Migrating to HKUST Exchange Email and Calendar Service (from iMail Service)

On the day of Exchange migration, your access to the legacy HKUST iMail IMAP/POP server will be unavailable from 00:30 a.m. until 06:30 a.m., including all email from any interface (such as smartphones, HKUST WebMail, and all other email applications).

Before the Migration

• Most users (IMAP4 Email Clients e.g. Thunderbird) - No Action required
• Thunderbird user should aware that message tag will not be preserved after migrated to Exchanage.
• Outlook users – Suggest upgrading to Outlook 2010
• PC-Pine - upgrade to version 4.6.4
• Special notes to POP email users:

  If you are using POP email clients such as Eudora, Outlook etc. and have turned on the advance setting "Leave Messages on Server", you may encounter a "duplicate message" problem in your local INBOX after the migration as the old messages on the email server will be reloaded ONCE again to your local computer. To work around this problem, you may either

  • Disable the option "Leave Message on Server" on your email client before the migration, or
  • just simply DELETE all those duplicated messages after the migration

  Please note that disabling the "Leave Messages on Server" option will clear all your accumulated messages on the email server and your emails will only be stored in your local computer. You may enable the option again after the migration if it is necessary.

Migrating Mailboxes

1. The migration will be started at 00:30 a.m.
2. Please take note of the following:
   
   1. The folders below WILL NOT be migrated:
   • AutoTrash and Junk E-Mail folder as it stores spam messages.
   • Trash folder as it stores deleted messages.
   • Folder name reserved in Exchange: Public Folders, Deleted Items, Sync Issues, RSS Feeds, Calendar, Contacts, Journal, Notes, Outbox and Task
     If you have one of the above folders and want it copied, please contact cchelp@ust.hk so that it will be copied manually after the migration.
   2. If there are folders with the same names but different case, e.g. Peter and PETER, only one folder will get copied to Exchange while the messages inside the folders (with the same folder name) will be merged. Exchange is not case sensitive, so Peter and PETER are the same in Exchange.
   3. Message flags (or tags in Thunderbird) are not converted.
   4. The size of Exchange mailboxes will be smaller than the previous mailboxes due to compression of mail headers and some message content in Exchange.
3. Spam filtering (based on a heuristics-based spam detection engine) is turned on by default and reset to medium level.
4. Once migration is started,
1. New message will be delivered to your Exchange Inbox.
2. IMAP/POP access to the host imap.ust.hk is denied.
3. HKUST WebMail will be connected to the Exchange IMAP.

After Migration is completed

Please follow the steps below to configure your Exchange account's settings:

1. Update your Outlook Display Name
   The display name (name displayed in your email messages) of your Exchange account was taken from the LDAP communication directory in the format of your First Name followed by Last Name. It's better to update your Outlook Display Name e.g. "John Chan" instead of "Tai Man CHAN", before sending messages from OWA or Outlook.
2. Set up an Exchange Account in Microsoft Outlook
3. (Optional) Check if the email forwarding address is properly set, setup the forwarding address and add more forwarding address if necessary
4. (Optional) Switch to use your Full Name E-Mail Alias as your Outlook primary E-Mail address
   If you used to send mail using your Full Name Email Alias, you will need to switch it as your Outlook primary E-Mail address.

In addition, you may need to perform the following steps whenever it is appropriate:

1. Set up the automatic cleanup process with your email client as the spam messages will stay in the Junk-Email folder and occupying your usable email quota.
2. You may refer to Managing your email for set up of automatic replies; check your quota; dealing with spams, etc.
3. Note the special folders like Sent Items, Deleted Items and Junk E-mail and other Differences after migrated to Exchange.
4. (Optional) If you have your own email address book, you will need to move them to your Exchange account.
5. (Optional) If you are using other calendar services, you may consider moving them to your Exchange account. Check with your technical support staff or refer to the Help Pages from Microsoft Support. If you want to import or restore only a few items from an Outlook Data File (.pst), you may just copy and paste the items. Detail steps please refer to How to copy Outlook Calendar items from one folder to another.
6. (Optional) Take note of your Calendar Permissions when you start to add entries to your Calendar. The default is Free / Busy Time so that other Exchange users can view your availability. Change your Calendar Permission if necessary.

Beside, some client side actions are required as below:

1. Outlook Web App (OWA)
   
   • Check if you can access your email and folders using Outlook Web App.
2. Thunderbird or IMAP clients
   
   • No change is required on server settings: both IMAP server (imap.ust.hk) and outgoing mail server (smtp.ust.hk) remain unchanged.
   • Be prepared for a longer downloading time on first time connection.
   • Subscribe the new folders: Deleted Items, Junk E-Mail.
   • If you will use both Thunderbird and Outlook (or OWA), it is better to Configure Thunderbird’s folder settings with Sent Items and Deleted Items instead of Sent and Trash folder.
3. Outlook
   
   • Set up an Exchange Account in Microsoft Outlook
   • Disable Outlook's Junk E-Mail Filter - Please note that Outlook's built-in Junk E-Mail Filter is turned on by default. You are advised to check if there are regular mails in your Junk-Email folder for the first couple of days after you first migrated to Exchange. In fact, regular mails may be caught by Outlook's Junk E-Mail Filter until you have setup the Safe Senders list, etc. Before you have time to get familiar how it works, you may consider disable Outlook's Junk E-Mail Filter as the spam filtering is already in place.
4. HKUST Webmail
   
   • Works with Exchange but with some minor exceptions, e.g. the usage/quota bar in top-left is disabled.
   • Outlook Web App (OWA) is a new native web client provided by Exchange, it is recommended to use OWA at https://owa.exchange.ust.hk/ instead of the HKUST WebMail so that you can get familiar with the "Outlook" features.
5. iPhone / Android
   
   • Set up Exchange on the iPhone.
   • Set up Exchange Account with mobile devices.

Getting Help

Please refer to our Knowledge Base: Exchange Email and Calendar Services for more information.