Engagement is the heart of the University of Canterbury’s Strategic Vision and our Digital Strategy supports this by leveraging the best technology available to underpin a thriving work experience for our people, while providing a blueprint for the University’s digital journey over the next 5 – 10 years.

Moving University of Canterbury staff and students toward more cloud-based applications, like Microsoft 365 (M365), is one step in achieving this strategy.

The roll out of M365 will be deployed in stages across the University over the next 18 months. Stage one will cover the deployment of Microsoft Teams and OneDrive, and an upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Office.

Why are we deploying Teams and OneDrive? 

Teams is a workspace for digital collaboration used by over 80% of higher education institutions across Aotearoa New Zealand and has been one of the top software requests from University of Canterbury staff.

A place where you and your colleagues can create and make decisions together, Teams will allow your conversations, files, meetings, and apps to live together in a single shared workspace you can access on any device.

A department or project collaboration site can be created quickly and easily within Teams, which comes with the latest security features and 25Tb of storage for every new Teams site created.

Watch a quick, 2-minute video on Teams here>

OneDrive is a cloud-storage application, allowing for access to, and sharing of, your work files no matter where you are, or what device you’re using. It’s like having your P drive in the cloud, with a whopping 1Tb of storage.

Watch a quick, 2-minute video on OneDrive here>

Since mid-March we’ve successfully piloted over 250 people across the University on Teams.

Completion of the stage one rollout will allow all staff to connect and collaborate more easily with our students, who already have access to both Teams and OneDrive.

It’s anticipated that Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint Online will ultimately replace the P and K Drives for file storage.

When will Teams and OneDrive be rolled out to me?

• ITS will be deploying Teams and OneDrive across all University of Canterbury departments between August and December 2021.
• The project team will be in touch with department leads prior to deployment to discuss onboarding and training, including classroom, online meetings, written guides, and videos.
• On the day of deployment, ITS staff will be available in person, in addition to everyday phone-based support services.

 Coming Soon: Teams Calling and Meeting Room Compatibility

• You will be able to set up and host online meetings via Teams from your desk, once the software has been rolled out to you, including inviting those not yet on Teams. Our pilot users and early adopters are already enjoying this functionality.
• You will be able to take part in Teams meetings prior to your roll out, where you have been invited to a meeting from someone already on-boarded to Teams. 
• Once on-boarded to Teams, you will be able to video call anyone else on Teams (internal or externa). ‘Teams Calling’ – the ability to use Teams like a phone, including calling a landline number, isn’t available yet. This will be added in the coming months, which will replace all Skype functionality.
• Zoom should continue to be used in UC meeting rooms as we won’t be converting these spaces to be compatible with Teams just yet.

Become an early adopter!

If you’d like to be among the first to receive access and training ahead of the deployment schedule, become an early adopter! Email the M365 project team for more on how you can get ahead of the crowd.

For more on the Microsoft Teams and OneDrive rollout visit the ITS website M365 Page, or our FAQs page.

Ngā mihi,

Michael Oulsnam
Chief Digital Officer