What is live@edu?

Live@edu is a hosted service supported by Microsoft to provide students with an enterprise class email, calendaring and contacts service. The email service supports both web-based and desktop (eg Outlook) tools for managing email and calendar.

How big is my mailbox?

You have 10GB of available space in your inbox. This includes email bodies and attachments. You can see how much space you are using by selecting Options... See all options, My account.

What is my Windows LiveID?

Essentially your Windows LiveID is the username you use to access all the services offered by Windows Live services. Please note that Flinders provides no support for services other than Outlook Live, the email service. Your Windows LiveID will be FAN@uni.flinders.edu.au. Your Windows Live password is your FAN password.

What policies or terms and conditions apply to the use of live@edu?

Students are bound by Flinders University's existing policies and procedures. To access these policies see the IT Policies and Procedures page. To access other Windows Live services not provided as part of Live@edu you may be required to accept the Microsoft Terms of Use for those specific services.

How do I access my new Outlook Live mail account?

You can read your email through your web browser. All browsers will work, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and most other web browsers on computers running UNIX, Mac OS, or Windows. However if you use a Web browser that doesn't support the full feature set, Outlook Web App will open in the light version with less functionality. Details on supported browsers are here.

There are two supported ways to go to your email inbox.

  1. Log in to the iFlinders portal, there is a link there that will take you directly into your online web access mailbox.
  2. From the Flinders home page, select the Student Email quicklink to take you to a login page which will connect you to your online web access mailbox.

Can I go directly to live@edu using a www address?

No, your FAN and password are authenticated by Flinders University so you must start from a Flinders login page.

HELP! I can't log in!!!

  1. Make sure you are not logged in to any Windows Live service, like hotmail or Skydrive.
  2. If you have non-standard security settings in your browser, you may need to reset to default settings.
  3. Select Student Email from the quicklinks on the Flinders home page, or click the email link on iFlinders. This will take you to a Flinders page with Web-based email reader on its tab.
  4. Select the Student email reader (live@edu) link which will bring up FAN and password boxes.
  5. Enter your FAN (eg ABCD0001) and password and click Login
  6. You should see your email in about 20 seconds. If you are sent to a Windows Live page asking you to log out of Windows Live and log in again, you didn’t do step 1! Start again. 
  7. If you are sent to an Outlook Live login page, go back to the Flinders link and try again.

My login is really slow! Is anything wrong?

The down side of using a web hosted email service is that there are delays in authentication and establishing the links. Approximately 7 seconds is taken up by transmitting trust certificates from Flinders to log you in to live@edu. It is currently taking about 15 seconds for the Microsoft server to open your account and display your inbox (this is about the same as the time it takes to log in to Hotmail). However once the service is open, it is as responsive as the old system and much more capable.

Can I connect my home/personal computer using Outlook / Entourage?

You can make an Exchange connection using Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010. Follow the setup instructions in the Microsoft wizard at http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd936216.aspx. Note that you must use your Windows Live ID for your account everywhere you are prompted for your full email address. Your Windows Live ID is FAN@uni.flinders.edu.au.
You can not make an exchange connection with Outlook 2003. You can make an IMAP connection – see the next topic.

Can I access email from my mobile device?

Yes. See Connect to a mobile device.

I can read my email in my browser but I can’t send!

Send problems can be encountered in some browsers due to security settings. You can try upgrading your browser to the latest version; set your security settings back to default; or try a different browser. Details on supported browsers are here.
 

Can I keep my email and other Live services when I graduate?

Your Flinders email account will be disabled when you cease to be an active student - typically 12 months after you graduate or cease to be enrolled in a course. If you have emails you want to keep, you should make a backup. You can connect your live@edu account to another service, such as Hotmail, and import your mail and contacts into that account. Or you can connect a program like Outlook to live@edu - See Connect to live@edu. The email program then offers you several ways to save email and contacts, via backup or export, from the File button.

Nicknames - can I set up an alternative name for email?

The live@edu options include an option to change your username, but this is over-written every 30 minutes when we update the live@edu account records to register new users. There is not a facility to set firstname.lastname as an email alias. This is currently only available in the staff email service.

I don’t like how the mail looks. How do I change the reading pane and/or Conversations view?

In the Mail view, above the search box, is a menu bar. Select the View menu. In the dropdown box are options to switch conversations on or off, and to relocate or switch off the preview pane. Below the search box you will see details of the configuration of conversations; clicking these will allow you to configure a variety of conversation filters.
 

How do I change my password for email?

You just change your Flinders FAN password. It will synchronise the same password to the mail server.

What is uni.flinders.edu.au?

This long form of your email address is used internally by live@edu. It is an email alias that will show up in some situations, for example if you use Find Someone, or if sending to some email clients outside the University (gmail or yahoo, for example). It is interchangeable with your primary email address, FAN@flinders.edu.au. The long form, FAN@uni.flinders.edu.au is your Windows Live ID that you may need to use to access Windows Live functions provided by Microsoft. Your Windows Live password is your FAN password.

I already have a University calendar in FLO. Why do I have another one?

The calendar in FLO is the official University means of communicating teaching and learning schedules with you. The calendar in live@edu has some useful features for personal use, including the ability to synchronise with mobile devices for convenient access, and free/busy information for making meetings with other students. You cannot merge the two calendars at present, but we are working on integrating them in early 2012.

Can I merge my FLO and live@edu calendars?

No. But we are working on a way to publish the FLO calendar to live@edu and view them there, side by side. You can then also see this information on your mobile device.

Where is my old email?

Your old mail has been automatically copied to live@edu. If you believe there are missing emails, contact your student email helpdesk.

I can't see my sub-folders - where are they?

If you had sub folders beneath the inbox they are hidden by default. You need to expand the folder view. Click the triangle alongside the Inbox icon in the folder list.

What will happen to my address book contacts?

Your contacts have been automatically upgraded to live@edu. Because contact fields are set up differently in IMP and live@edu, they may not look exactly the same. If you had created email lists, these cannot be migrated, you will need to re-create them.

Mail Forwarding - I had my old webmail account configured to forward mail to an external account, will this be the case with my live@edu account?

Yes, your forwarding setting will still apply. However you may decide to use Live@edu and its feature-rich functionality instead of forwarding your mail. Should you wish to remove forwarding your mail, you can still do this by logging in to live@edu, select Options (under your name on the right ), See all Options..., Click the shortcut to Forward your e-mail, and remove or add in a forwarding address in the box on the lower left.

Is my email backed up?

live@edu uses highly available mailboxes and servers to ensure your mail is not lost as a result of hardware failure or other disaster. However it is easy to delete or move emails by mistake and you may not be able to get these back. You may wish to make your own backups by exporting your mail.

What if I accidentally delete an email, can I get it back?

Items that you delete go into the Deleted Items folder where they can be recovered if necessary. Items will stay in the Deleted Items folder until you manually clean them out. Once emptied from the Deleted Items folder you can recover them for up to month, after which the item is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. For details on how to recover deleted items see recover deleted mail.

There seems to be other services in live@edu, such as Office web apps and Skydrive.  Can I use them?

Microsoft currently includes these Microsoft Live features for free as part of live@edu. However there are no guarantees that they will be offered for free in future updates. Flinders cannot support these features. However there is nothing to stop you trying them out.

Where can I get help about Outlook Live or the other live@edu services?

See our support page which explains the various support aspects that are available at http://www.flinders.edu.au/current-students/computing/computing.cfm.

Flinders University thanks Swinburne University for the initial draft of these pages