This spring faculty, staff and students will experience enhanced e-mail and calendar performance when Information Technology Services (ITS) rolls out CULink. Designed to combine and upgrade the current features of WebMail and WebCal, CULink will provide users with added convenience (including 200 MB e-mail quotas, an additional 100 MB of storage space for faculty and staff and 150 MB for students) and greater flexibility, while also eliminating a large portion of the spam faculty and staff receive through their e-mail every day.

"We're taking a couple of steps in conjunction with CULink that are going to greatly reduce spam," said Greg Stauffer, ITS communications manager. "CULink will be a lot more convenient to use, with many features that will make it a lot more user friendly than the current system."

Scheduled to roll out during the spring semester, CULink will combine the e-mail and scheduling capabilities of WebMail and WebCal under an interface similar to Microsoft Outlook, resulting in better reliability and accessibility. Once launched, the new service will be available through CUConnect or via an e-mail client like Outlook or Eudora. Like most campus applications, CULink will operate based on a single IdentiKey log-in, eliminating separate e-mail passwords.

"I think CULink is really going to feel more timely and up-to-date, both in look-and-feel and in its features. The calendar and e-mail will be right there together, along with an address book and a simple task feature," said Stauffer. "Ultimately, I think it's going to make people's scheduling and e-mailing tasks just that much easier."

New incoming faculty, staff and students will be the first users assigned to CULink, followed by a migration of current faculty and staff during the spring semester. In preparation for the switch, ITS is encouraging Buffmail and Mail users to change their e-mail password to their IdentiKey and to sync their password in their e-mail client applications, if applicable, prior to the migration. E-mail client users should also configure their client for authenticated SMTP. Detailed instructions for these processes are available at www.colorado.edu/its/culink.

"There will be a lot of communication before the day of migration about changing your e-mail password to your IdentiKey," said Stauffer, "but Buffmail and Mail users can help ensure a smooth transition by synchronizing their passwords now."

As the CULink roll out approaches, ITS will be providing regular communications via Buff Bulletins and CUConnect announcements. For more information, including a detailed description of the service and instructions on how to prepare for the migration, visit www.colorado.edu/its/culink.