Microsoft 365 at CUNI MFF

All employees and students of our university can use services available within Microsoft 365 (previously known as Office 365).

To log in to Microsoft 365, please use https://office365.cuni.cz/, where you will be redirected to the university authentication service (CAS), where you log in with your university account (as for SIS, etc.). Also, you can use https://portal.office.com/. Here, the Microsoft login page is shown, where to the login field fill any email address with the suffix cuni.cz (e.g., a@cuni.cz) and again you will be forwarded to CAS The Microsoft login page can be also shown, if you access Microsoft 365 documents via direct links.

Summary of the available features within Microsoft 365 is here. By default, all students, academic employees and administrative staff have assigned the A3 plan (other employees have by default the A1 plan and they can apply for A3).

More detailed description of particular services of Microsoft 365

Desktop applications

Each person with the A3 plan (see above) can install the desktop Office 365 applications on up to five PCs or Macs. A link for downloading these applications is shown on the Microsoft 365 homepage (shown only if you access the page on Windows). IT administrators can use the guide for deploying Office 365 apps.

Email

As a part of Microsoft 365, there is an email account with 100 GB capacity (the Outlook service). The email account is created automatically, when a person commence to be a student/employee of the univerzity.

The address of the email account depends on the state of the personal faculty alias (see Dean's Directive no. 5/2017):

If the user has the personal alias in a form first_name.surname@mff.cuni.cz (it can be set via updating personal information), then the address of the email account in Microsoft 365 is first_name.surname@matfyz.cuni.cz and this address is used the primary one (it is set for the From: field).
Aside from the state of the personal alias, also the addresses personal_number@o365.cuni.cz and login_name@o365.cuni.cz work for receiving emails
In the case the personal alias is not set, then the primary address is personal_number@o365.cuni.cz and it cannot be changed.
Important:
- Establishing the @matfyz.cuni.cz adresses has no effect to facutly systems outside Microsoft 365 — the personal alias works as up to now
- Also there are no effects to addresses @matfyz.cz.

The Outlook web service (a part of Microsoft 365) can be used to access the email. In Windows, the desktop Outlook program can be used too (see the Desktop applications section above). The guide how to connect Outlook to M365 service and some useful settings is available here. Also, any POP or IMAP clients can be used, e.g., Thunderbird (see the document How to set up Thunderbird for Microsoft 365). The configuration of such clients can be found in the help of the Outlook web service (tap the question mark icon at the top right and look for POP, IMAP and SMTP settings).

Warning: On many places within Microsoft 365, there is shown the string personal_number@cuni.cz. It is not an email address. It is a unique identifier of the user within Microsoft 365.

If you do not plan to use the email account, it is highly advisable to set automated forwarding to another email address. The reason is that other Microsoft 365 users (e.g., the rectorate) can assume that you are using this email accont. Also, Microsoft 365 sends here emails like notification, meeting invitations, etc. A guide to set forwarding:

In the Outlook service, click to the icon of the gearwheel in the top right corner.
In the shown panel, click to the "view all settings" link (at the bottom).
In the newly opened panel, click to the "Forwarding".
In the window, check the Enable forwarding box and fill in the address.

Teams

Teams allow for easy team collaboration. It is possible to use it (not only) for distance education. It allows for creating groups (teams), sharing documents, chating and also making videoconferences. A client application is available for most of the commonly used systems (Windows, Linux, Android, iOS) and also it can be used without any client from a browser.

IMPORTANT

If you are to be added to a team created outside our university (other university, etc.), it is MANDATORY to be added via your Office 365 email (i.e., personal_number@o365.cuni.cz or name.surname@matfyz.cuni.cz — depending on your address). If you are added via another university email (i.e., anything@anything.cuni.cz), you might not be able to access the team.

Since second semester 2020/2021, integration of Teams and SIS has been established. From SIS, it is possible to create a team for a particular course and automatically fill the team with students enrolled for the course (in SIS, the item "Subjects" → a particular course → "Microsoft Teams").

Mobile applictions

Each person with the A3 plan (see above) can install the mobile Office applications on up to five phones or tablets.

Android

Mobile applications for Android can be installed in the usual way from the Play store (direct links in the adjacent block). In the applications, you will then log in to your university account in the same way as on the web or in desktop applications. Login is shared between all installed MS applications (the account can be managed in the phone/tablet settings in the Accounts section).

Direct links to the Play store:

Other information

All data stored in Microsoft 365 (emails, files in Sharepoint and OneDrive,...) are physicaly stored in a Microsoft "cloud". Microsoft 365 has no administrator at the faculty level. At the university level, the Computer Science Center is responsible for administration and if necessary, you can contact email support at podpora365@ruk.cuni.cz.

The A3 plan (which contains the Office desktop programs) is available since 1^st June 2021. If you own previously bought Office/Microsoft 365 license has been associated with the "university" account (personal_number@cuni.cz), then there is no need to do anything and everything works as previously. If the previous license has been be bought with another account, you should switch to the personal_number@cuni.cz account to use the faculty plan.