Changes to Microsoft services

Microsoft has made changes to its higher education licensing agreements, which will impact the way we use Microsoft services.   

UCT has been working with Microsoft over the past few months to determine the most suitable and financially sustainable way to continue using their productivity applications and storage options. The agreed upon plan has been endorsed by the University ICT Committee (UICTC) and will be rolled out over the next few months. 

Changes to Microsoft licensing model 

Microsoft has discontinued certain licence categories, which will impact some UCT staff members' user experience. 

Depending on your job role, you will either be allocated a standard licence or a lite version. 

ICTS and UCT’s HR department are currently working together to develop a software licence allocation process. A further consultative process may include discussions with faculties and departments to review and update related sections of the UCT staff role model.  

Students 

There are no changes to the way licences are allocated. You can continue accessing services as normal.  

However, ICTS is putting additional configurations in place that will affect your access to Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Groups. 

As of 2 January 2025, students will no longer be able to create Microsoft 365 groups, which are used to send bulk emails. Furthermore, you will also no longer be able to create new teams in Microsoft Teams. 

Existing teams and groups will not be affected for now, and continue to be accessed as normal.  

Upcoming changes to Microsoft storage 

Cloud storage providers like Google and Microsoft have made changes to their storage offerings for higher education. Google initiated these changes in 2023, and Microsoft has followed suit by significantly increasing the prices of its storage offerings and reducing the amount of storage assigned to a higher education licence. This will impact how we store data in future.  

Storage model 

Microsoft will reduce UCT’s storage on OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, and Exchange during the first quarter of 2025. ICTS has obtained approval for implementing a storage reduction plan, which aims to standardise and manage cloud storage allocation per user. This will ensure alignment with the new Microsoft Licence Agreement.

ICTS is currently reviewing the data stored on UCT’s Microsoft storage and exploring ways to reduce its volume using the adopted storage model endorsed by UICTC.

In the meantime, the following quotas have been endorsed by the UICTC and may be refined following ICTS’s ongoing investigation.  

More information about the changes will be communicated in the coming months.  

Online archiving

All emails that are older than five years have automatically been moved to your online archive. These emails no longer appear in your Inbox. You will need to access your Outlook mailbox online and navigate to your Personal Archive folder to view these older emails.    

Emails stored in Deleted folder to be deleted after 30 days 

As part of the approved storage reduction plan, which aims to standardise and manage cloud storage allocation per user, ensuring alignment with the new Microsoft Licence Agreement, a new 30-day retention policy is in place for the Deleted Items folder. 

All emails in the Deleted Items folder will be cleared after 30 days. 

Please refrain from storing emails you still require in the Deleted Items folder. Rather use the Personal Archiving folder to store emails that you no longer need in your Inbox but require access to later. 

1. Navigate to Outlook online at outlook.office365.com.  
2. In the left column scroll down to Personal Archive > Archive. 
3. You can then access your emails that are older than five years, as well as move emails that you still require for later usage. 

If you currently have emails stored in your Deleted Items folder that are still required, please move them to a different folder that you access later to review what should be kept and what can be deleted. You can then move emails no longer required back to Deleted Items, while keeping those you still need. 

When you have a chance, you can review and decide what emails to keep and archive, and which ones to delete. This method allows you to organise and filter your emails without the risk of them being automatically deleted after 30 days. 

Tips to reduce your data  

Due to the wide range of information that we have access to and share with fellow colleagues and students, it can be complicated to determine where to save what. If you don’t have a data management strategy in place for your faculty or department, we recommend these storage options.  

• Remove personal data that is not related to UCT operations or business. Transfer this data to a private storage solution.
• Remove unnecessary or historical data that is no longer needed and remember to empty the recycle bin once done.   
• Move the content that you need to keep to a local drive or an alternative storage mechanism if you suspect you may need it in future. 
  • Files and folders that only you need to access or occasionally share: OneDrive for Business   
  • Collaboration with a team, work group, or project: the appropriate channels in Microsoft Teams, which is automatically uploaded to SharePoint.  
  • In line with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) UCT also offers central data storage, which is regularly backed up and secure for UCT faculties and departments. Store confidential information (i.e., financial, patient, etc.,) on the G: network drive.  
• Videos and photographs take up a lot of storage space. Move these files to one of the alternative storage options listed above.  

Get help  

ICTS Training ran repeat information sessions to help you decide where to store what information. If you were unable to attend any of these sessions, please send an email to icts-training@uct.ac.za for a copy of the recording. 

Alternatively,  you can log a call with ICTS to assist in exploring alternative storage options, especially for research or clinical data.