- if the same username that you use in Oamk’s systems is already in use by someone else in the University of Oulu’s tenant.
If you already have a username in the University of Oulu’s tenant, your old Oamk username will be deactivated when it is merged with your University of Oulu username. You have a username at the University of Oulu if you are now or have been a member of the University of Oulu’s staff or a student since 2019 or later. Those who own a so-called UFO username also have a username in the University of Oulu’s tenant.
The change in username will mainly be visible when logging into services. For individuals whose username remains the same, the changes in logins will be minor, as only their login to the printer will change.
All those whose username changes will receive a separate email detailing how to log into various services in the future.
Please note that your previous Oamk email addresses will continue to receive emails in any case. Read more from the answer to the question about email addresses below.
Will my Oamk email address remain?
You will continue to receive all the messages sent to your Oamk email in your inbox. Both ktunnus@[students.]oamk.fi and etunimi.[x.]sukunimi@[students.]oamk.fi formatted email addresses will continue to function.
The sending address for emails will continue to appear as etunimi.[x.]sukunimi@[students.]oamk.fi if you are primarily Oamk staff or a student.
Staff roles and student roles have their own email inboxes and OneDrive storage spaces in the shared environment, but if you are a member of staff at both the University of Oulu and Oamk, or a student at both the University of Oulu and Oamk, then your accounts will merge into one staff account for staff roles, or student account for the student roles. Then, the address of your outgoing mail will be determined by which institution you are associated with to a greater percentage.
For example, a full-time Oamk student who is studying at the University of Oulu through open university will send emails from the Oamk address in the future. Likewise, a person who is primarily an employee of the University of Oulu and is a part-time hourly teacher at Oamk will have the University of Oulu’s email address appear as the sender’s address in emails going forward.
Will all my files be available in the new environment?
All your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, as well as image and text files, will be copied to your user account in the shared environment, along with other files transferred to OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint that were not created in M365 (e.g., files created with professional programs like Adobe, Autodesk, etc., as well as image and text files).
Not all M365 content can be copied by the administration (PowerBI, OneNote, Sway), which is why we provide separate instructions on how to save the content you need that ICT services cannot copy on your behalf with the migration tools available.
Your tasks:
- If you have used Sway in Microsoft’s cloud services, these are not copyable by the administration, and you must save the Sway presentation yourself. The Sway presentation cannot be transferred as is, but must be done, for example, in PDF or Word format.
- If you have content in PowerBI, you need to save them as .pbix files and bring them into the shared environment.
- If you have created OneNote notebooks that are not in any Teams group’s files, save them as separate files in OneNote before the environment changes, and then upload them to OneDrive in the shared environment after May 20th.
Will Teams files and Outlook archives transfer automatically?
We will copy all the emails from your Oamk user account’s Outlook to your new account at the University of Oulu’s Outlook that are currently (before the service interruption) available to you in the M365 service via a browser, i.e., at https://outlook.office.com/mail/. In other words, all the subfolders located in Outlook’s M365 cloud along with their contents will come to your user account in the University of Oulu’s M365. We have also verified that no one at Oamk has an actual Exchange archive mailbox in use.
The folder structures in Teams along with their files will be copied to the University of Oulu’s environment as they are, and the membership of the groups will also remain the same. However, please note that any file links in Teams (as well as in OneDrive and SharePoint) to files will break, as they refer to Oamk’s old environment. Therefore, if you have shared a file link in Teams with a recipient via email, that link will stop working.
I have shared my files with others via links, will these links remain?
One of the most labor-intensive aspects of this project for users is that shared file links to external services will break. For example, there are links in Moodle that point to files located in OneDrive, Teams, or SharePoint, and these links need to be replaced with new ones. In practice, only those individuals who have the right to create a share link in M365 and the right to update the link where it is shared, such as in Moodle, can replace the links.
Your tasks
- Recreate all the shares you have made from OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint. At the same time, send a new link to those individuals who will continue to need them.
- Update the new links in your external materials where they are still needed. (For example, in Moodle, on websites, in Eduuni, or wherever you have shared links.)
Will I still be able to access Oamk’s old M365 environment after May 20th?
You can log into Oamk’s old environment until the end of 2024 by doing the following:
- Go to https://portal.office.com/ (if necessary, in a private browsing mode, i.e., Incognito/InPrivate window).
- Sign in: Enter with the username in this form: oldusername@oamk.onmicrosoft.com, and naturally, here the oldusername should look the same as your user name before the transfer.
- Note that although the old environment will still be accessible to you until the end of 2024, the share links will break during the service interruption, meaning they will not open your files in that stored version.
Additionally, even though you can open your OneNote files through it, you cannot retrieve them from there to the new environment, so please remember to secure your OneNote files before the service interruption.