As part of the University’s Microsoft modernisation programme, Digital Technology Services is migrating its SharePoint sites to the newer online version. This is necessary to ensure continued support of the service, its underlying systems and to meet security requirements.

The upgrade will affect all SharePoint sites, including current team sites and the staff intranet sites which will move to a new version, SharePoint Online, which sits in the cloud.

SharePoint online for HWB will go live Wednesday 19 June. Whilst this is taking place, there are a few things to be aware of:

• Please make sure all documents are checked back in, as any changes to documents after this point will not be migrated. If you need to work on a document please save it locally and upload a new version once your site migration is complete.

• If you can no longer access content or sites that you could previously please contact ! IT Help (ext. 3333). This could be an issue with permissions or content you are trying to access could have been archived and DTS will be able to retrieve it.

• You may find that some of the links in existing SharePoint pages don’t work as that content has been moved to the new version.

• If you have bookmarked links and favourites you may find that you need to replace them with a new URL.

• You will also find that searching the home page of the staff intranet won’t return results from newly migrated sites, so you may need to search both areas separately for information. This will be resolved when all sites have been migrated.

• Please note that the first time you visit the new intranet site you will need to login using the format username@hallam.shu.ac.uk (where username is your normal university login code).

• Over the next two months the HWB staff engagement team will be working with a team of faculty editors to add and update content on the new intranet site.

This upgrade will result in a number of benefits:

• SharePoint Online is more compatible with the Windows 10 operating system which is currently being deployed to workstations across the University and better supports Macs and mobile devices.
• SharePoint Online is available as part of the University’s subscription to Office 365 so there are considerable costs savings to be made
• Fresher look and feel to the site with a more consistent and intuitive navigation route.
• The final sites will be comprehensively overhauled as part of the post-migration stage, with a lot of out of date content being deleted as well as the creation of new appropriate content.
• More effective search function.

During the process, colleagues in the faculty have been working with the DTS project team to review the current intranet site pages, marking them for migration, archive or deletion. Once the change is complete, sites that have not been used for two years will be automatically moved to an archive. The new site will therefore have a fresher look and feel, be easier to navigate and contain up to date content.

DTS will also be putting a process in place whereby an individual can search for archived content that they would like restoring, and request this to be done, meaning that archived content will not be lost or irretrievable.

Any issues need to go through the normal IT Help channel (email or phone ext. 3333) where they will triage your request accordingly.

If you have any other questions about the upgrade, or if there is any content you would like to see on the new intranet, please email ! HWB Staff Engagement