Microsoft 365 at CUNI MFF

Introduction
More detailed description of particular services of Microsoft 365

Web applications
Desktop applications
Email
Teams
Mobile applictions
E-shop with licenses
Other information

Introduction

All employees and students of our university can use services available within Microsoft 365 (previously known as Office 365).

The options available to a particular user in M365 depend on the type of license they have been assigned. At MFF, users are overwhelmingly assigned one of the following list of license types:

Student license A3 (Office 365 A3 Student Use Benefit in Microsoft terminology)
Employee license A3 (Office 365 Education A3 in Microsoft terminology)
A1 license (Office 365 Education A1 in Microsoft terminology)

Detailed information about the possibilities available to users based on a given specific license type can be obtained on the Microsoft 365 Education pages. Simply put, A3 licenses allow the user to use both web (online) and desktop applications, while A1 licenses only allow work with web applications. Users with only an A1 licence are also limited (by the Charles University Computer Science Centre) to 100 GB of space on OneDrive.

Licenses are assigned to users automatically according to the following key:

All persons with a student relationship with Charles University (i.e. also doctoral students and lifelong learning students) are assigned an A3 student license.
All employees (with the exception of those who are licensed under the previous point and those who do not use a computer for their work, such as some building management staff) are assigned an A3 employee license.
All persons having a registered relationship with MFF, who do not have an assigned license according to one of the previous two points, are assigned an A1 license.

If for some reason the license assigned to the user is not sufficient, another license can be requested from the list given above. A necessary condition for processing such a request is the approval of the head of the department where the user works.

More detailed description of particular services of Microsoft 365

Web applications

To log in to Microsoft 365, please use https://office365.cuni.cz/, where you will be redirected to the university authentication service (CAS), where you log in with your university account (as for SIS, etc.). Also, you can use https://portal.office.com/. Here, the Microsoft login page is shown, where to the login field fill any email address with the suffix cuni.cz (e.g., a@cuni.cz) and again you will be forwarded to CAS The Microsoft login page can be also shown, if you access Microsoft 365 documents via direct links.

After logging in, Microsoft applications are available in online versions, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook or Teams.

Desktop applications

Each person with the A3 plan (see above) can install the desktop Office 365 applications on up to five PCs or Macs. A link for downloading these applications is shown on the Microsoft 365 homepage (shown only if you access the page on Windows). IT administrators can use the guide for deploying Office 365 apps.

Email

As a part of Microsoft 365, there is an email account with 100 GB capacity (the Outlook service). The email account is created automatically, when a person commence to be a student/employee of the univerzity.

Mailboxes in the M365 system can have multiple addresses to which mail can arrive, depending on the relationships that users have within the Charles Univesity. For example, a user may be studying at the FoH and be simultaneously employed at the FoM&P and the FoS - each of these relationships can add another address to his/her mailbox. However, it is always the case that the inbox addresses UKČO@o365.cuni.cz and login_name@o365.cuni.cz work for all users (i.e. both staff and students) (the UKČO is the person's university number, you can find it on your student or staff ID card under your photo or in SIS).

All Charles University students, regardless of the faculty/faculties where they study, also have an address of the form name.surnameXYZ@student.cuni.cz (XYZ are the digits) and unless they have a faculty address set up (see below), this address not only works for receiving mail but is also used for sending. If a student needs to find out their address, they can do so in the web Outlook (click on their own name -> "View Account" in the top right, and the mailbox's email address will be listed in the bar containing also the name and surname).

Persons registered at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics in the Amoeba system (usually employees) can also use faculty addresses of the form first_name.surname@matfyz.cuni.cz in M365. The address of the email account depends on the state of the personal faculty alias (see Dean's Directive no. 5/2017):

If the user has the personal alias in a form first_name.surname@mff.cuni.cz (it can be set via updating personal information), then the address of the email account in Microsoft 365 is first_name.surname@matfyz.cuni.cz and this address is used the primary one (it is set for the From: field).
Aside from the state of the personal alias, also the addresses personal_number@o365.cuni.cz and login_name@o365.cuni.cz work for receiving emails
In the case the personal alias is not set, then the primary address is personal_number@o365.cuni.cz and it cannot be changed.
Important:
- Establishing the @matfyz.cuni.cz adresses has no effect to facutly systems outside Microsoft 365 — the personal alias first_name.surname@mff.cuni.cz works as up to now.
- Also there are no effects to addresses @matfyz.cz.

