All employees of the University of Cincinnati (defined as those who receive a paycheck from the university, emeriti and clinical instructors) are eligible for e-mail accounts. Affiliates of the university who do not fit the above definition of an employee must be sponsored by a university department to have an e-mail account.

When a new university employee's information enters the HR system, the university's Identity Management System generates a user ID, and the Exchange e-mail system automatically creates an account. Typically, the 6+2 user ID is the first six characters of a user’s last name the user's first and middle initials. However, this is not e-mail policy, and you cannot assume it will always hold true.

Student employees are eligible for a UCMail account. Use this form to request that account and ensure it is approved by your supervisor.

Check out our detailed instruction guide to use recommended clients such as Outlook, Entourage, POP, IMAP, and ActiveSync.

An employee will lose access to their e-mail account when their status in UC Flex shows that they are no longer employed. The e-mail team does not have the ability to reactivate an e-mail account for an employee who has no other role at the university because the user ID will have been disabled.

Affiliate accounts are disabled at the request of the account sponsor.

To disable the account of an employee terminated for cause, the supervisor should contact the Help Desk at 513-556-HELP (4357).

An Exchange account is limited to 2 gigabytes (GB). Once a user has reached 1.9 GB, the user will receive a system-generated warning message. At 2.0 GB, the user will not be able to send any additional messages until the inbox is reduced. At 2.025 GB, a user will be unable to send or receive new messages until the size of the inbox is reduced to less than 2.025 GB.

Additional inbox quota space can be purchased in 500 MB increments, if your e-mail client can support more than 2G. View costs and request extra space through GetIT.

An individual message from the Exchange server may not exceed 30 MB, including text, headers, and attachments. A user will be unable to send a message exceeding 30 MB. This is a system limitation and we cannot grant exceptions.

You, as a user, should first try to retrieve the deleted items.

Using Outlook

1. Open the "deleted items" folder.
2. Select Tools -> Recover Deleted items...
3. Search for and select the item or items you want to recover.
4. Click on the icon of the envelope with the arrow around it (second icon from the left).
5. The items will now be in the "deleted items" folder. You can move them to another folder.

Using Outlook Web Access (OWA)

1. Select "option" from the upper right hand corner.
2. Select "deleted items" form the left-hand column.
3. Highlight any e-mails you want to recover and select "Recover to Deleted Items Folder."
4. The items will now be in the "deleted items" folder. You can move them to another folder.
5. Items stay in the "deleted items" folder for 30 days after the user deletes them.

Note about back-up and recovery

UCIT retains 30 days of exchange e-mail backups. A mailbox restoration within that 30 day period costs $375. We cannot fulfill requests for restorations of e-mail deleted more than 30 days prior to the request date.

Public Folder backups can only be used for disaster recovery requiring a full restoration of all public folders. Recovery of a single public folder is not available.

We back up the Exchange system exclusively for disaster recovery purposes in the event that we need to rebuild it. Exchange does not provide single mailbox recovery; it is a single database storage system. Recovery of a mailbox would require rebuilding the Exchange system onto an alternate system and the restoration of the database for all users. 

Exchange backups are not incremental. Rather, they are snapshots of the messaging database at the time of the backup cycle. Database snapshots are copied to tape and kept for 30 days before the tapes are recycled and the contents are overwritten.

Official policy on e-mail back-ups

Here are some points to know when sending an e-mail that needs to be encrypted:

• If you are sending e-mail from Outlook to another person at UC who is also using Outlook, your e-mail is automatically encrypted while in transit. HOWEVER, this email will NOT be encrypted if it is sent from/received by any e-mail client other than Outlook. ALSO, if the e-mail is sent or received using any other client—Blackberry, iPhone, online email services (Yahoo, Google, others), Eudora, Mac Mail, etc.—it will not be encrypted. For this reason, it is not recommended that you send any restricted or controlled data via e-mail. If your business process requires that you do so, please contact UC Information Security at 558-ISec (4732) to discuss.

