News

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.

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? Tuesday, December 7, 2021.

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 happening? Windows laptops in Academic Support will be removed from the Laptops OU (disabling the Offline Files feature).

When is this happening? Monday, December 6 at 4:30 p.m.

Why is this happening? The Offline Files feature slows down most computers and is no longer needed due to work done during the OneDrive migration. 

What is happening? Exchange servers are being removed from service for maintenance/updates. Individual servers will be taken out of service between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. each night throughout the maintenance period. 

When is it happening? Tuesday, December 7 to Tuesday, December 21 between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. each night. 

What’s happening? The UW Microsoft 365 Automation Platform will be upgraded from .NET Core 3.1 to .NET 6. IST uses this system to streamline the following automation processes:

• Creating new instances of Teams, Planner, and Bookings resources
• Teams Roster Sync (TRS) - includes Team creation, Team life-cycle management, and the roster sync
• Administrative Web Portal - used by IST staff to manage and monitor automation processes

When is this happening? The Microsoft 365 Automation Platform will be upgraded on Tuesday, November 23.

Why is this happening? This upgrade will allow for continued development and software support from the vendor until the end of 2024. This upgrade will also provide platform feature enhancements such as: 

• Performance improvements through a simplified codebase
• Enhanced error handling and reduction via the exposure of new exception types
• Reduced overhead due to unification of shared resources

What is the impact? No impact is expected for the automation processes listed above. IST will closely monitor these automation processes after the upgrade to ensure no unexpected issues arise. 

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or 519-888-4567 ext. 44357. 

What is happening? As part of the transition to the new support ticket tracking and management tool Jira Service Management, the Request Tracker (RT) “-general-“ queue, which accepts support requests emailed to rt@uwaterloo.ca, rt@rt.uwaterloo.ca, and request@uwaterloo.ca, will be configured to no longer accept such requests. 

Resolved (November 8, 4:00 p.m.): All incoming and outgoing calls should be working as expected again. A faulty T1 card on the Avaya PBX was replaced and all service has returned to normal.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca.

What is happening? An issue is intermittently affecting incoming and outgoing calls from all campus telephone systems. Bell has been contacted to assist in troubleshooting and we have a technician on site attempting to maintain service until resolution. Additional details will be shared when available.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca.

Resolved: A common and routine networking change had an unexpected broken outcome that resulted in a number of IST managed servers going offline. The change has been reverted. IST is following up with the vendor.

What was the impact? Users may have been unable to access a number of services including Skype for Business, Git, and Jira.

When did this happen? Wednesday, October 13 between 11:30 a.m. and 12:25 p.m.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

What is happening? Webex users may have received an email entitled ''Convert to Enterprise Account' from webex_comm@webex.com. This is a legitimate email from Webex. No user action is required for UW Webex users; there is no impact and no service disruption.

Why is this happening? The Webex system is trying to clear up inconsistencies between users logging in withfriendly email addresses (e.g. firstname.lastname@uwaterloo.ca) instead of username@uwaterloo.ca.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.