Frequently Asked Questions

The following is a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) concerning Groupwise and the Groupwise Migration.

Migration

General Migration FAQ (Adobe PDF) - updated July 19th

Groupwise Client

Groupwise Client Comparison (Adobe PDF)

General Questions - added September 20th

Why did we change to another email system?

It had become apparent that the built-in email and calendar programs in Goldlink did not offer enough features or functionality to the majority of campus users. The interfaces were lacking too many functions, were painfully slow, and were fraught with bugs. All of these issues reduced productivity for students and employees (a large majority used Goldlink as their primary client). Based on feedback from the user community, the Technology Management Team decided to evaluate other solutions. GroupWise was a much more mature solution, one the University already had rights to use, and one that IT staff was already familiar with from a prior pilot project. An evaluation of GroupWise ran from the end of the Fall 2005 semester through the mid-Spring 2006 semester, inviting input from all campus constituents including various staff, Faculty Senate, and the SGA. The results of this evaluation lead to the final decision by the Technology Management Team of GroupWise as the new solution.

What was gained from switching from Goldlink to Groupwise?

GroupWise offers a much more robust and mature product with over 15 years of development. GroupWise provides a collaborative environment that supports integrated email, calendaring, and document management (with version control). Users have the ability to share folders, calendars, and documents with others in a truly ad-hoc manner. All connections between the GroupWise client and server, the local client datastore, different components on the server, and the message database itself are all fully encrypted. GroupWise offers an up-to-date, fully functional PDA synchronization tool, and also provides real-time support for Blackberries and other mobile devices (although not yet implemented at Missouri Western). GroupWise also offers an enterprise-specific instant messaging service (also not yet implemented).

Why the timing of this particular change? Why did it have to occur at the beginning of the AY?  Why couldn't it have taken place early in the summer so people would have a chance to learn the new system without the pressure?

The final decision to switch to GroupWise was not made by the Technology Management Team until after the Spring 2006 semester had concluded. A number of technical steps needed to be performed during the summer months, including the implementation of replacement email disk storage (which was already planned). There were also concerns within the Technology Management Team of implementing a new system during an active semester and its effect on students. Timing the transition around registration-orientation programs was also a concern, as certain parts of those programs could not continue while the Goldlink portal was being modified. A delay until the Winter break also proved to be unacceptable to the Team members, due to productivity and stability concerns.

A number of options for timing were presented, including an initial recommendation from IT Services for August 11th as a switchover, and the possibility of switching a few weeks into the Fall semester. However, both were deemed unacceptable, as most faculty were not available until faculty planning days, and it would be too disruptive during the active semester. The Technology Management Team requested a recommendation from the Academic Deans, whom ultimately thought the August 25th date to be best for both faculty and students.

Why can't users have access to other systems, like Eudora, Outlook, etc.?

The Technology Management Team decided that the campus would have one e-mail application standard for all users.  Given the limited staff in IT Services that provides support for the e-mail application, it was determined that by implementing a single e-mail application standard the respective support staff could provide services more efficiently.

Additionally, although GroupWise supports the connection of alternate clients through the use of the Internet-standard ‘IMAP’ protocol for email retrieval, there were resource planning concerns that implementing that protocol could potentially overwhelm the single server on which the entire system resides. The ‘agent’ that handles the conversion from IMAP to the GroupWise proprietary protocols typically incurs heavy load on the host system. The current system as it stands is subject to high load whenever delivering mass emails from listservs.  ‘IMAP’ cannot be enabled without a severe, performance degrading effect on the system, and on Web client users (i.e. all students) in particular.