This weekend, the Office of Information Technology will upgrade My GaTech — Tech’s unified email and calendar system — with nearly two dozen new features. It is an upgrade that requires a short period of downtime, but will enable many of the features requested by Georgia Tech users.

“We received a lot of feedback,” said Pamela Buffington, a department manager in OIT who has been working on this project since it launched in 2008. “While this upgrade doesn’t address everything, I believe everyone will find at least one improvement in using My GaTech.”

To watch videos demonstrating some of what's new with My GaTech, visit http://www.oit.gatech.edu/zimbra.

As a part of this upgrade, two new features, known as Briefcase and Documents, will be introduced. Briefcase allows a user to store files, which can then be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. Briefcases can also be shared with other users for viewing or collaboration. Similarly, Documents enables sharing and collaboration, and is a central place in a user’s account to develop, organize, and share information. Images, spreadsheets, and other rich web content can be embedded into Document pages. These pages can be published publicly on the Web or privately to Georgia Tech users.

While users of the My GaTech web client do not take any action to take full advantage of the new features, there will be a six-hour service interruption — on Saturday, October 16, from 6 a.m. – noon — while OIT performs the upgrade. During this time, e-mail will not be lost or bounced, but held in a queue and delivered when service is restored.

Outlook users using the Zimbra Connector for Outlook (ZCO) need to download the last version (6.0.8) of the connector in order to take advantage of the new features. This connector will be available on Software Distribution (http://software.oit.gatech.edu/) on October 16.

The My GaTech system currently maintains approximately 62,000 accounts, with more than 90 percent student utilization rate and more than 70 percent faculty and staff utilization rate. For information and help, visit http://info.my.gatech.edu.