UVa Email Address Management System (AMS)
Answers to Frequently-Asked Questions about Email Aliases & Addresses
[Nov 23, 2009 14:09] Web access to Microsoft Live@edu accounts now works.
FAQs about the UVa Email AMS
Understanding UVa Email Addresses & Aliases
- What’s my “primary address?”
- What’s an “email alias?” Why would I want one?
- How many aliases may I have? Do I get to keep them for life?
- I do not seem to be able to use plus addressing. Why not?
- What’s an email “domain?”
- What’s the difference between an email address in the virginia.edu domain, and the email.virginia.edu domain?
- What’s a “deliverable address?”
- What’s a “UVa-contracted vendor?”
- Where do I go to check my UVa email account?
Who Can Use the System
Using the Email Address Management System
- How do I use the AMS to set a forward or change where I read my UVa email?
- How do I use the AMS to check to see if an alias is available, and if it is, to request or claim it?
- How do I use the AMS to change or delete an email alias?
- How do I use the AMS to create or change my primary UVa email address?
- I used the AMS to make a change to my email alias but it did not seem to work. Why?
Quarantines & Lockouts
Answers to Frequently-Asked Questions
Understanding UVa Email Addresses & Aliases
- What’s my “primary address?”
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Your primary address is your UVa computing ID, followed by @virginia.edu (e.g., mst3k@virginia.edu) and is used by the University to send official email notifications to you.
- For new UVa students, your primary address is created after the University receives your deposit and you have successfully taken the Responsible Computing Quiz to activate access to your UVa email account.
- For new UVa faculty and staff, your primary address may have been created when you were hired as a new employee, but if not, you may create your primary address yourself, using the Email Address Management System.
- What’s an “email alias?” Why would I want one?
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An email alias is an additional UVa email address that is easier to read, write, and remember. For example, if your primary email address is your UVa computing ID@virginia.edu (e.g., mst3k@virginia.edu), you might find that you’d like another, more convenient email address (e.g., miketurner@email.virginia.edu) to use as well. To find out how to set one up, see Managing Your Email Aliases.
- How many aliases may I have? Do I get to keep them for life?
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See About Email Aliases for this information.
- I do not seem to be able to use plus addressing. Why not?
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The email system at the University of Virginia is not designed to support plus addressing.
- What’s an email “domain?”
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An email domain refers to the part of your email address after the @ symbol, such as virginia.edu. Examples of domains:
Example UVa Email Domains:
- email.virginia.edu
domain for student and some alumni email accounts with UVa-contracted vendors - cms.mail.virginia.edu
domain for the UVa Central Mail Service - eservices.virginia.edu
domain for the UVa Exchange Service - hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu
domain for UVa’s Health System - darden.virginia.edu
domain for UVa’s business school - ad.nursing.virginia.edu
domain for UVa’s School of Nursing - mail.astro.virginia.edu
domain for UVa’s Department of Astronomy - comm.virginia.edu
domain for UVa’s School of Commerce - uvawise.edu
domain for The University of Virginia College at Wise - vprserver.clas.virginia.edu
domain for UVa’s Vice President for Research
Example non-UVa Email Domains:
- yahoo.com
- aol.com
- hotmail.com
- gmail.com
- alumni.vt.edu
- earthlink.net
- ntelos.net
- virginia.gov
The UVa Email Address Management System will display all of the known email domains for you. Students, faculty and staff are assigned by default to the virginia.edu domain. Other domains, for example, the UVa-contracted vendor domain of email.virginia.edu for students and alumni, or departmental domains for departments, may also be available. Whatever domain(s) are currently available to you will display automatically.
- email.virginia.edu
- What’s the difference between an email address in the virginia.edu domain, and the email.virginia.edu domain?
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All primary addresses at UVa (i.e., computing ID@virginia.edu, such as mst3k@virginia.edu) are in the virginia.edu domain. All UVa students, alumni, faculty, and staff members have a primary University email address ending in @virginia.edu.
For UVa email aliases (e.g., miketurner, in addition to mst3k):
- UVa faculty and staff may have email aliases in the virginia.edu domain (e.g., miketurner@virginia.edu). The only students who have email aliases @virginia.edu had to already have them by Fall 2008, and they will not get to keep these aliases when they graduate or leave UVa.
- UVa students and some alumni may have email aliases in the email.virginia.edu domain instead (e.g., miketurner@email.virginia.edu). Aliases in this domain are associated only with email accounts provided by UVa-contracted vendors; if you have an email account ending in @email.virginia.edu (including faculty and staff), you may have email aliases there, too.
For more information, see About Email Aliases.
- What’s a “deliverable address?”
