Find out more about the migration to Google Groups, and why people are excited about it.
Good news for anyone using a UCLA mailing list: In June 2017, IT Services successfully completed its transition of the Campus Mailing List service from a “Mailman” server to Google Groups (GG). With support for the Mailman operating system being discontinued, moving the list service to Google Groups was the best choice for operations. In addition, many of our customers and stakeholders were already using GG, and they were eager to move their groups to a UCLA-managed and -branded service. Customers now have increased list security, with integrated IAMUCLA Single Sign-On (SSO) service and unique administrative passwords.
Before the migration, the project team consulted with UC Berkeley, who successfully completed a similar migration in early 2017. Team members also discussed their migration plan with the IT Security Office, the Health Sciences Compliance team, and the Campus Privacy and Policy Director, and each area supported it.
With an ambitious project schedule of just 90 days, the project team migrated mailing lists and archives, developed a membership update tool, created a knowledgebase, trained help desks, developed a GG information session (delivered both in person and via Zoom), and planned and executed a communications strategy. The team received numerous accolades about the membership update tool, which enables owners to make multiple updates to and download their lists. This tool simplifies GG management and bypasses limitations within the GG web application. One of our beta testers offered this feedback: “Kudos to you and the development team in building this tool! It is pretty cool!”
Since the migration, Google Support and Engineering has further increased sending limits, and GG is well positioned for the Fall Quarter. The migration resulted in all of IT Service’s mail services being delivered by a cloud service, allowing IT Services to focus on new projects.
For more information on the Google Groups mailing lists, please visit our knowledgebase or contact IT Support Center at consult@ucla.edu.
