UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State will retire Box as a cloud storage and collaboration service and migrate users’ files to comparable Microsoft Office 365 services -- such as OneDrive and SharePoint -- by June 2021.
Several factors contributed to the decision, including the planned increase in the cost of the Box contract and the service's decision to end unlimited storage. Box usage at Penn State increased 54% in the last year alone."OneDrive and SharePoint are excellent storage and collaboration tools for use within the University, and they are included in our Office 365 suite of applications available at no charge to users," Interim Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Don Welch said.
Box users do not need to take any action at this time.
In the coming weeks, Penn State IT will announce detailed migration plans and will provide local IT units with resources, support and communications templates to keep users up-to-date with information and instructions. Additionally, Penn State IT will help identify unique instances that may require alternative solutions other than OneDrive or SharePoint.
The entire University will be migrated by June 30, 2021.
More details about the transition and migration process are available on the Box at https://box.psu.edu/box-migration/, including a step-by-step migration guide.
For questions or concerns about this change, the migration process, or to report a unique use case, use this form to reach the Box Migration Team. You may also email the team at boxmigration@psu.edu.