Working Securely: Upgrade to Office 365
What we need to know and do:
- Ensure that our University community – our staff, students and confidential information – remains secure.
- Be aware that the scale and sophistication of criminal cyber-activity is increasing, exploiting current uncertainties.
- Working away from campus increases our vulnerability and the complexity of safeguarding measures.
- Our responsibilities for security and information management are known and we must remain legally compliant.
- We need to meet these challenges as an organisation and as individuals.
Software upgrades: what are we doing?
The University is moving to Office 365 on the IT Services Managed Windows 10 Desktop.
From Monday 26 October, Office 365 will be available in the Software Centre for anyone with a managed desktop to install at a time of their choosing. Please remember you'll need to connect to the VPN regularly to access the latest updates.
Why is this important?
We have written before about a range of security measures to maintain good cyber security
Keeping software up to date is a key item on this list.
Moving to the latest version of Office means we will benefit from new features, continued feature updates as well as bug fixes.
Office 365 offers us much better all-round performance – including:
- Users can work from anywhere
- Provides robust security and reliability
- Teams and users can collaborate easily
- Access the latest programmes
- Continue to work with what you know
We have changed our licensing model and need to upgrade users to Office 365 by the end of term.
What will it mean for me?
Office 365 will deliver more robust security and reliability as well as helping us to work and collaborate easily, wherever we are.
Please note: laptop users off-campus will need to connect over the VPN for the application to become available in the Software Centre.
As part of the upgrade process, all traces of Office 2016 are removed before Office 365 is installed, including Microsoft Visio and Project. If you think you should have access to Visio or Project but can't see the installers in the Software Centre, please log a call with the IT Services Helpdesk on 73737 (see Help and Support, top right).
Important note: For users of Access Database, please ensure that your database administrator has tested it with Office 365 before upgrading. They (or a nominated tester) should take a copy of the database for testing.
Information and guidance
- Please read and follow our regular communications and key security advice
- Read and share these ten key points to ensure you are working as securely as possible.