SFU Mail Migration: FAQ and Common Issues

Exchange Online is a cloud-based email and calendaring solution provided by Microsoft as part of Microsoft 365. It offers secure and reliable email communication, calendaring, and collaboration tools accessible from anywhere with and Internet connection.

Aligned with the What’s Next: The SFU Strategy and SFU's digital transformation, IT Services continues to adapt to the evolving technological landscape and foster a culture of digital engagement that will empower students, faculty and staff to achieve our academic mandate.

SFU is introducing more Microsoft 365 (M365) features to help you with online collaboration and productivity at the university. By adopting Exchange Online with SFU Mail, these new M365 features will become available to you on SFU Mail.

There will be two major changes once your account is upgraded to Exchange Online:

• You will be asked to log into Microsoft when signing into SFU Mail. Your sign in email will be “YourComputingID@sfu.ca”.
• The user interface will be modernized when accessing SFU Mail on browser.

With Exchange Online, SFU Mail users will have enhance IT security, improve user experience and utilize more Microsoft Cloud resources. For details on new features, visit New Change to SFU Mail.

To access SFU Mail on browser, visit Sign into SFU Mail on Browser for instructions.

Between 2023 and 2025, your SFU mailbox account will be upgraded to Exchange Online. You will receive an email two weeks prior to your account being scheduled to the upgrade. For the most up-to-date information, visit We're Upgrading SFU Mail.

To ensure a seamless migration process, we have established a structured plan that prioritizes specific groups of mailboxes within the organization. Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate individual requests for early migration at this time due to these complex considerations.

Yes, there is expected to be both interruptions to SFU Mail and impacts to how you use SFU Mail, which may include:

• A new Microsoft sign in page
• A new SFU Mail URL for browser access
• Only approved apps can connect to SFU Mail

For details on what you need to know, see We're Upgrading SFU Mail.

If you encounter this issue and you've just recently activated your SFU computing ID, your mailbox account is still being set up. It will take approximately 1 hour. Please try again after at least one hour has passed after activating your SFU computing ID.

You will see this error if:

1. Your browser cookies may be invalid. Try clearing your browser cookies, or a different browser, and sign into https://outlook.office.com/.
2. You are signing into https://outlook.office.com/ before your SFU account has upgraded to Exchange Online. Please continue to use https://mail.sfu.ca until your upgrade is complete.

If you are still encountering sign in issues after your upgrade, contact us using the SFU Mail - Report Migration Issue form.

You will need to remove any existing SFU Mail account from Apple Mail and re-add your account. See Remove an existing SFU Mail account from Apple Mail for Mac for instructions.

 

Note for IMAP/POP Users: Before any re-configuring on an email account that has previously been set up with IMAP/POP, we strongly recommend backing up your emails. Any account modifications, such as removing the account, will result in a loss of certain messages. To reconnect with IMAP/POP accounts, update your server configurations shown on IMAP Setup.

You will need to sign out all your existing mail accounts from the application, and re-add your SFU Mail account. Visit Sign into SFU Mail on Desktop for set up instructions for Outlook Desktop.

 

Note for IMAP/POP Users: Before any re-configuring on an email account that has previously been set up with IMAP/POP, we strongly recommend backing up your emails. Any account modifications, such as removing the account, will result in a loss of certain messages. Since Outlook no longer supports IMAP/POP, you will need to sign in using Exchange or another application that supports IMAP.

As part of the SFU Mail upgrade, email signatures are wiped on server-sided applications, such as on SFU Mail on web browser. We kindly ask you to re-add your email signatures to your account.

 

You may find your email signatures in a previously sent email.

We've recognized this issue and collaborating with Microsoft to get this resolved. To assist us with this process, we encourage you to select Not Junk on legitimate emails by:

 

1. At your Junk Email folder, select messages that are misidentified as junk.

2. Select Report, then Not Junk.

 

 

If you believe to be missing legitimate emails, please send us a support ticket using the SFU Mail - Report Migration Issue form.

 

Note: If you're an alumni who have been using Alumni Email Forwarding, the service have been retired since June 1, 2024. For details, visit this SFU announcement.

Visit this Microsoft article on Focused Inbox for Outlook  for instructions on:

• Turn Focused Inbox on or off
• Change how your messages get organized (if you wish to move certain messages from Focused to Other, or the other way around).

Visit this Microsoft article on Editor Text Predictions in Outlook  for instructions to turn off Text Predictions.

If either myself or the calendar owner have upgraded to Exchange Online and the other haven't upgraded yet:

•  Solution: You will need to wait until both yourself and the calendar owner have upgraded to Exchange Online. As a temporary work around, you may ask the calendar owner or a colleague who has the calendar working to add meetings/events on your behalf.

 

If both myself and the calendar owner have upgraded to Exchange Online:

•  Solution: You will need to ask the calendar owner to re-share the calendar to you. See re-sharing a calendar.

 

If either myself or the account owner have upgraded to Exchange Online and the other haven't upgraded yet:
•  This feature is unavailable: You will need to wait until both yourself and the mailbox/folder owner have upgraded to Exchange Online.

