Service Status

Due to COVID-19 and the restricted campus operations the IT Service Desk are making changes to our opening hours, to ensure that you can still reach us during the busiest times of the day.

Between Monday-Friday the Service Desk will be open between 09:00-17:00. Our phone support is very limited (closed between 12:00-14:00) so please call the Service Desk only when it’s an emergency.

We have added online Live Chat support to 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 also 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.

Outside of these times you can still log a ticket with us using the Report a Fault form at itservicedesk.bham.ac.uk.

Our team are working hard to support the University community while they transition to working away from campus. 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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In a similar way to remote accessing other University systems, Microsoft 365 (M365) uses Multi Factor Authentication (MFA), which immediately increases your account (and therefore data) security by requiring multiple forms of verification to prove your identity when you sign in to a Microsoft application. That includes your University password plus an additional form of identification. MFA is recommended as best practice by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

When the M365 Project Board considered IT Security Governance, the Board agreed that we should adopt those recommendations. So, from Wednesday 22 July, all University staff use MFA to access M365 applications.

This process is different to Remote Access. It’s a reasonably painless process that we’ve been using in IT Services so that we can help you get started. You will find information and video guidance in our IT Knowledge Base article KB14979.

We are also running live ITS GO Online sessions to walk you through the process and answer questions you may have.

Upcoming sessions:

Friday 24 July, 12.00 – 12.30pm
Join session: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/91114430972?pwd=N0xBZjRuVFp4N01Td1FzY0tienVqQT09
Meeting ID: 911 1443 0972
Passcode: 032885

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With the release of Microsoft 365 we have encountered issues during testing with Huawei mobile devices.
This will mean applications like Teams and OneDrive won’t work successfully on your mobile device.
We have raised this with Microsoft and they are aware of the issue and working on a fix.
We will update this post once we have some more news.

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We’re aware of an issue with the my.bham portal. There is a Security Access message appearing.

• You may need to click “Advanced” and “Proceed to my.bham.ac.uk (unsafe)”.
• You may not get this message if you use Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge, rather than Chrome or Firefox. 

We’re looking into a fix for this – in the meantime, use the above workarounds. 

We’ll provide an update on this as soon as possible.

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We are making some changes to our SharePoint Servers, and whilst this work is going on you may not be able to access some user profile information.

If you experience this issue in the meantime you can access this information by logging onto the UoB VPN.

Information on how to do this is here https://kb.bham.ac.uk/KB13628

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Whilst most of us continue working remotely off campus, we still need to regularly change our University password. It is University of Birmingham policy for passwords to expire after roughly 6 months (180 days) and the main reason why we do this is to prevent continued use of stolen passwords that have not been detected.

Passwords can become compromised after being stolen using a variety of techniques; these include phishing, malware and in some cases the use of hardware devices. By regularly expiring passwords it means that if a password is stolen it can only be used for a limited period of time. You can find out more about why University passwords expire at https://kb.bham.ac.uk/kb12938.

Changing your password whilst working remotely

If your password is due to expire, you will receive an email from IT Services letting you know when this is going to happen. Once you receive this email, we recommend that you change your password when it is convenient, but before the expiry date.  We will remind you every day for 28 days or until you change your password (whichever happens sooner).

If you are working remotely on a University managed laptop, we strongly recommend that you sign in to the Remote Access VPN before changing your password. This will ensure that your new password is synchronised across your device and all other services. You can find guidance on how to do this in our Knowledge Base article https://kb.bham.ac.uk/kb14923.

For all other situations where you are working remotely (e.g. using your own personal device) then you can find information on how to change your password using the University’s My Password service online at https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/it/services/My-Password.aspx.

Don’t forget that once you have changed your password you will need to update any other devices such as mobile phones, tablets etc. that will have your old password saved.

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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 converted the email accounts for this years leavers to Alumni status. To login to your Alumni email:

• Visit outlook.bham.ac.uk
• Click on ‘Looking for Alumni Email?’
• Type in your email address, using @alumni.bham.ac.uk in place of @student.bham.ac.uk
• Enter in your University password

If you had data located in your OneDrive account, this will no longer be accessible as advised in the email we would have sent prior to your account closure.

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On Thursday 23 July, we moved the University’s intranet from servers held on campus and into servers in the cloud. We now store and access our intranet data over the internet instead of from on premise, meaning that our intranet is better supported, more reliable and more resilient. This change helps us continue building strong foundations for our digital future, and better supports our global community.

As part of the move, we have introduced Microsoft Azure authentication which means that you will notice a small change to the way that you login to the intranet.

From 22 July, you will no longer type your email and password into the boxes on the University intranet login page. Instead, you will need to click the button ‘staff and student login (Sign in with AD FS)’.

You will then be taken to a standard Microsoft login page where you should enter your University email address and your University password. You will then be logged into the intranet as normal.

You can find further guidance on logging into the intranet using Microsoft Azure in our knowledge base article KB15016.

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