IT/AV Support

ITS just sent this to us:

FYI - This change is starting today!!! - Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat – Updates to Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat – Updates to Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote

This post describes changes we’re making for Copilot Chat users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. There are no changes for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Starting April 15, 2026, Copilot will no longer be available in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for Copilot Chat users. To ensure a high-quality experience, we are reserving the full Copilot experience in these apps—with advanced reasoning and model choice—for users with a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license. If you would like users to access these experiences, they can purchase a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

There are no other changes for users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Copilot Chat still offers secure, AI web chat and the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents for chat-first content creation within the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Additionally, users still get Copilot in Outlook with inbox and calendar grounding.

We are also adding in-product labels to help end users and admins identify their user experience. We are labeling the experience for users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license as “Copilot Chat (Basic)” and labeling the experience for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license as “M365 Copilot (Premium)”.

If you would like to further discuss this change, please work with your Microsoft sales representative or Microsoft reseller to learn more.

When will this happen:

These changes will go into effect starting April 15, 2026.

How this affects your organization:

Who is affected:

• Affected users are those without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. There are no changes for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

What will happen:

• Copilot will no longer be available in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. It will remain available in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and Outlook.
• Users will see the “Copilot Chat (Basic)” label in-product to help them identify their experience.

What you can do to prepare:

These changes will take effect April 15, 2026. No action is required for this change.

If you want to enable Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for these users, they can purchase a Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses.

Starting with with Fall 2026 courses, Canvas will move from campus specific instances to a system-wide instance.

You may access the new Canvas instance for Fall 2026 (and later) courses that you are listed as the instructor for starting March 23, 2026.  Some subset of Fall 2026 instructors received email from the Provost Office the week before Spring Break 2026. [Update: Officially the Provost said: "The notification was sent to only those with a primary faculty appointment. An administrator/department chair with a 20% faculty appointment would not have received the notice."]

Nebraska Today article on it.

The landing page about the new Canvas is https://canvas.nebraska.edu.

Due to some changes by Duo, all Duo Apps need to be version 4.85 or newer to continue functioning after March 31, 2026.

See https://nusupport.nebraska.edu/TDClient/33/Portal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=619 for more information

The big migration of students to the new Microsoft tenant is starting January 2nd, 2026.  ALL UNL email will be down until completed.

UNL Newsroom article on the migration

Engineering's page for the migration

On or around December 1st, ITS, in conjuction with a University compliance office started enforcing the mandatory annual training for Title IX and Security in Bridge.  If you had not completed the annual training, you were blocked from accessing on-campus network resources.  For most, this was printers.

They backed this change count the afternoon of Thursday, 3-December.

If you could not print or access fileshares on-campus during this time, that is likely the reason.  Check your status at https://nebraska.bridgeapp.com  If it doesn't show the most recent Title IX and Security Fundamentals training as completed, you need to do that.

ITS is upgrading the switches in Kiewit Hall starting at 22:30 on Thursday 2025-11-13.  There should be minimal impact.  WiFi access points will reboot causing a ~5 minute outage for that access point sometime between 22:30 and 23:30.

Friday morning there is a small chance that devices using the network via a phone pass-thru will not work.  ITS will have 3 techs available in case there are issues.  They have not had the issue on several buildings that have upgraded.

See: https://status.nebraska.edu/incidents/dzmrdwqqqlm6

Most student facing and and teaching stations in the Lincoln Engineering complex (NH, SEC, OTHM, and KH) have been migrated to the new NEAD.  This requires the use of the NUID to login.  If you see 'NEAD' underneath the username area, it's been migrated and you will need to use your NUID to login.  If it still says "UNL-AD", then you would still use your short username, "first initial followed by last name, and digit (eg hhusker1)

Also, it appears that ITS has migrated all of the GP classrooms in the vicinity too.

Microsoft Windows 10 reached  "End of Life" on October 14, 2025.  That means there will be no updates for Windows 10 after that time.  Sometime after that ITS will most likely be restricting Windows 10 devices on the network since there will be no more security updates.  If you can, you should upgrade to Windows 11 as soon as practical.  ITS will start pushing Windows 11 upgrades after November 30, 2025.

More information on our dedicated page: https://go.unl.edu/engr-win10eol

For WEPA printing information see: https://nusupport.nebraska.edu/TDClient/33/Portal/Requests/ServiceDet?ID=59.  The nearest accessible WEPA printers to engineering appear to be in Jorgensen and Abel since the Engineering Library closed.

Software available to all Engineering affiliated people

• The Virtual Private Network (VPN) for UNL (Duo must be enabled to use) is at vpn.nebraska.edu (use NUID for login), This allows access to on-campus-only resources. Note that when enabled ALL network traffic passes through UNL networking, including Netflix, Zoom, web browsing etc.
• Microsoft Software (except Office) is available using your My.UNL credentials via aka.ms/devtoolsforteaching
• MATLAB download instructions
• AutoDesk Products (AutoCAD et al) are available to educational users.
• National Instruments Software (LabVIEW, etc)
• Enterprise Software (coming soon) [Adobe, SPSS, ERDAS, ArcGIS, Tableau etc] now availible for UNL computers.

Software available only for Students

Adobe Creative Cloud

The College of Engineering supports a number of rooms for local and remote teaching and collaboration. Most rooms are equipped with computers, whiteboards, conferencing equipment, document cameras and wireless video. They are suitable for Blended and Flipped Learning, small groups, and traditional lecture style.

Rooms managed by the Dean's Office may be scheduled through the Room Reservation System.

Support Information

The first 9 days of September 2025, ITS will be "migrating" College of Engineering affiliated accounts to their new system.  They are calling this "Future Ready Cloud Collaboration Workspace", aka FRCCW.

https://nebraska.edu/offices-policies/its/future-ready

The NU Support Knowledge Base section on FRCCW including calendar of other unit's migration timelines.

The most important things for most faculty will be that your email login will change, and OneDrive and SharePoint links will change.  Post migration you will login to most services with NUID@nebraska.edu  If you put any OneDrive/SharePoint links into Canvas they will need to be updated post-migration.  If you have shared access or links with entities in other Colleges, they too will have to be re-shared, until the unit migrates.

Go to our page specifically for migration information