Email Policies
In this article [jump to a section]:
SOM Official Email Policy
Please read the School of Medicine's official policy on email use, PHI & PII handling, and more.
Acceptable use of Email and Confidential Data
Obtaining a SOM Email Account
To request a SOM Account for a SOM employee or affiliate, each department has an authorized requestor who can submit that request for you. Please email any questions to help@som.umaryland.edu so we can assist. If you need a shared or service account, please email help@som.umaryland.edu including the preferred Display Name and Email address if applicable.
Each new SOM account will be linked with the user's UMB account (UMID). Learn more about Unified Directory here.
Accessing your SOM Email Account
Use Outlook to access your SOM email account. There are four versions of Outlook. They will be referred to here and elsewhere on this site as Outlook in a web browser, Outlook, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook for mobile devices.
- Outlook in a web browser can be accessed anytime, from any computer, simply by going to https://outlook.office.com.
Outlook in a web browser was formally known as Outlook Web App, or OWA, and you still may see some documents referring to it as such. The URL https://mail.som.umaryland.edu, which was historically used for SOM's webmail, is simply a redirect to https://outlook.office.com. - Outlook refers to Outlook for a Windows device, which is part of the M365 Suite of products. Outlook will be pre-installed on each SOM workstation. Outlook can easily be installed on your personal devices by going to https://office.com and clicking on Install apps in the upper right-hand corner. You can have M365 (formerly Office 365) installed on up to five of your devices simultaneously.
- Outlook for Mac is a version of Outlook made for Mac devices. It can easily be installed on your personal devices by going to https://office.com and clicking on Install apps in the upper right-hand corner. You can have M365 (formerly Office 365) installed on up to five of your devices simultaneously.
Outlook for Mac is missing several key features, such as applying email archive policies, and editing distribution lists that you are an owner of. To access missing features, please use Outlook in a web browser. - Outlook for mobile devices is available for both Android and iOS devices. Your device must first be registered with Intune or MAM, and then Outlook can be added. To learn more about accessing SOM resources on your mobile devices, go here.
While you could once access a SOM mailbox using a mobile device's native email app, various security changes now require that you use Outlook. Outlook for mobile devices allows you to access many of your mailbox's advanced features, such as out of office replies, accessing shared mailboxes, integration with OneDrive and Teams, and more.
Size and Storage Limits
Your SOM mailbox has a 100GB storage limit. This is a hard limit imposed by Microsoft and cannot be changed.
Each user also has an online archive with unlimited storage. To learn more about email archiving, please go here.
Each message has a 75MB size limit. If you are attempting to share an attachment larger than this, consider sharing the file as a OneDrive link. To learn more about sharing files, please go here.
Email Forwarding
Your SOM mailbox cannot be forwarded to any other mailbox. This includes other campus mailboxes (UMM, UMB) as well as personal mailboxes. This would violate PHI protections that we have in place.
Exiting Employees and Alumni
An employee who is ending their professional relationship with SOM will not have access to their SOM mailbox past their termination date. If you are leaving your position voluntarily, you are welcome to set an out of office reply. This will be broadcast for a minimum of 30 days after your termination date.
Graduating students who will not be continuing their relationship with SOM in a residency or staff position will be granted 60 days after graduation to access their SOM mailbox. An alumni account [@somalumni.umaryland.edu] will then be created for each graduating student. Alumni account information as well as a termination date for their mailbox will be sent to each graduating student approximately 30 days before graduation.
A graduating student's email and data will NOT be transferred to their alumni mailbox, nor will their SOM mailbox be forwarded to their alumni mailbox. An alumni mailbox will be subscribed to several SOM newsletters, and can indicate through its email address that you had a previous relationship with the School of Medicine. The student may manually download emails and contacts from their mailbox before its termination date. To learn more about alumni accounts, go here.