Email and Calendaring

UW offers two world-class, cloud-based email and productivity platforms: UW Exchange Online (part of UW Office 365) and UW Gmail (part of UW G Suite by Google).

**PLEASE NOTE:** Some departments and units require their personnel to use either UW Exchange Online or UW Gmail.  Consult with your department/unit’s local IT support before you select a UW email and productivity platform.

Email feature comparison

**PLEASE NOTE:** UW Medicine workforce members and clinical students are prohibited from forwarding their UW email to UW Gmail. For more information on this policy, please contact comply@uw.edu.

Additional considerations

Support for UW Exchange Online  Many Exchange features do not work unless the desktop version of Outlook is installed and configured. Local IT support is strongly recommended for anyone who wants to use UW Exchange Online with Outlook. If you do not have local IT support, we recommend using UW Gmail or limiting your use of UW Exchange Online to the Outlook Web App.  See this page for more information on UW Exchange Online email client support guidelines.

Scheduling Across Services UW Exchange Online and UW Gmail both offer excellent, full-featured calendaring services. However, scheduling “across services,” that is, between an email account on UW Exchange Online and an email account on UW Gmail is limited. 

It is possible to send and update calendar meeting requests from UW Exchange Online to UW Gmail (and vice versa). However, it is not possible to view “Free/Busy” information for the calendar of a UW email account that is not on the UW email service your account is on. If your UW email account is on UW Exchange Online you will be unable to view the Free/Busy information for a UW Gmail account from within your UW Exchange Online calendar, and vice versa.

Note: To better support calendaring collaboration, your department or business unit may require its members to use either UW Exchange Online or UW Gmail. Before choosing an email service, check with your department or business unit IT support organization. UW-IT strongly recommends that you choose the UW email service used by the majority of people you collaborate with.

Productivity Tools UW Exchange Online and UW Gmail both have associated productivity platform tools. Regardless of the the email service you choose, you can take advantage of the tools available in both services.

• UW Exchange Online is part of UW Office 365. UW Office 365 includes OneDrive, Skype, and online versions of Word, Excel, and other Office applications.
• UW Gmail is part of UW G Suite. UW G Suite includes Google Drive, Calendar, Sites, and other Google apps like YouTube.

Activation UW Exchange Online should activate automatically for all UW students, staff, and instructors, but you will need to manually activate UW Gmail using the Manage UW G Suite page on the UW NetID Manage Portal.

Your primary email service, where your email is delivered, is determined by forwarding. Use the Manage UW Email Forwarding page on the UW NetID Manage Portal to change forwarding to your chosen email service.