A few days ago, leaflets and advertisements about a new UTM email interface plastered hallway walls to announce a more effective email system for students. In the past, the original UTORmail was criticized for being too slow, losing e-mails, and not properly forwarding to secondary email accounts.
“The UTOR accounts can be troublesome due to security and incompatibility issues where emails don’t go through,” said Michael Perczyszyn, a fourth-year English and math student. “The memory cap can be a problem as well, such as when the system starts to block emails from being received.”
The UTM library stepped in with the growing demand for a better user interface.
The new program is called “UTmail+”. It is an attempt to step up from the old system to provide students with Internet applications and tools that yield a more accessible interface and an error-free messaging system.
UTmail+’s setup and design in the folder-based Microsoft Outlook style to provide students with better message organization. The new program also provides students with a calendar, contacts, and to-do functions to keep them on task.
This new system is meant to replace the old, clunky, dated UTORmail accounts. However, a few problems arose before deployment.
“There seems to be some technical issues being uncovered right now,” said Eva Stepanian, UTM’s social media librarian. “So we are in talks with the project team of the initiative regarding whether the rollout will actually be on the designated date, or be pushed back a week or two.”
One of the problems concerned forwarding to some undergrad and grad student accounts.
“The team would like to work on these errors before the launch, so that all students can change over as quickly and easily as possible,” Stepanian said.
Students are advised to keep checking their UTORmail accounts for now; weekly news publications, and signs around campus on when the new program will be active and open to students.
When the new system is phased in, there will be a migration of the data of the old UTORmail accounts, which will then become obsolete. Upon registration for the new UTmail+, messages from the previous account will be automatically forwarded to the new one. The new addresses will take the form firstname.last@mail.utoronto.ca.
Other UTmail+ features include a 10GB inbox, automated sorting, integrated messaging, mobile access, enhanced spam filtering, and integrated web applications.
The server will also be accessible for integration into external mail clients, like Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird.
Students are urged to switch over to the new account as soon as information surfaces. You can find more information and migrate your account at www.utoronto.ca/utmail.
