This article won third place in the 2020 Michigan Interscholastic Press Association spring awards ceremony.
On the first day of school this year it came as a surprise to many that all student emails had been changed. Instead of student login usernames being firstname.lastname@student.nvps.net it is now first name, last name initial, last 2 numbers of your student ID @nvps.net.
Marcus Morris, district tech specialist, helped with the process of creating the new emails. He explains that one of the reasons the district needed new emails was to make the process of using extensions like Google Classroom easier.
“Students were on completely different domains, but we wanted to merge them together,” Morris said.
When a new student enters Northview they are put into the student data system, known as Synergy. This generates their student account number and crucial information like ID number, age, and grade. The new system now automatically creates their Windows and Google account as well.
“As of this year passwords sync, so when you change your windows password your Google password now changes so you only have one password to remember,” Morris said.
But there was a problem.
Everything was working and running smoothly throughout the summer, until the first day of school. Students were locked out of the system and couldn’t access their accounts or emails.
This involved a bit of chaos for everyone including the tech department. To solve the issue, students had to use a default password.
“It was kind of a nightmare-ish process to go through and we’re still ironing out all the little wrinkles that we’re coming across. But it’s going to make everything better for everyone,” Morris said.
One issue that has become apparent to many upperclassmen and underclassmen alike is that everything on their old account was not transferred over. This means that students need to manually share all of their important documents to their new account.
If you have not transferred your documents over, you still have time.
The tech department will soon be releasing a deadline to get information moved over to new accounts. Morris said that students will have an adequate amount of time to do this.
“We still have the old accounts out there. The student domain still exists right now, it’s just not active. You can log in and you can still get to your stuff,” Morris said.
Morris recommends downloading everything from your old account onto your computer and putting into a zip file, then logging into your new account and uploading your files to your new drive. Click here for a quick tutorial on how to move old files to a new account.
The new emails are now up and running smoothly and doing their job, which was the end goal.
“In the long run, things will be better for the other students and staff and it’ll make things easier for us as well,” Morris said. “It was kind of a messy start but it’s going to be smoother now that we’ve got it under control.”
