Microsoft 365 Apps - FAQ

Depending on how your device is managed, you should use a different version of the software. Follow the recommendations below for clarification on which software you should use.

University-owned Machines

• Managed by DDS: Do not download the Microsoft 365 apps. You are covered through the campus license and your DDS technician will install all needed software.
• Managed by departmental IT Professional: Consult your IT Professional for their recommendation and assistance with the setup process.
• Not Managed by DDS or a departmental IT Professional:
  • If you have a computer with software from the existing Microsoft Campus Agreement, you should continue to these applications.
  • If you have not installed Microsoft 365 apps on your computer before, use the software available through the Microsoft 365 Software page.

Personally-owned Machines

For your computers and devices that are not owned by CU Boulder, you should use web-based software available through the Microsoft 365 Software page.

If you are unable to download Microsoft 365 Apps, and believe you should have access, please fill out the New Office 365 Apps License form on the OIT Messaging and Collaboration Request Portal.

No. It is recommended for users to have applications installed from either the Microsoft 365 apps software page or via the Microsoft Software campus license. This ensures that the installed applications have no compatibility issues.

If you are changing from one license to another, it is best practice to fully uninstall all versions of Office products prior to installing new applications.

You can install Microsoft 365 apps on up to five different computers, as well as five separate mobile devices.

Devices are managed on the Microsoft 365 Software page.

No. Microsoft 365 apps are activated per device during the setup process for software downloaded from the Microsoft 365 Software page using your IdentiKeyUsername@colorado.edu and IdentiKey password credentials.

No. As you made a consumer purchase through Microsoft, CU Boulder has no way to reimburse the purchase.

Software can be downloaded from the Microsoft 365 Software page on desktop computers, and mobile apps can be downloaded from the Play Store or App Store depending on your device. For additional instructions refer to the following tutorials:

• Android - Install and Setup Microsoft 365 Applications
• iOS - Install and Setup Microsoft 365 Applications

In your previous role as a student at the University of Colorado Boulder, you were given access to Microsoft’s online and desktop Microsoft 365 applications (e.g. Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) through an educational license.

Pursuant to our licensing agreement with Microsoft, we are only able to offer these educational licenses to active faculty, staff, students. Alumni who require access to the platform in order to perform work in a volunteer capacity for CU Boulder may also be eligible (see question 3 below for more details).

You will no longer have access to your Microsoft 365 online and desktop applications after January 31, 2022.

Alumni who require access to Microsoft 365 desktop and online apps in order to perform work for CU Boulder in a volunteer capacity may be eligible to receive a license. If you are in this situation, contact your sponsoring department. You will need to be entered into the university’s human resource management system as a Person of Interest (POI) in order for OIT to provision you with a license.

Your documents will no longer be available to you. Thus, if you have documents in your CU Boulder Microsoft OneDrive that you would like to retain access to after March 31, 2022, it is critical that you copy or move these documents to a new location, such as a personal external hard drive or a new personal OneDrive. We suggest you not move a large number of files to your CU Boulder Google Drive as Google is ending unlimited storage for education and enforcing limited quotas. 

Files containing any information which the university considers highly confidential or high impact are prohibited from being moved to personal storage and must remain in CU Boulder’s Microsoft environment. 

Please note, this exclusion does not apply to any data containing your personal information.  Personal information can and should be moved to a storage location of your choice (excluding CU’s OneDrive and Google Drive). We encourage you to consider the security of any platform you move your personal information to as you would any platform where you store personal information (such as financial information, health information, or any other information you would want to keep private). 

Please be advised that we will not be able to recover files from your CU Boulder OneDrive after January 31, 2022.

No. You will still be able to access your CU Boulder email account, whether that is through Gmail or Outlook on the web. In addition, your ability to forward your email to other email providers will not change. If you receive your email through Microsoft Exchange, your storage size will be set to a 50GB limit (Please note: this is subject to change based on Microsoft's recent announcement about a move toward pooled storage). If you exceed that limit, you will not be able to send or receive email. Visit OIT's tutorial, Outlook on the web - Check Mailbox Usage and Quota.

Microsoft offers both free and paid options, depending on your needs.

If you require access to the desktop applications and/or a larger amount of OneDrive storage (1 TB), Microsoft offers individuals and families a variety of purchasing options that run approximately $70-120/year. Otherwise, you can access the online apps and up to 5 GB in OneDrive storage for free.

Please be advised that if you choose one of these Microsoft offers, the OneDrive that comes with it will not be the same CU Boulder OneDrive you have access to today. You will need to relocate your existing CU Boulder OneDrive files to your new non-CU Boulder OneDrive (or other location like a hard drive) if you would like to continue to access these files after January 31, 2022.