The University of Michigan community is migrating to U-M Dropbox, which will become the institution’s primary cloud file storage option once U-M Box fully retires in December.
Individual migrations for units start this month and will continue on a rolling basis through the summer and fall. Michigan Medicine’s migration began June 15.
“We expect the migration to go smoothly thanks to the support and leadership of more than 300 Unit Ambassadors across the university and a team of outstanding ITS colleagues,” wrote Ravi Pendse, vice president for information technology and chief information officer, in a recent email to deans, directors and department heads.
Information and Technology Services has been meeting weekly with representatives in each school, college and area to develop a seamless migration experience across all three campuses and in Michigan Medicine.
“Faculty and staff will be notified by ITS and their unit ambassador when it is their window to use a self-service tool to schedule the migration of their files and folders,” said Bob Jones, executive director of ITS support services and the Box Retirement Project lead.
“It is important that faculty and staff schedule their migrations to take place during the timeframes set aside for their unit.”
This plan ensures everyone has time to transition to U-M Dropbox and become acclimated to the tool before the fall term, when returning students will begin scheduling their moves.
“To prepare, folks are encouraged to create a U-M Dropbox account if they have not done so already and clean up their U-M Box account by deleting or removing themselves from files and folders no longer needed,” Jones said.
A wealth of information is available on the ITS website, including short videos explaining how the migration works and the core differences between Box and Dropbox.
Unit ambassadors in each school, college and area will provide assistance and support during the migration. The ITS Service Center and the HITS Service Desk will be available to offer support, as will members of the Box Retirement Project team.