The Outlook web service (a part of Microsoft 365) can be used to access the email. In Windows, the desktop Outlook program can be used too (see the Desktop applications section above). The guide how to connect Outlook to M365 service and some useful settings is available here. Also, any POP or IMAP clients can be used, e.g., Thunderbird (see the document How to set up Thunderbird for Microsoft 365). The configuration of such clients can be found in the help of the Outlook web service (tap the question mark icon at the top right and look for POP, IMAP and SMTP settings).

Warning: On many places within Microsoft 365, there is shown the string personal_number@cuni.cz. It is not an email address. It is a unique identifier of the user within Microsoft 365.

If you do not plan to use the email account, it is highly advisable to set automated forwarding to another email address. The reason is that other Microsoft 365 users (e.g., the rectorate) can assume that you are using this email accont. Also, Microsoft 365 sends here emails like notification, meeting invitations, etc. A guide to set forwarding:

In the Outlook service, click to the icon of the gearwheel in the top right corner.
In the shown panel, click to the "view all settings" link (at the bottom).
In the newly opened panel, click to the "Forwarding".
In the window, check the Enable forwarding box and fill in the address.

If the user terminates the relationship with MFF (whether student or employee), the further fate of his mailbox (and the entire account in M365) depends on the following circumstances:

If the user has a student or employee relationship at another faculty or part of the Charles University, his/her account and all his/her previous e-mail addresses remain preserved. However, the license may change (e.g. from A3 to A1), because the rules of the individual parts of the UK differ in this area.
If the ending relationship was the user's last relationship with Charles University, the mail box and account in M365 ceases to function (it no longer provides services to the user). The user's data (e.g. e-mail messages or files uploaded to OneDrive) are then stored in the system for another 6 months, i.e. if the user renews his relationship with Chareles University during these 6 months, the old data will be made available to him/her again. Otherwise, however (after 6 months), the user's data will be irretrievably deleted. If a user who is leaving UK is interested in keeping his/her work e-mail address, he/she must resolve the situation in time with customer support.

Teams

Teams allow for easy team collaboration. It is possible to use it (not only) for distance education. It allows for creating groups (teams), sharing documents, chating and also making videoconferences. A client application is available for most of the commonly used systems (Windows, Linux, Android, iOS) and also it can be used without any client from a browser.

IMPORTANT

If you are to be added to a team created outside our university (other university, etc.), it is MANDATORY to be added via your Office 365 email (i.e., personal_number@o365.cuni.cz or name.surname@matfyz.cuni.cz — depending on your address). If you are added via another university email (i.e., anything@anything.cuni.cz), you might not be able to access the team.

Since second semester 2020/2021, integration of Teams and SIS has been established. From SIS, it is possible to create a team for a particular course and automatically fill the team with students enrolled for the course (in SIS, the item "Subjects" → a particular course → "Microsoft Teams").

Mobile applictions

Each person with the A3 plan (see above) can install the mobile Office applications on up to five phones or tablets.

Android

Mobile applications for Android can be installed in the usual way from the Play store (direct links in the adjacent block). In the applications, you will then log in to your university account in the same way as on the web or in desktop applications. Login is shared between all installed MS applications (the account can be managed in the phone/tablet settings in the Accounts section).

Direct links to the Play store:

E-shop with licenses

Students and faculty employees can obtain (even for private purposes) some licenses of Microsoft products at a discount or even completely free of charge through a special online store. You need to log in to the store (using the Sign In link on the top right of the store page) using your standard CAS credentials.

From the offer of this store, it is worth noting, in particular, the license code for converting any lower edition of Windows 10 and 11 (e.g., Home edition) to the Education edition - specifically, this offer is intended exclusively for students.

In addition to this e-shop, students can also get other benefits (including licenses of selected softare) through the Azure Education Hub. Instructions on how to download software developer tools are available.

Other information

All data stored in Microsoft 365 (emails, files in Sharepoint and OneDrive,...) are physicaly stored in a Microsoft "cloud". At the university level, the Computer Science Center is responsible for administration. If necessary, you can contact faculty support at office365@matfyz.cuni.cz.

The A3 plan (which contains the Office desktop programs) is available since 1^st June 2021. If you own previously bought Office/Microsoft 365 license has been associated with the "university" account (personal_number@cuni.cz), then there is no need to do anything and everything works as previously. If the previous license has been be bought with another account, you should switch to the personal_number@cuni.cz account to use the faculty plan.