Transitioning from ACS
- Students who have already been transitioned to BU Google Apps can begin using BU Google Mail at either www.bu.edu/webmail or www.bu.edu/google. Other information related to the use of BU Google Apps is provided at www.bu.edu/tech/comm/email/google/.
- Students who are still on ACS, BU retirees, BU 2010 and 2011 alumni, and those with ACS Guest status should transition to the use of BU Google Apps as described on this page.
- Faculty and staff are also welcome to use BU Google Apps. However, forwarding your mail to the Mail component of BU Google Apps is discouraged, since the transition of faculty and staff from ACS to Exchange is underway.
- Student Organization (SAO) accounts can be transitioned to BU Google Apps. However, instead of following the steps outlined below, the person listed as the account owner should contact the IT Help Center for assistance.
- Instead of following the steps on this page, you can opt to forward your ACS mail to an external e-mail account (commercial Gmail, Hotmail, etc.). If you know that you do not want a BU Google Apps account and simply wish to forward your mail, you can proceed directly to the E-mail Forwarding System to make that change. However, we recommend that you first review all information related to forwarding before you proceed.
- Your old ACS mail will still be available via Horde as a “read-only” archive through December, 2012. Please refer to step 5 below for information on moving your mail from ACS to BU Google Mail. (Note that these instructions would also be applicable to the move of mail from ACS to any other IMAP-compliant account, such as Gmail.)
The TechWeb site contains extensive information related to the use of BU Google Apps. You are encouraged to review the FAQs, the information related to BU Google Mail, and other helpful documentation that you’ll find linked from those pages. However, the steps provided below outline the basic steps required by everyone with an ACS account who is transitioning to the use of BU Google Apps.
The step-by-step guide
- Create a BU Google Apps account if you do not already have one. (Note: You already have one if you have been using BU Google Sites, which has been available for the last few years.)
- Once your account is ready, you should log in to any of the Apps linked from www.bu.edu/google in order to make sure your access to the new account is working.
- Next, configure your mail forwarding at www.bu.edu/computing/email/forwarding/ where you will see an option to Choose BU Google Mail or can manually forward your mail to login@gmail.bu.edu.
- Once you have set up forwarding, test it out. Send yourself a message to login@bu.edu (where login is your BU login name) and make sure that you receive it at www.bu.edu/google/mail and *not* on ACS.
- If you would like to be able to use a desktop or mobile device client in addition to the web interface, configure your mail clients so that they are accessing BU Google Mail. Important Note: You should leave working access to ACS in your desktop client(s) in order to retrieve or move your old messages as needed; simply add BU Google Mail as an additional “Account” in your desktop clients.
(Note: Faculty and staff are discouraged from taking steps 3, 4 and 5 since use of Exchange is recommended.)
"3. Next, configure your mail forwarding at www.bu.edu/computing/email/forwarding/ where students will see an option to Choose BU Google Mail. Optionally, you may need to manually forward your e-mail to login@gmail.bu.edu."