For this workshop, you have been issued a special Pilot account for M365. This account gives you access to apps and features that your regular Illinois Tech account doesn't yet have, such as Outlook.
You should have received a link in your regular work email inbox that includes a link to allow you to set up your pilot account. If you haven't already done so, open your Gmail to find that message and follow the link to finish setting up your Microsoft 365 Pilot Account.
Then, go to www.microsoft365.com. You may already be logged in with your regular M365 account, since you had to log into Okta to access your email. Click on the icon in the upper-right of the screen that contains your initials, then click sign out. Then, sign in with your new Pilot account credentials.
Please Note: In the coming months, as Illinois Tech transitions to Pathify for the my.iit.edu portal, M365 will be accessible there. This will be your preferred way to log in to M365.
One important feature of M365 is that you can use versions of its apps that are accessible in any web browser, or you can access versions that are downloaded on your computer desktop. Apps that work this way include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams, which we'll talk about later.
You can sign in to the desktop versions of M365 apps with your Illinois Tech login credentials. Doing so will allow your files to be synchronized between the browser and desktop versions of apps, so any changes you make to a file in the desktop version will be reflected in the cloud and vice versa.
OneDrive is a special case where you can download the desktop version to create a OneDrive folder on your computer's desktop. This folder will operate like any other folder that you use within Windows, with the added ability to synchronize all your files and folders with the cloud. This means that changes made to files and folders in either location are reflected in both locations.