News

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? Sunday, August 15 to Friday, August 20 - between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. each night.

Why is it happening? To upgrade Exchange software with the latest updates.

Who will it impact? Users that are actively connected to an Exchange server when it is removed for maintenance may be prompted to enter their username and password. Outlook may also alert about being redirected to autodiscover.uwaterloo.ca. This is normal behavior and the user should click 'Allow' when this happens. No other impact is anticipated as the remaining servers will continue to carry out email and calendar functions. This maintenance will not impact mailboxes that are in Microsoft 365.

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

Resolved (August 4, 2:38 p.m.): Emails for past Outlook meeting requests were sent as a result of the restoration of Teams voice conferencing licenses. All voice conferencing licenses have been restored; users should no longer receive these emails.

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

What is happening? Users may have received email notifications for past Outlook meeting requests yesterday between 5:00 p.m. and 5:15 p.m. IST is investigating with the vendor.

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

Resolved (August 4, 12:04 p.m.): Voice licensing for users is currently being processed and restored. All licenses will be restored over the next several hours.

• Users will be able to use voice conferencing again once licenses have been restored.
• Users may receive another email confirmation once their license has been reapplied. This is a legitimate email; no action is required.

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

What is happening? Teams voice conferencing licenses are currently unavailable. 

What is the impact? Users are unable to create new Teams meetings using a telephone number. This issue does not impact any other features in Teams or Skype.

IST is working with the vendor to resolve the issue.

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

Please share with employees and students in your department. 

What is happening? The campus-wide Zoom license is now available for employees and students; pro/educational licenses are available for employees and graduate students, and basic licenses are available for undergraduate students. 

• IST is continuing to migrate existing University of Waterloo Zoom users to the campus-wide license. 
• The integration of Zoom with LEARN is currently underway and is expected to be complete during the first week of August.

If you do not have an existing Zoom account: Faculty, staff, and students can create an account by going to https://uwaterloo.zoom.us, clicking Sign In, and logging in with their username@uwaterloo.ca credentials. 

If you have an existing Zoom account:  Migrate your account to the campus-wide license using the steps below. 

1. If your Zoom account username is not username@uwaterloo.ca, update your username.
2. Go to https://uwaterloo.zoom.us and click 'Sign In'. Enter your username@uwaterloo.ca login credentials. The first time you login, you will be asked to migrate your existing account. Follow the prompts to migrate your account. 
3. If you have a paid Zoom account, Zoom will update your account balance and you can request a refund by calling Zoom Support: +1.888.799.9666 ext 2.

Notes: 

• The ability to log in with Zoom credentials will be disabled at a later date and users will be required to log in with their University of Waterloo credentials. 
• To optimize the reimbursement of your remaining account balance, it is recommended that you create or migrate your Zoom account as soon as possible. If you have an upcoming Zoom event, you can create or migrate your Zoom account at your convenience after the event date.

Additional resources

• For Zoom Support, visit the Zoom Help Center or call +1.888.799.9666 ext 2 for account balance inquiries
• Zoom Support Guidelines
• University of Waterloo Zoom licensing information
  • For information regarding licensing, email rt-ist-itms-collab@rt.uwaterloo.ca 
• Zoom support articles - IST Knowledge Base (will be expanded on as resources are created)

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

Resolved: Users may have been unable to authenticate when connecting to the eduroam and UniversityofWaterloo wireless networks from 11:00 p.m. on July 20 to 8:00 a.m. on July 21. The issue has been resolved; users should be able to access the wireless networks again.

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

What is happening? The individual user network drive (N: drive) service will no longer be offered by IST after April 2023. OneDrive will replace N: drive as the centrally supported user file storage tool. 

• In preparation for this change, users in Academic Support Units with IST-managed Windows machines will be migrating from N: drive to OneDrive during the Spring 2021 term, as part of the Migrating N: drives to OneDrive Project. Academic Support Unit migrations are expected to be complete by mid-September 2021. 
• Participating faculties ready to begin N: drive to OneDrive migrations can contact IST for assistance. 

When is this happening? April 2023, between Winter and Spring terms.

Why is this happening? In comparison to N: drive,OneDrive offers a more user-friendly and robust file storage solution. With 5 TB of storage, OneDrive offers a significantly greater amount of storage space compared to the N: drive. OneDrive also allows users to access, share, and collaborate on files from anywhere on any device. Visit the Migrating N: drives to OneDrive Project page ​for more benefits.

Additional Resources 

• Learn more about the Migrating N: drives to OneDrive Project
• IST Knowledge Base OneDrive articles 

Questions or concerns? Please contact Andrew McAlorum (amcalorum@uwaterloo.ca)

What is happening? Shibboleth SAML identity provider (https://idp.uwaterloo.ca/), one of the University’s application authentication tools, is being upgraded from version 4.0.1 to 4.1.2.

When is this happening? The upgrade will start on Tuesday, July 20 at 7:00 a.m. and will take a few hours to complete. 

What is the impact? 

• During the upgrade, the service should remain largely available. Some authentications may fail when service nodes are taken offline or returned to service. 
• After the upgrade, users accessing Shibboleth supported applications will be redirected to authenticate using the ADFS login page.

What do users need to do? Owners of Shibboleth supported applications should test each application’s authentication after the maintenance time above. Any issues found during testing should be reported to rt@uwaterloo.ca. 

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

What is happening? Grouper is scheduled for maintenance on the date below. Users will not be able to access Grouper during the maintenance window. 

When is this happening?Tuesday, July 13 from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

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

Resolved: A delay in sending and receiving email to and from external domains occurred today between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. All delayed emails should now be delivered to the intended recipient(s).

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

What is happening? Information Systems & Technology’s Web Development team is excited to announce the launch of the new Waterloo Content Management System (WCMS) 3 platform. 

What does this mean? Standard (FDSU), non-custom WCMS 3 websites, hosted in the new Pantheon environment, are now available for request.  

• Site owners can request a new website in WCMS 3. 

• Site owners can schedule the migration of a WCMS 2 website to WCMS 3. 

• In lieu of migration, site owners can also request a WCMS 3 site and begin to rebuild an existing WCMS 2 website. 

What is different in WCMS 3? 

• Most changes will be noticeable to content maintainers working within the system to build websites. 
• There may be some visual changes to websites (e.g., content layout).  
• The left-hand vertical menu will now appear as a horizontal menu near the top of the website. 
• The “Log in” link has been removed from website footers.  
• See the Initial release comparison web page to see what will and what won’t be available at launch. 
• Watch the new WCMS 3 videos to learn more about these changes and compare WCMS 2 to WCMS 3. 

Which sites/themes are impacted by this launch? 

• This launch only impacts sites that want to use the current standard (FDSU) theme. 

  • This does not include the conference, publication, or single-page themes. 

  • This does not include authenticated sites or sites that require custom modules. 

• The launch of WCMS 3 does not impact Waterloo Scholar websites. 

Additional resources 

• WCMS 3 training and support resources. 

• Learn more about the Building the Next WCMS project. 

Questions or concerns? Please submit to wcms@uwaterloo.ca.