Effective this July, Washington State University (WSU) is restricting the use of downloadable Microsoft Office 365 applications for certain user groups.
WSU Administrative Professional, Civil Service, paid faculty, and students are not affected by this change, and will continue to be able to download and install the Microsoft Office suite through the Microsoft 365 website or via their local IT support and use the desktop applications.
However, the downloadable Microsoft Office desktop applications will no longer be offered to WSU emeritus faculty, affiliates (external WSU partners), courtesy (unpaid) employees, or hourly employees. These individuals will be provided licensing for the online versions of the Office suite via the Microsoft 365 website.
This change will occur the second week of July, between July 8 and July 12.
Why is WSU making this change?
Microsoft changed contract and licensing terms, removing the licensing option currently allowing all groups access. WSU’s priority now is to retain needed access for core groups of students, paid faculty, and staff.
What Office suite applications are impacted by this change?
This change will impact Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Visio, and any other desktop Office suite application licensed or activated via logging in with your WSU Network ID.
Microsoft Teams and OneDrive will not be impacted by this change, and affiliate, courtesy, and hourly employees, along with emeritus faculty, can continue using Microsoft Teams and OneDrive via a web browser or the Microsoft Teams and OneDrive desktop applications.
This change does not impact the online versions of the software, and you can still use applications like Outlook for the web or Word for the web via the Microsoft 365 website with your WSU credentials.
The Office suite mobile apps for iPhone, Android, and other tablet devices will also continue to be available, including the Microsoft Outlook mobile app for accessing your WSU email and the OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote mobile apps for accessing documents.
Frequently Asked Questions
For a complete list of FAQs about this change, please visit the WSU Knowledge Base. https://confluence.esg.wsu.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=318898956
Please submit a ticket to cit.support@wsu.edu to initiate the process
The CAHNRS Microsoft Office365 A3 license upgrade process.
1) The purchaser with go to the CDW-G Premium Page for Washington State University at https://www.cdwg.com/custompages/29F0B8EBE42541368581BCD5F94ADE71
2) You will need to login using your WSU email account or create a new account. Be sure to use you WSU email.
3) They will select the “Microsoft 365 A3 – subscription license” and enter the number of subscriptions they want to purchase and add those to their cart.
4) They will go through the purchase process using their P-card.
5) Once they receive the confirmation email they will add that confirmation/invoice information to this ticket.
6) They will also add the WSU NID or email for the person/people they want to receive the license upgrades.
7) CAHNRS IT will submit a request to Crimson Service desk that includes the invoice.
8) WSU ITS will confirm the order and let CAHNRS IT know when we can add the users to the Active Directory O365 A3 licensing group.
9) CAHNRS IT will add the list of users to the Active Directory O365 A3 licensing group and notify the purchaser.
10) Within 24 hours of us adding them to the group they should have access to the A3 subscription. They can check by login into their account at https://portal.office.com/Account and selecting “View Subscriptions”