Email & calendaring

• Overview
• Which email system should you use?
• Set up your UW Email inbox
• Useful email tools
• UW Event Calendar

Overview

UW offers both the UW Google and UW Office 365 productivity, collaboration, and email platforms for use by the UW community.

Which email system should you use?

Important considerations

• Follow your department’s guidance for which option to choose: Some departments and business units require their personnel to use either UW Google or UW Office 365 for their email and calendaring. Consult with your local IT support before you select either UW Google or UW Office 365 as the destination for your UW email forwarding.
• Major changes to UW Google: UW Google is undergoing several major changes. For more details and regular updates, see UW Google Changes Project.

Email feature comparison

Additional considerations

• Support for UW Exchange Online:  Many Exchange features do not work unless the desktop version of Outlook is installed and configured. Local IT support is strongly recommended for anyone who wants to use UW Exchange Online with Outlook. If you do not have local IT support, we recommend using UW Gmail or limiting your use of UW Exchange Online to the Outlook Web App. See this page for more information on UW Exchange Online email client support guidelines.

• Scheduling Across Services: UW Exchange Online and UW Gmail both offer excellent, full-featured calendaring services. However, scheduling “across services,” that is, between an email account on UW Exchange Online and an email account on UW Gmail is limited.It is possible to send and update calendar meeting requests from UW Exchange Online to UW Gmail (and vice versa). However, it is not possible to view “Free/Busy” information for the calendar of a UW email account that is not on the UW email service your account is on. If your UW email account is on UW Exchange Online you will be unable to view the Free/Busy information for a UW Gmail account from within your UW Exchange Online calendar, and vice versa.Note: To better support calendaring collaboration, your department or business unit may require its members to use either UW Exchange Online or UW Gmail. Before choosing an email service, check with your department or business unit IT support organization. UW-IT strongly recommends that you choose the UW email service used by the majority of people you collaborate with.

• Productivity Tools: UW Exchange Online and UW Gmail both have associated productivity platform tools. Regardless of the the email service you choose, you can take advantage of the tools available in both services.

• • UW Exchange Online is part of UW Office 365. UW Office 365 includes OneDrive, and online versions of Word, Excel, and other Office applications.
  • UW Gmail is part of UW Google. UW Google includes Google Drive, Calendar, Sites, and other Google apps like YouTube. Please be aware that Google no longer offers unlimited storage, and storage is limited to 100GB combined across Google apps like GMail, Drive, and Photos.

• Spam Protection: UW Gmail spam protection is not fully compatible with UW Email. See Confirmed spam/junk email is NOT delivered to the appropriate spam/junk folder (UW Google) for more details.

Setting up your UW Email inbox

1. Activate a service
   • UW Exchange Online – this should activate automatically for all UW students, staff, and instructor
   • UW Gmail – you will need to manually activate UW Gmail using the Manage UW Google page on the UW NetID Manage Portal.
2. Forward your email to the new service
   • Your primary email service, where your email is delivered, is determined by forwarding. Use the Manage UW Email Forwarding page on the UW NetID Manage Portal to change forwarding to your chosen email service.

Useful email tools

• You can Change Your UW Email Forwarding anytime.
• Create email distribution lists, including class email lists with the Mailman service.
• The Securing Your Computer page explains how to protect yourself from viruses, spyware, phishing, and other malware attacks.
• The Bulk Email at the UW page explains UW policy on sending out large batches of email.

Accessing your email through MyUW

This 15-second video shows you where to find your email in MyUW.

UW Event Calendar

The UW Event Calendar is a service providing a calendar for all UW campus public events. In addition, it can be used to set up departmental calendars, including academic, schools, colleges, and other groups. It provides a better mobile experience, an improved user interface, event registration, and the ability to embed calendars into websites. Also, an event created in one calendar can appear in multiple calendars. Anyone with a UW NetID can request a calendar, which can then be used to share events with the campus calendar. Learn how to use the calendar system: UW Event Calendar Help.