If both myself and the account owner have upgraded to Exchange Online:
•  Solution: You will need to re-add the shared mailbox and folders. See re-add a shared mail folder or mailbox.

Not sure if you have upgraded to Exchange Online? See How Do I Know If I have Exchange Online under General FAQs.

If either myself or the account owner have upgraded to Exchange Online and the other haven't upgraded yet:
•  This feature remains available only on Outlook for Windows. If you use SFU Mail on Browser, you can only view the calendar invites and won't be able to edit or respond to invitations as a delegate.

If both myself and the account owner have upgraded to Exchange Online:
•  This feature should be working normally. Double-check that both yourself and the account owner are on Exchange Online. If you're still encountering issues, send a request ticket on IT ServiceHub.

Not sure if you have upgraded to Exchange Online? See How Do I Know If I have Exchange Online under General FAQs.

If either myself or the account owner have upgraded to Exchange Online and the other haven't upgraded yet:
•  This feature remains available only on SFU Mail on Browser or Outlook for Windows.

If both myself and the account owner have upgraded to Exchange Online:
•  This feature should be working normally. Double-check that both yourself and the account owner are on Exchange Online. If you're still encountering issues, send a request ticket on IT ServiceHub.

Not sure if you have upgraded to Exchange Online? See How Do I Know If I have Exchange Online under General FAQs.

If either myself or the resource account have upgraded to Exchange Online and the other haven't upgraded yet:
•  Solution: You will need to wait until both yourself and the resource account have upgraded to Exchange Online. If you are using Outlook for Windows, this feature will remain available only on that application.

If both myself and the resource account have upgraded to Exchange Online:
•  This feature should be working normally. Double-check that both yourself and the resource account are on Exchange Online. If you're still encountering issues, send a request ticket on IT ServiceHub.

Not sure if you have upgraded to Exchange Online? See How Do I Know If I have Exchange Online under General FAQs.

For sign-in instructions for sponsored accounts and delegate login, see Sign into SFU Mail with Sponsored Accounts.

 

If you encounter the error, "You are not authorized to impersonate the indicated user at this time.", the account sponsor or manager will need to set you up with the delegate role for your SFU account. You may send the account sponsor/manager this article: Getting Started with the DAM as an Account Sponsor.

It's possible. Migration, or upgrade batches, are completed by the account's dependencies (whether or not the account has a shared item with another account). If one of your account don't have shared dependencies, it's likely your accounts will have different migration dates.

 

As a reminder, please take note of the following:

• The weblink, mail.sfu.ca, will work for both non-upgraded and upgraded accounts.

• The weblink, outlook.office.com, will only work for upgraded accounts.

• For each account upgraded, you may need to remove and re-add the upgraded account on your email applications.

• Delegate login may not work properly if you're signing into SFU Mail on browser with the weblink, outlook.office.com. Be sure to use the old weblink, mail.sfu.ca, until both accounts have upgraded since this weblink supports both non-upgraded and upgraded accounts.

• Delegate login on email applications, such as Outlook on Desktop, will continue to work normally.

 

For sign-in instructions for sponsored accounts and delegate login, see Sign into SFU Mail with Sponsored Accounts.

The current SFU Mail weblink, https://mail.sfu.ca, will continue to work even after upgrading to Exchange Online. However, you may encounter some issues with the redirects to Outlook, https://outlook.office.com, where your browser settings, certificates and cookies may cause problems.

The prompt, including the listed permissions, is standard messaging when an Exchange account is connected to an email server with controls in place. In this case, SFU Mail has cybersecurity rules imposed by Exchange ActiveSync to enforce a consistent level of security and controls across connected devices. SFU IT administrators do not have such capabilities on your personal devices.

All users of SFU systems are bound by GP-24 which outlines appropriate use and access to electronic records, and IT staff are given appropriate role-based access to perform the work necessary for only their job function; accessing data on a personal device without user consent would be a violation of that policy.

Activating Device Administrator allows Exchange to enforce cybersecurity rules onto your device for it to operate securely within the SFU environment (i.e., signing into SFU using your computing ID and MFA), and conversely, allowing your device to access SFU-related data, such as role and contact information through a secure connection.

Only third party tools approved for use by a University-supported initiative and backed by Privacy Impact and Security assessments will be enabled for SFU Mail access. Personal productivity and personal preferences for workflow aren't sufficient to allow third party tools that consume SFU email or calendar data.

 

We encourage you to try Microsoft Outlook to access SFU Mail, as it's SFU's fully supported email client for personal desktop and mobile use while providing the most seamless experience.

If you believe that your third-party application is critical for research, learning, or other university business needs, visit External Apps/Tool Changes and FAQs for details on getting your application approved by IT Services.

You can only connect to SFU Mail through IMAP/POP with select applications. Email applications will require OAuth2 authentication method and approved by IT Services (enabled by an Exchange IT Administrator) for it to connect to SFU Mail. Unless you are using this connection/app for teaching-, research- or business-critical activities, we recommend switching to a modern connection method.

 

Visit IMAP/SMTP Setup for details.

Ensure that your application is up to date on the latest version. Older versions may not support Exchange Online requirements, causing this error.