Body
Skip to a section: Terms to know | What is Microsoft 365? | Training & Resources | Productivity apps
Available to
Faculty, Staff, Students and certain unpaid affiliates
Terms to know
Microsoft Azure – A cloud services platform that provides many of ECU's account services such as Azure Active Directory (the list of all PirateID accounts) and Azure Self Service Password Reset. Azure is the backbone for many of ECU's user services.
Azure Single Sign-on (SSO) – SSO is a service that allows users to sign in to multiple apps and platforms at once using one set of credentials plus account verification through MFA. Application administrators can request Azure SSO be configured for their app by submitting the Azure SSO Application Request. Example: If you use an ECU-managed Windows computer, when you sign in and authenticate to your computer, you automatically sign in to any SSO applications for which you have access.
Microsoft groups – The underlying service that drives all collaboration in Microsoft 365. When you create a new Teams space, the set of users you give access are a Microsoft 365 group. All members of this group automatically have access to all the shared tools within this team. Other Microsoft 365 tools utilize groups as well: Outlook, Planner, SharePoint, etc. Groups can be public (any ECU user can join) or private.
Microsoft Copilot – Copilot is an AI-powered assistant. Access through any app, Edge browser, mobile or computer.
What is Microsoft 365?
Microsoft 365 is a productivity platform. All students, faculty and staff have an account subscription that includes Teams, Office, Outlook, OneDrive and many more.
To access your Microsoft 365 subscription, log in to pirate365.ecu.edu and click the app launcher (hamburger icon) in the upper left to open all available apps. This overview briefly describes the most popular. Mobile versions available for most.
NOTE: Please be aware of and follow ECU data guidelines, regulations and policies.
Training & Resources
Microsoft Training. Includes cheat sheets, quick starts and step-by-step training for Microsoft productivity apps like Outlook, OneDrive, Office, SharePoint, Teams and more. Log in at https://support.microsoft.com.
Microsoft Learn. Free with your Microsoft 365 subscription, users log in for access to free, interactive, pre-certification training for Microsoft developer tools. Search by product, topics, career paths, educator center or student hub. Log in at https://learn.microsoft.com.
ECU Cornerstone. User portal for ECU-specific training and LinkedIn Learning courses. Learn more and log in Service - Cornerstone Employee Traini...
User Productivity Apps
See this list of ECU's most-used MS365 apps below. Access the full list of Microsoft 365 apps: m365.cloud.microsoft/apps/
Bookings with me
Outlook on the Web App (OWA) feature only. Appointment-based scheduling great for office hours, advising, interviews and more. Create a Bookings with me page and share with students, faculty, staff and non-ECU users. See these simple IT Knowledge Base instructions to get started.
Class Notebook
A OneNote app specifically for classroom use. See this overview from Microsoft.
Forms
A web-based app to create forms. Uses include data collection, user feedback, quizzes, surveys and polls. Results can be exported and analyzed in Excel or a database program. See the Forms page for more information. Submit this service request for assistance.
Microsoft Office Productivity Apps
Office Suite downloads for your computer
Your subscription includes five downloads of Microsoft Office (full version) for your personal computers, both Mac and Windows. The installs are active until you graduate, retire or leave ECU. Connect to the internet at least once every 30 days to verify your subscription. Log in to pirate365.ecu.edu to access the download link. Available to full-time employees and enrolled students only.
Office mobile apps
Download Office 365 apps from your mobile app store.
OneDrive and Office on the web
Bundled into your OneDrive cloud storage, the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote office apps allow you to create and edit your documents within a browser. Available to full-time employees, enrolled students, unpaid affiliates and graduates. Learn about Office Online from Microsoft
OneDrive Cloud Storage
ECU's only secure and approved cloud storage solution for your ECU work/school files. Approved for sensitive data. Sync available. Storage capacity for ECU users is 5TB. Includes Office Online document creation and editing within your browser. Windows, Mac, iOS, Android compatible. See these IT knowledge base articles to learn more on using OneDrive.
OneNote
Your digital spiral notebook - create color-coded pages/sections/subsections and type or hand-write all your committee, class, research (whatever) notes and post images or video, audio or add screen clippings, ideas, links, audio commentary and more. Turn a page or entire section into collaborative space, if needed. Synchronizes across all your devices. Windows, android, iOS compatible.
Learn about OneNote from Microsoft Support
Outlook (Exchange) Email
ECU's supported email - view your messages, calendar and contacts online at mymail.ecu.edu, through the Outlook desktop app or through the Outlook mobile. To learn more, visit the ECU email information page.
Planner
Perfect for small, work groups. Add Planner to a Teams site and create task “buckets.” Assign jobs, update their status and keep yourself and the team organized and on schedule.
Learn about Planner from Microsoft Support
Power Apps
Improve productivity by building customized, web-based and mobile apps to automate and streamline your workflows. Coding knowledge not required. Submit this request for assistance.
Power Automate
Develop cloud-based workflows to automate repetitive tasks and processes. Examples include automatically saving email attachments to OneDrive, responding to social media posts using a template and approval flow for time off requests. Submit this service request to get started.
Power BI
Analyze your data and create reports for dashboard, graphs and charts.
SharePoint
Build intranet websites and portals to share and manage information. Includes document management, document storage, collaboration and more. Also where uploaded files in Teams are stored - all Teams sites have one or more SharePoint folders to house the files for that group.
Teams
Teams is a collaboration interface. Start a single chat/audio/video conversation with other ECU users or create a team workspace specific to your research/project team, office or department group or class. Each team space includes chat channels (private and public), audio/video calls/meetings, file storage (within an associated SharePoint folder) and other apps. You can even host events. See these IT knowledge base articles to get started.
When you create a new team in Teams, the following are created in the background:
- Microsoft 365 group (includes all the users you add to the team)
- SharePoint online site (folder) to store any updated files*
- Exchange Online shared mailbox and calendar
- OneNote notebook
- Other services like Power Bi, Planner
*Files share in a private Teams chat is stored in the sender's OneDrive.