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A deliverable address is just a working email account that you have (and it can be a UVa account or an external, non-UVa email account). You can use the UVa Email Address Management System to specify where you’d like your UVa email messages delivered. Just add up to 5 deliverable addresses to the AMS, and then you can read your University email at the desired account(s).
- What’s a “UVa-contracted vendor?”
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Student and alumni email accounts are managed by private, third-party service providers with whom UVa has contracted. These companies offer robust, cutting-edge email services suited to the needs of UVa students and alumni.
Student and some alumni email accounts with these vendors are in the email.virginia.edu domain, while retaining their primary address in the virginia.edu domain.
- Where do I go to check my UVa email account?
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Go to www.mail.virginia.edu. If you have just one account, you’ll be taken straight to it. If you have more than one, you’ll be presented with a switchboard so you can choose which account to log into.
Who Can Use the UVa Email Address Management System (AMS)
- I’m a UVa alum with an email account provided by UVa-contracted vendor. Can I use the AMS?
- Alums are welcome to use the AMS to manage their email aliases, but they cannot use the AMS to manage deliverable addresses. (Providing antispam and antivirus licenses for all email accounts alumni could become prohibitively expensive, so management of deliverable addresses for alumni is not supported. The UVa-contracted vendor email services have antivirus and antispam capabilities supplied by the vendors, however, and these accounts are available to alumni for life.) Again, alumni may manage their email aliases with the AMS.
- Are UVa faculty and staff allowed email accounts with UVa-contracted student email vendors?
- Email accounts provided by third-party UVa-contracted email vendors are offered primarily to students and alumni. However, accounts are also available to faculty and staff who provide technical support to students.
Using the UVa Email Address Management System (AMS)
- How do I use the AMS to set a forward or change where I read my UVa email?
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You can decide where you would like to read your University email; you may check your UVa mail at any email account you choose. If you like, you may even read messages sent to your computing ID@virginia.edu (i.e., your primary address) in one place, and messages sent to an email alias (e.g., mike@email.virginia.edu) in another. This isn’t technically an email forward; but it essentially works like one. Here’s how to set where you read your UVa email:
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- Enter the name(s) of one or more email accounts where you’d like to read your mail. Add this email account to the AMS as a deliverable address. For more detail on how to do this, see Add a Deliverable Address.
- Then, use the AMS to associate your UVa email address(es) with the email account you just added. This essentially sets a ”forward,“ enabling you to read your UVa mail at the email account you specified. For more detail on how to do this, see Change the Deliverable Address Associated with an Alias or Primary Address.
- How do I use the Email Address Management System to check to see if an alias is available, and if it is, to request or claim it?
- See Request an Email Alias.
- How do I use the Email Address Management System create, change, or delete an email alias?
- How do I use the Email Address Management System to create or change my primary UVa email address?
- See Create or Change Your Primary Address.
- I used the Email Address Management System to make a change to my email alias but it did not seem to work. Why?
- Changes to existing aliases is not immediate. It often takes about 15 minutes to become active, so wait a bit and then try to use the address you changed again. If you continue to have problems after 15-20 minutes, please report the problem to postmaster@virginia.edu.
Quarantines & Lockouts
- What is a “quarantine?” How long does one last?
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A quarantine is the time period after which an email alias has been deleted when it is unavailable to anyone. Quarantines are necessary to allow time for people to update their address books, thereby reducing the risk of inadvertently delivering email to the new alias owner when intended for the previous owner.
How long the alias remains in quarantine will vary depending on the domain to which the alias is assigned. Currently, email aliases assigned to the virginia.edu domain and the email.virginia.edu domain are held in quarantine for 2 years before they are available for reassignment.
- Why am I “locked out?”
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Lockouts prevent people from repeatedly creating and deleting email aliases, each of which would have to be quarantined, quickly depleting the pool of available aliases for everyone.
If you delete too many aliases, you will be “locked out” from creating new aliases until your lockout score falls below the threshold. During a lockout, you cannot request new aliases, but you can delete aliases (which increases your lockout score) and change the deliverable address with which an existing alias is associated (for which there is no lockout score increase).
- How long does it take for a lockout to end? Can I speed it up?
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How long a lockout lasts depends on the domain and the timing of your alias deletions. For more specifics on how lockouts work, see Alias System Lockouts.
If you are over the lockout threshold but need to make a special request for an alias in the virginia.edu domain or the email.virginia.edu domain, email postmaster@virginia.edu and explain your situation. To expedite consideration of your request, please provide as much information as possible, including:
- Your UVa computing ID (e.g., mst3k),
- The domain in which the problem exists (e.g., virginia.edu, email.virginia.edu, etc.),
- Your requested alias and why you need it, and
- A description of why you are presently locked out of the system.
The domain administrator will assess your situation during normal business hours and will make a decision about what, if any, assistance can be provided.