Service Status

We are currently aware of an issue which is causing the Web Room Bookings site to be intermittently unavailable.
Our technical team are investigating this as a priority.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that may be caused.

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We are still experiencing issues with the WiFi network which is affecting some areas of the Edgbaston campus. To resolve the issue we will be carrying out emergency maintenance on the wireless network this morning at 10.00am.

The work will take about 15 minutes to complete, during which time there may be some minor disruption to service across the Edgbaston campus.

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We are experiencing an issue with the University’s email service which means that some University staff and Postgraduate Researchers (PGR) have been unable to access their emails, calendar and/or contacts via Outlook and Outlook on the web, or have lost access to older (archive) email.

What are IT doing to resolve the incident?

We have restored the ability for affected users to send and receive emails and are currently working with affected staff to restore any data that went missing during this incident. Missing data has included email, calendars and contacts.

Our technicians are visiting and/or contacting staff individually to restore their mailbox data. The methods of restoration differ depending on the affected user. Factors include where their mailbox was hosted and the way they accessed mail before this happened.

The process of restoring email, contacts and calendar files back into Outlook takes approximately 24 to 48 hours to complete for each person; for some larger mailboxes, it may take a little longer. We are either personally visiting affected users across the University or remotely logging in to carry out the necessary work.

Why is it taking so long?

Our top priority is to restore mailbox data, including mail, calendars and contacts for people who lost their primary email accounts. We appreciate that this is taking a lot longer than any of us want.

We have now completed a partial (approximately 1 year) recovery of historic data for the majority of affected users. We will continue this stage of recovery until all users have their data restored as closely as possible to the point at which this issue occurred.

Unfortunately, there is no way to speed up this process, and we thank you for your continued patience.

What about my archive email?

For staff that have lost older (archive) email, the process of recovering these will happen in the next phase of our efforts. Once we have restored everything we can for the users who lost access to their primary email accounts, calendars and contacts, we will begin restoring archive email. This process may take a few weeks to complete; again, this is dependant on the size of the archive files.

Update 8 October, 15.51pm – archive email update

Archive folder restoration works are currently on hold whilst we deal with the campus network issue.

This Knowledge Base article has answers to many of your email issue questions

Our technicians are continuing to visit affected staff to restore their mailboxes. Meanwhile, if you have any questions relating to the issue, we have created a Knowledge Base article that answers the most frequently asked questions. You can read the the article at https://kb.bham.ac.uk/KB14648

Affected shared mailboxes

If you are having issues with opening shared mailboxes in Outlook, please try opening the mailbox through mail.bham.ac.uk by following the steps in this Knowledge Base article https://kb.bham.ac.uk/KB11724

How to help us restore your services

• MacOS users: If you discover that you are affected by this issue, please do not run Outlook. It is very important that you raise a call with the IT Service Desk so that we can work with you to in person recover your email data.
• Until our staff have restored Outlook for you, please do not use it. You can continue to use Webmail https://mail.bham.ac.uk to access your email in the meantime.
• If your PC is connected to the University network domain: If you discover that you are affected by this issue, please restart your device as soon as possible so that we can automatically retrieve files from your PC. This will help us ensure we can restore your Outlook information including contacts and calendar appointments.
• If you are not using a device connected to the University network domain or you are working off-campus and discover that you are affected by this issue: Please contact the IT Service Desk 0121 414 7171 so that we can help you retrieve the files we need to restore your information.
• If you lost your archive email and think that you will be able to manage without it being restored, please do let us know via the IT Service Desk itservicedesk.bhamm.ac.uk or call 47171.

Initial Situation Notification: 27 August 2019

We are currently experiencing an issue with the University’s email service which means that some University staff and Postgraduate Researchers (PGR) are unable to access their emails via Outlook and Outlook on the web.

If you know of someone in your team or department that may be affected by this issue, please explain this information to them and refer them to the IT Service Desk or the IT Service Status Page https://status.bham.ac.uk/.

What is the current situation?

We are working closely with our Microsoft partners to resolve this issue as quickly as possible but cannot yet confirm when we expect normal service will resume.

Affected users may experience any of these three issues:

Email sent to affected accounts during this time will remain in a delivery queue and the sender will be notified that delivery of their email is delayed. If delivery fails, the sender will be notified. Email sitting in the queue when service is restored will be delivered at that time.

What do I need to do?

• Affected users may need to back up certain email data before we restore their accounts. We will try to provide direct advice and help wherever possible, but may not be able to do so in all cases so we will provide information on how to do that on the Status Page https://status.bham.ac.uk/.
• If you log a call with the IT Service Desk please provide an alternative email address so that we are able to update you directly.

Further updates

Please refer to this page for any further updates.

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Some users are currently experiencing an issue accessing Banner where they are unable to get to the login screen. The solution to this issue is below:

If your normal route to Banner is via a browser, i.e. https://banner.bham.ac.uk/forms/frmservlet?config=banner then do the following:

• Switch your default browser to Chrome (KB14676 – link below)
• Try your normal route to Banner. If that does not work then switch your default browser back to Internet Explorer and try your normal route to Banner.

Or if there is another method that you use

If you continue to have issues please contact the IT Service Desk on 01214147171 or on itservicedesk.bham.ac.uk

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We are aware of an issue where Cluster PCs are asking for Student’s and Staff’s login details to use Office.
For now please sign is as requested and you will have no issue. If you close the prompt it will not let you edit or create new documents. To fix this restart the application and then sign in.

We are working to fix this issue and hope to update you with good news shortly.

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Mac Users: The VPN client initially available at New Core launch might be experiencing connection issues. This issue can be resolved by installing the updated version of the client. The file, Mac_RemoteAccessClient_190719.zip, is available at the bottom of the KB article linked in the workaround below.

If you have any issues please contact the IT Service Desk on 0121 414 7171 or visit us online at itservicedesk.bham.ac.uk

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IT Services are conducting some security improvements to our firewalls. These security enhancements are part of a series of works approved by the University’s Information Security and Management Group (ISMG).

These works will reduce the risk of unauthorised access from outside our network.

What to do if you use services that connect in from outside our network

Please advise your local College/End User Services IT Manager of all your known external services before close of business on 18/10/19.

Why this is important

So that we can ensure your service is included in our approved connection lists following these enhancement works.

What will happen if we don’t know about an external service before these enhancements?

Any services not identified before we make these changes will not connect once the enhancements are complete. It will be possible to reconnect after the changes are made, however you will need to advise us to add your service to our allow rules.

What to do if you notice any interruption to your service

Please contact your local College/End User Services IT Manager. Find who your local contact is at: https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/it/teams/infrastructure/end-user/index.aspx

We will update this information when we being activating these enhancements.

Find more information on IT Security at http://itsecurity.bham.ac.uk/

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