Upgrading staff PCs to Office 365

ITS are upgrading all staff PCs running Office 2016 to our latest Office 365 client over the coming weeks. We will be changing the desktop background of all PCs that need upgrading with a clear message including a link to the form for requesting an upgrade.

Why are we doing this?

We upgrade all of our student and public access PCs every summer. To minimise disruption to staff we have not upgraded them for nearly 2 years, but we now need to get all of our staff PCs upgraded to the same version. The latest staff client has all the latest apps available and the newest security to keep you and your data safe.

How do I upgrade?

Upgrading is usually very easy and is done overnight. All you need to do is log a request with the ITS Helpdesk. You will be asked to complete an indemnity form to confirm you have backed up your data and are happy for us to schedule the upgrade.

How long have I got?

We plan to upgrade everyone before the end of the year, so we advise you to book the upgrade in as soon as possible, as we have a large number of upgrades to complete and want to minimise any disruption to your work.

What differences will I notice?

Most of the changes are 'under the hood', but the new client will be more secure and work much better with Office 365 and OneDrive. Office 365 files are backwards compatible with all previous of Office files so most of the changes will be cosmetic. One of our most popular new features relates to the Desktop - we now ‘roam’ the files into your OneDrive’ so any files you save on your Desktop will now automatically copy to the Desktop folder on your OneDrive, meaning that they will be available from any University PC that you log on to, and from other devices where you access your OneDrive.

Greater integration with Office 365 means the default save location is now OneDrive and not M: Drive. We are not removing M: Drive, but advise staff should now start migrating any data from M: to OneDrive. There are so many benefits to using OneDrive including the ability to share and collaborate on files, version history and improved accessibility.