Associate faculty and Academic Contractors - Accessing office.com using an MS A1 license (not relevant to students or employees)

No, it does not. You log into Moodle using your RRU Login + password. This change only affects the way you access Microsoft Office applications.

MS requires that all users of MS applications have an appropriate access license. These licenses also allow Microsoft to provide updates, security enhancements, and support for the tools we use daily. RRU issues MS licenses to all students, staff, faculty, guests, etc. based on your role and needs to ensure that each person has appropriate authorized access to MS software and services.

You may be affected, depending on whether you used the license issued by RRU and even depending on how you used it. There IS a change for you if: There is no change for you if: You previously downloaded and installed Office on your computer at home using the license assigned previously. You use your own personal or company MS license on your non-RRU computer. You use Office 365 through RRU’s license exclusively online. If you previously installed Office on your computer using the RRU license, the installed version of Office will have many features disabled. At this point, you must use the online version of Office 365 available at https://www.office.com/, accessible by using your RRU Login and password to login. you can use https://www.office.com/ to open documents on your computer. see “How can I open a document previously stored on my C: drive?” below popup blockers may prevent this so you may need to adjust the blockers. New documents will be created from https://www.office.com/ and saved to OneDrive online. You can download these documents and can open the documents offline, but you will not be able to edit any documents with your local copy of Office 365.

The fastest way to tell if you are using a personal license or not is to open an Office app like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint and look in the upper right of the screen. You’ll see the name of whoever is logged in. Click on the little image (This could be a picture as shown below, or it may be your initials, etc.). If you see “@royalroads.ca” in the area highlighted in yellow, you’re using an RRU license. If you see gmail.com, outlook.com, hotmail.com, etc. showing there, you’re not currently logged in using an RRU license.

The new A1 license is primarily designed for lightweight, cloud-based use, which is optimal for educational environments that rely on internet connectivity and browser-based applications​. A1 Plus and/or A5 license characteristics A1  allowed downloading & installing of Office apps  provides access to web versions of core Office apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote  provided 1TB storage space on OneDrive  supports collaboration and communication through Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange for email  provides access to other tools such as Sway, Forms, and Stream.  provides access to some applications like Access and Publisher does not allow downloading and installing; must use apps online  provides access to web versions of core Office apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote  provides 100GB storage space on OneDrive  supports collaboration and communication through Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange for email  provides access to other tools such as Sway, Forms, and Stream.   

Yes, you will still be required to use MFA to access this online resource. If you have not yet set up MFA, please refer to these instructions to do that.

Go to https://office.com/ Click the purple ‘Sign in’ button Enter your RRU Login (for me, cdavid@royalroads.ca) then hit ‘Next’ Enter your usual RRU password (the one you use to log into Moodle, email, etc.) then hit ‘Sign in’ You may be required to use Multifactor authentication to access office.com. If you have not set up MFA, please refer to these instructions to do that. *** if you are outside Canada, contact the Helpdesk (see ‘How to get help’ below) for assistance ***

You may be prevented from opening documents in office.com if you are running a pop-up blocker. In this case, in most cases look at the far right of the URL in your browser. You will see this little notice saying “Pop-up blocked”. Click on it, then click the radio button for ‘Always allow...”, then click 'Done’. You will only need to do this once.

Once logged into office.com, click on the Apps icon on the left of the screen: Click on the icon representing the app you wish to use, like Word: Under ‘Create’, click on ‘Blank document’: Click on the little right arrow next to ‘Open’, then click on 'Open files from this device Browse to the location where your file exists, highlight it, and click ‘Open’. You may see a message that says your file is being uploaded to ‘My Files’ in OneDrive… if you don’t see it, check your browser for pop-up blockers“. This message may disappear quite quickly! If your document does not open in a new tab, as expected, look at the far right of the URL in your browser. You will see this little notice saying “Pop-up blocked”. Click on it, then click the radio button for ‘Always allow..”, then click 'Done’. You will only need to do this once. Your document should open in a new tab.

Yes, it does. You can save your files there and/or download them if your preference is to keep them on your computer. You will have 100gb of space.

You can’t save directly to your computer. Office.com saves to OneDrive by default. You can change that to save to another online location such as a SharePoint site, but you can’t simply ‘save as’ to save a copy on your computer’s hard drive. Instead, you can download a copy of the document to your computer after it’s been saved: While looking at the document: OR while on the office.com landing page and while logged in, click on the ellipses to the right of the file you wish to download, then click ‘download’.

Our understanding is that there will be a grace period of 30 days during which the installed apps will function normally. After that, you can continue to open documents and print them, but you can no longer edit them. For that, you’ll need to log into office.com

Your A1 license will continue to give you access to your OneDrive for Business (RRU) account. You will not lose access to files you’ve already saved on your RRU OneDrive. You can choose to leave your RRU files on your RRU OneDrive and access them just as you do now using the OneDrive for Business app on your desktop. If you choose to purchase your own Office 365 subscription, then when you can install your Personal OneDrive app (which will give you access to a personal OneDrive space as well). These will show up as a second OneDrive in File Explorer similar to this: But if you prefer to move your RRU OneDrive files to your new personal OneDrive space, you can use one of these two methods: Using the OneDrive Web Interface: Log in to the school OneDrive: Go to OneDrive and sign in with their school account. Download Files: Select the files/folders to move, click Download, and save them locally. Upload to Personal OneDrive: Log in to the personal Microsoft account. Drag and drop or upload the downloaded files. Using OneDrive Sync App: Set up both accounts: Install the OneDrive sync client on your device. Sync the school OneDrive to one folder. Sync the personal OneDrive to another folder. (see earlier comment about having 2 different OneDrive) On your computer, copy from RRU OneDrive to Personal OneDrive Setup both OneDrive accounts on your computer Just like any other computer folder, drag-n-drop files and folders from RRU OneDrive to an appropriate location on your Personal OneDrive. Please note: always be aware of information privacy when downloading files. Identifying information should not be downloaded to your personal computer.

Your RRU email address is linked to your RRU Login, so as long as you have an active RRU Login, you will continue to have an RRU email address. The license change we are talking about A1 only impacts “how” to access your RRU email. You will not lose access at all. If you usually check your RRU email using Outlook.office.com, you can keep doing that. No change is required. If you usually check your email on your phone, you can keep doing that. No change is required. If you usually check your email on a iPad or tablet, you will need to have a personal subscription for this to work. The A1 licenses does not include app support on mobile devices over 10”. If you check your email using Outlook on your computer using your RRU issued license, you will need to purchase a new personal license for Office. Then you need to switch the license on your computer. We recommend you do the following for the smoothest transition. close all Microsoft Applications and then open Microsoft Word. on Windows the upper right, click on your name and choose Sign in with a different account enter your new personal credentials on Mac on the menu bar, click Word → Sign Out confirm you want to sign out sign in with your new personal credentials you are done. Open Outlook and you will see your same configuration as before, but you will now be using your personal license.

Please let us know if you have any questions about this change or connect with the Helpdesk if you have difficulties accessing Office 365. We appreciate your cooperation as we make this adjustment to better align with organizational requirements and licensing standards.