News

What is happening? To support University employees who will be working both in the office and remotely during the Winter 2022 term, Information Systems & Technology (IST) has updated the hybrid work and technology guidelines. Read more about the recommended meeting guidelines, information on augmenting rooms for hybrid meetings, work equipment guidelines, and secure computing practices. Guidelines may be added throughout the term as necessary. 

What is happening? Some WebEx users will receive an email message prompting them to update their WebEx account, however no action is required by end users.

When is this happening? Wednesday, January 26, 2022.

Why is this happening? Occasionally, WebEx needs to synchronize user account information, often capturing updates made in WatIAM that have not yet been reflected in an individual’s WebEx cloud records. This work also updates the student directory information for outgoing and incoming students.

What is the impact? 

There is no impact to WebEx accounts or scheduled WebEx sessions.

What is happening? Announced in the May 14, 2021 issue of the Daily Bulletin, Quest, the University’s student information system, will move from its current on-premises environment to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) environment. Much has been accomplished since this last update, and the project team is pleased to announce that the project is on track to meet the February 2022 go-live target.

When is this happening? The team will begin the work of migrating the on-premises Quest environment to the OCI environment on Friday, February 25 at 4:00 p.m. This work is expected to be completed by 8:30 a.m. on Monday, February 28.

I am pleased to share the work and achievements of Information Systems & Technology in our 2021 Annual Report. The demands and expectations of many IST services continued to increase over the past year as the University community adapted to ongoing changes to work and learning restrictions influenced by COVID-19. The main articles that follow highlight some of the work accomplished to continue to support these distributed, remote environments, as well as enhance the delivery and support of many centrally managed IT services.

Resolved: This issue has been resolved. If you attempted to send an email earlier today and received a message that the email was not delivered, you will need to send the email again.

Persisting issues or concerns? Please contact helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca.

What is happening? There is an issue with Mailservices that is causing emails sent to Request Tracker (RT) and mailman mailing lists to be rejected for some users. IST is investigating.

What is happening? The IST Service Catalogue (currently on the IST website) is moving to Confluence, https://uwaterloo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ISTSERV/overview. 

What is the impact? IST will begin to replace the website links (i.e., uwaterloo.ca/ist/services/… ) with those for Confluence. Until this work is complete, service entries and related pages may be viewed on either the IST website or in Confluence. 

IST's Instructional Technologies and Media Services Presentation Technology Services (ITMS-PTS) group shares technology and equipment tips for hybrid meetings, and options for augmenting existing meeting rooms to support hybrid meetings on campus. Examples of audio-only and audio and camera solutions, and associated costs, are provided. View the Hybrid meetings and augmenting meeting rooms support article to learn more.

What is happening? BlackBerry has announced that effective January 4, 2022, BlackBerry operating systems will be decommissioned. This means any device/service running on BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier versions, will no longer function. Any BlackBerry device currently running on an Android operating system will continue to function.

Web conferencing tools at Waterloo

During the pandemic, the number of web conferencing platforms used by employees and students to support remote teaching, learning, and job responsibilities increased considerably. This increase has resulted in some confusion around which tools are recommended and for what use case(s); a disparate set of support models and resources; and a lack of consistency for employees and students who may be required to use multiple platforms across courses and job duties.
 

IST Service Desk holiday closure

The Davis Centre and Dana Porter service desks will be closed from 4:30 p.m. on December 22, 2021 to January 3, 2022. These service desks will open January 4, 2022 with regular hours.

The Village 1 service desk will close at 4:30 p.m. December 23 and will open January 2, 2022 with regular hours.