Campus Computing News

What is UNT's policy with regard to GroupWise mail?

By Dr. Maurice Leatherbury, Associate Vice President for Computing and Chief Technology Officer, CITC

At a recent President's Staff Sack Lunch, an attendee complained that he/she had sent a message to someone in the GroupWise directory only to learn that the intended recipient never reads his GroupWise mail and doesn't have it forwarded to some other mail system to read it. The
sender then had to figure out how to get the message to this recipient, a process that required a lot of additional effort. The attendee asked whether anything could be done about employees not reading their GroupWise e-mail.

Shouldn't everyone be required to read their GroupWise mail?

There is no official UNT policy requiring that employees read their GroupWise mail, just as there is no policy requiring them to read their paper mail. The general expectation, though, is that if you're in the GroupWise directory you can and should read messages directed to you in that system. Forcing others to check whether you read GroupWise mail is inconsiderate and puts an undue burden on everyone on campus who uses GroupWise.

While there are a number of reasons that it makes good sense for everyone at UNT to use GroupWise to send and receive e-mail (you can communicate with large numbers of employees quickly, it's quick and inexpensive compared to "snail mail," you can tell whether your message
got to its intended recipient, important announcements about University business or schedules are sent using GroupWise, etc.) we realize that some employees simply won't or can't read GroupWise e-mail. We are asking Network Mangers to evaluate the reasons why employees in their departments don't want to use GroupWise and to make a management decision whether those employees should be exempt from reading GroupWise e-mail. If they decide that an employee can't or won't use GroupWise, we're asking the network manager responsible for the department to remove the employee from the GroupWise directory.

Deleted from the GroupWise directory?

Employees whose names are deleted from the GroupWise directory can set their preferred e-mail address to a non-GroupWise address using UNT's Account Management System (http://ams.unt.edu). Those names can be searched for in the "Master UNT Directory" search directory that shows up in GroupWise's Novell LDAP Address Book tab and mail can then be
sent to the non-GroupWise addresses. However, those addresses aren't included in "everyone" messages (either the "UNT GW Directory" ones or official messages from the President, HR, etc.)

Anyone trying to send messages to those non-GroupWise recipients will have to go to extra effort to find those addresses, but it does at least provide the campus a way to reach those employees via e-mail. A tutorial to aid in this process can be found at http://ncs.unt.edu/gw/howto/addressbook/LDAPReg/index.html .

Conclusion

Please help to improve communication on campus by using the official e-mail system, GroupWise. If that isn't possible, please make sure your name is deleted from the GroupWise directory by contacting your Network Manager .

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