• Encrypt your attachments prior to e-mailing them, then call the person to provide them the password, do not share the password via e-mail. MS Office 2007 includes strong encryption. Office 2003 encryption is weak and is not recommended, but Office 2007 uses AES, the current government encryption standard. Visit the Information Security website for detailed instructions.
  

• Do not store restricted data of any kind, but especially e-mail, on a USB device or a mobile phone. These devices are too easy to lose or to be stolen.

• In addition, all laptops and most desktops containing restricted data should be encrypted. The strategic solution for full disk encryption at UC is PGP, which is free to all faculty and staff, and is available by contacting UC Information Security at 558-ISec (4732) to discuss your needs.

If your business process requires you to send restricted data to external destinations and the options above will not meet your needs, please contact UC Information Security at 558-ISec (4732) to discuss other alternatives.

Often times there is a need to access the e-mail account of a previous employee. Different solutions exist for different scenarios.

Note that we cannot, under any circumstance, just change the password and give the password to the supervisor. With the advent of the Central Login Services, the same user ID and password grants access to many more services than just e-mail.

Once approval is obtained, the e-mail team will grant the designated user rights to open the account. Alternately, the e-mail team can copy the contents of the former employee’s mailbox to another mailbox.

Should the department be concerned about seeing e-mails sent to the former employee's address, that e-mail address can be set as an alias on another account.

If the former employee no longer shows an "active" status in UC Flex:

A dean, director or department head must send an e-mail to technician@uc.edu requesting the access. This is usually accomplished in one business day.

If the former employees still shows an "active" status in UC Flex:

The request must be made to Information Security. Once Information Security approves the request, they will forward the request to technician@uc.edu and the e-mail team will grant the access within one business day.

Affiliates

Requests to access the accounts of affiliates requires the permission of the account sponsor.

Aliases are alternate e-mail addresses that deliver e-mail to your account.

Each account is created with 3 standard addresses:

userid@ucmail.uc.edu

userid@uc.edu

first.last@uc.edu

If you have a common name, your first.last could have a number on it (John.Smith4@uc.edu).

Aliases are created at the discretion of the e-mail team, but are typically granted for someone who goes by a nickname or their middle name.

To request a new alias, complete the Internet Alias Request online form.

Bring up a new message. Start typing in the address. When it pops up in the auto complete screen, arrow down to the entry you want to remove and press "delete."

1.  Select Tools -> Send/Receive…
2. Select Download Address Book
3. Check box for Download changes since last Send/Receive should be checked.
4. Check box for Full Details for Information to Download should be checked.
5. Choose Address Book should be “\Global Address List”
6. Click on OK

This option is not available in Outlook 2003. You need to configure it with Outlook 2007 or using Outlook Web access. In the Outlook Web access, click on “Options” on the upper right hand side of the page. On the “Options” page, look at the column on the left hand side. Select “Out of Office Assistant.” Select "Send Out of Office Replies." Enter your reply and, if you desire, set the dates you want the reply to be sent. Scroll down. Select "Send Out of Office auto-replies to External Senders" and enter in the desired message.

We have the following instruction guides:

Android

iPhone, iTouch, iPad

If you have another type of smartphone/device and need help, please call our Help Desk at 513-556-4357.

UCMail Account request form

In order to ensure compliance with the data protection policies of the university, we do not adminstrativly set up an automatic forward of e-mail to an account outside the university (UConnect accounts reside outside the university).

The only exception to this rule are for employees who have accounts with our partner sites Children's Hospital, UCHealth and UCPhysicians. E-mails sent to those systems are automatically encrypted in transit and are regarded as "protected" in accordance with the policy.

To request such a forward, please email technician@uc.edu.

If you are having a problem, please call our Help Desk at 556-HELP (4357) or HelpDesk@uc.edu.

Or, if you a suggestion or comment regarding our service, e-mail us at technician@uc.edu.