FASmail - General Information

Features | Eligibility | Pricing | Ordering | Naming Conventions | Support | Roles and Responsibilities

Features

FASmail (Faculty & Staff Email) is an enterprise email service for faculty, staff and student employees of the University of British Columbia.

Features of the service include:

• 8GB mailbox and calendar.
• Safe and secure mail storage using the UBC Storage Grid.
• A comprehensive list of UBC faculty and staff using FASmail in one address book.
• The ability to look up availability of meeting rooms, equipment and others using FASmail.
• The ability to schedule meetings based on availability and accept or decline meeting requests.
• The option to delegate mailbox and/or calendar access to other FASmail users.
• Virus protection and spam prevention.
• A webmail interface (Outlook Web App) that provides an Outlook-like experience using a wide variety of web browsers.
• Support for hosted departmental email domains.

FASmail is accessible via a webmail client (Outlook Web App) or through any standards-based desktop email application that supports the following protocols: Outlook Anywhere, Exchange Web Services, Secure POP, Secure IMAP, Secure SMTP, MAPI and ActiveSync. However, some functionality may be lost if not supported by that email client and protocol (e.g. Calendaring.)  Note that Secure IMAP and Secure POP are disabled by default, but can be enabled by request to the UBC IT Service Centre. 

FASmail can host email addresses in the @ubc.ca domain (that meet the naming restrictions established for that domain – e.g. firstname.lastname@ubc.ca) or any email address in a subdomain of ubc.ca (e.g. user@department.ubc.ca) provided that the domain is hosted by the FASmail service and all users of the domain have mailboxes on FASmail.

Additional features are available, for a fee:

• Additional mailbox space, beyond the allocation of 8GB.
• Mailboxes for individuals who are not eligible for a FASmail mailbox.

FASmail is funded by the University of British Columbia. Most UBC Faculty, Staff and Student employees are eligible for a funded mailbox. Further details on eligibility are included below.

Eligibility

The FASmail service is available to all campus units, departments and individuals. However, only some mailboxes are funded by UBC. Departments are currently being migrated on a department-by-department basis. Please see the Migration pages on this site for more information.

• Most UBC Faculty, Staff and Student Employees with an active UBC Employee ID are eligible for a UBC funded 8GB mailbox. ** See below for details.
• Generic (Shared Departmental) Mailboxes (2GB) - e.g. helpdesk@dept.ubc.ca, electrician@dept.ubc.ca, etc…
• Resource Mailboxes (200MB) - e.g. bookable meeting rooms and equipment

**Please Note: The eligibility listed below is still under review and is subject to change.

Legend:

• Eligible: These users are eligible for a 8GB mailbox funded by UBC.
• Optional: These users are not eligible for a funded mailbox but a department can choose to fund these mailboxes.
• Ineligible: These users are not eligible for the FASmail service.

* Requires formal approval/validation.

Pricing

A departmental contact is required for billing purposes. All purchases will require a UBC Journal Voucher/Speedchart.
**Please Note: Annual billing is currently not in effect. Departments will be notified ahead of time when recurring billing is expected to be rolled out. Pricing is still under review and is subject to change.

Mailbox Restores

• Each user is eligible for two free restores per fiscal year
• Additional restores will cost $75 per restore (billed up-front)

Ordering

Departments are currently being migrated on a department-by-department basis. Please see the Migration pages on this site for more information. If your department has already been on-boarded, please contact your departmental IT representative.

Naming Conventions

Standards are required to ensure that everyone is using the FASmail system is using a common convention. It makes searching the Global Address List more straight-forward and intuitive. Click on the link below to review the FASmail Naming Conventions:

• FASmail Naming Conventions

Support

For full email and calendaring functionality, Exchange requires Outlook (PC/Mac), Entourage (Mac) or the Outlook Web App. Other email applications can be used but will not offer a full set of services designed to take full advantage of the service.

UBC IT will provide access to the following email protocols:

• Autodiscovery
• Outlook Anywhere (a.k.a. RPC over https)
• MAPI
• Secure IMAP (disabled by default, but can be enabled by request to the UBC IT Service Centre)
• Secure POP (disabled by default, but can be enabled by request to the UBC IT Service Centre)
• Secure SMTP
• Exchange Web Services
• ActiveSync

Although the above protocols are available and can be used, UBC Information Technology can only provide support for the Outlook Web App client. Email Client support for applications such as Outlook and Entourage are handled by departmental desktop support personnel.

The following table includes a list of email clients and the service that you can expect from each.

Roles and Responsibilities

Here are the roles and responsibilities of FASmail related contacts for each department.