Hosted Exchange 2013 Upgrade FAQ

This FAQ addresses general questions on important changes for clients of the Hosted Exchange 2013 offering.

Microsoft has announced that Exchange Server 2013 will reach its end of support on April 11, 2023. Clients of Hosted Exchange 2013 will be migrated to Hosted Exchange 2019 service at no migration cost.

What is an Exchange Upgrade and why is it necessary?
In compliance with best practices, we are taking steps to upgrade your Hosted Exchange solution to our newer solution.

Am I required to be part of this Exchange Upgrade?
If you wish to maintain your Hosted Exchange service, this upgrade is required. When is my Exchange Upgrade scheduled to occur? The date for your Exchange Upgrade will be sent by email to the account owner we have on file. We are expecting the migrations to start in January 2023. Clients will be notified at least one month ahead of their migration date.

Can I postpone the Exchange Upgrade for my entire organization to a future date?
Of course, we understand that the date that will be proposed may be inconvenient. If that is the case, please reply to the email that you will receive about your Exchange Upgrade. We will do our best to postpone the upgrade until a few weeks later if space is available in our schedule.  However, please be aware that Tech Advantage has a lot of organizations, users and data to upgrade in a short amount of time. It may not be possible for us to accommodate a change of migration date.

Can I postpone the Exchange Upgrade of an individual or batch of users to a different date than the rest? 
No. The Exchange Upgrade is organization-wide and there is no way to exclude batches of users or individuals.

What will be the impact during the Exchange Upgrade?
There will be no loss of emails.
End users will have to create a new profile in Outlook after the migration is complete. Users who use Outlook Web Access will simply need to log in with the new link.

How long will the Exchange Upgrade take to complete?
Once launched at the scheduled time, the Exchange Upgrade normally completes within 48 hours, depending on the size of your organization and the complexity of your services. The day before your Exchange Upgrade, you will be sent an email to confirm that the cutover will start the next morning. You will receive another email confirmation once it has been completed.

Do I have to do anything before the Exchange Upgrade?
Most importantly, make sure that every Outlook PC user has at least Outlook 2016 with the latest service packs installed before the day of your Exchange Upgrade. If you have an older version of Outlook, you will need to upgrade. Please feel free to contact us if you wish to purchase Outlook or Office Suite licenses.

How will my service differ from the new Exchange platform?
Most of the changes with the new Exchange platform are security and performance improvements in the background. For end users and your administrator users alike, the changes will be minimal. The most noticeable difference to end users will be a visual change in the Webmail (OWA) user interface.

Is the new Exchange platform going to be more expensive?
We will do our best to see that your expenses remain the same on the new platform by grandfathering your organization's pricing for 12 months.