Service Status

IT Service Desk opening hours are currently Monday-Friday between 09:00-17:00.

Live Chat support is available on the IT Service Desk site at itservicedesk.bham.ac.uk. Just log in and the Live Chat option is on the main homepage.

You can log a ticket with us using the Report a Fault form at itservicedesk.bham.ac.uk at any time of the day, even if you can’t log in.

Phone support is 09:00-12:00 & 14:00-17:00, so please call the Service Desk only when it’s an emergency.

Our team are working hard to support the University community during this period. Please help us by being patient, and remembering to check our working from home guidance https://kb.bham.ac.uk/KB14867 before logging a ticket.

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Update: Canvas advise that this issue is now fixed.

There is a current problem with the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS). This is a global outage that Canvas are aware of and working on. Find the latest updates on this outage at: https://status.instructure.com/

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Update: All BEAR services should be restored, if you continue to have issues please log a Service Desk ticket here: https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/bear/sd/bear

We regret to inform you that due to an issue with the research storage systems, all of our services are unavailable.  These include:

• Research Data Store
• BEAR DataShare
• GitLab
• Access to storage on BlueBEAR
• BEAR Cloud – VM’s and storage
• CaStLeS (powered by BEAR) – VM’s and storage

We apologise for the break in service, however our teams are currently working on getting these systems up and running again.

Update at 14:00 28/09:

The specific fault has been identified – a valve had jammed resulting in the water that cools the systems getting hotter and hotter. Storage systems are currently being brought up again so we are hopeful services will be resumed today.

Update at 16:00 28/09

Research Data Store access is now available again from Windows as well as storage on BlueBEAR. BEAR DataShare should also be functioning apart from Only Office, which allows Office documents to be viewed online.

The team is working on bringing VM’s up again so that the rest of the services can be restored.

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IT Services are currently receiving many queries about the release of student timetable information and how timetables can be accessed.

To answer our most frequently asked questions, we have produced the following article:

https://kb.bham.ac.uk/KB15119

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Some people are currently experiencing issues with our landline telephones.

If you’re affected by this, please use alternative methods of communication such as Microsoft Teams or email.

You can log a call with the IT Service Desk via the IT Service Portal.

We’re working to resolve these issues; we’ll let you know when we have more information.

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IT Services are currently investigating an issue with our web single sign-on service (Shibboleth) affecting users who are logging in with Safari on an Apple device.

There are some troubleshooting steps you can follow at the bottom of https://kb.bham.ac.uk/KB15110, however we are liasing with our supplier about this issue to find a permanent fix.

If the troubleshooting steps do not fix the issue for you then you’ll need to use another browser such as Firefox, Chrome, or Microsoft Edge on your MacOS device. iOS/iPadOS users unfortunately won’t be able to do this due to limitations on those operating systems.

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Our Remote Access Service allows you to access your University files and data wherever you are. The service can be accessed on any computer running Windows, macOS or Linux.

**Make sure that you are registered for Remote Access Service in advance**

For off-campus access, you will also require a smartphone that has a Two-Factor-Authentication (2FA) application installed such as Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator.

Information and guidance about working remotely from home is available at KB14867.

For other related issues, please make sure you have read the latest University Coronavirus FAQs available at https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/coronavirus/index.aspx

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We have recently upgraded our web single sign-on service (Shibboleth) to integrate with Microsoft 365, so there is a change to how you login to services that use it such as Canvas, Findit@Bham, New Core, and others.

You will see a new login screen, and instead of using your username you will need to use your full University of Birmingham e-mail address. Additionally, if you are an external user who has a canvas-only account these have be logged in as shown below.

Here are examples of the login format:

Staff: J.Bloggs@bham.ac.uk

Students: ABC123@student.bham.ac.uk

Alumni: ABC123@alumni.bham.ac.uk

Canvas-Only (iVLE): ivle-12345@bham.ac.uk

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