Service Status

We are aware that Gmail currently won’t allow Students to add their University email account to their Gmail application.
This will show itself as needing administrator approval for the app to be used.

We currently recommend that you use a different application like Microsoft Outlook until this issue is resolved.

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Apple released the latest edition of macOS (Big Sur) on 12th November 2020.

We have tested the following on Big Sur and found them to work correctly:

• VPN/Remote Access Client
• McAfee Endpoint Protection (Version 10.7.5 or higher)
• Microsoft Office 365 & Microsoft Teams
• SPSS (Version 27 is available from mySoftware)
• YSoft SafeQ (Managed Print) –  The latest version of the client has been made available on the mySoftware site which is compatible

The following have yet to be tested, or their websites do not yet have a compatible version for download:

• nVivo (Not tested)
• Endnote (anecdotal evidence suggest 9.3.3 will function correctly, which can be downloaded via in-app update)

For information on other applications, please see the vendors support pages for macOS 11 compatibility before you upgrade your machine.

Regards,

IT Services

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We are currently aware of an issue where users are unable to sign into Zoom/join Zoom meetings from University Machines, receiving Error Code: 5003.

In most cases, this is because an outdated version of Zoom is being used and the solution for this is to update to the latest version, available from Software Center.

Please note that you will need to be either on campus or connected to the Remote Access Client to be able to use the Software Center successfully.

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There have been recent reports of problems accessing https://zoom.us and https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us from China.

If you find that access to these sites are blocked, please do the following to access meetings, teaching events and the Zoom client:

To join a meeting:

• If an invite utilizes a “zoom.us” URL for joining, you will need to manually input the meeting id at https://zoom.com/join

To login to Zoom:

• To sign in to an account, please navigate to https://zoom.com to login

To download the Zoom client software:

• Please visit https://zoom.com/download to download the latest Zoom application to connect to Zoom Meetings and Webinars in China.

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We’re carrying out essential maintenance on the Managed Print service. During this time, you won’t be able to use any of the printers on campus.

If you need to print any documents on Tuesday 1 December, please make sure you do so outside this maintenance window.

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As part of the major maintenance window on the 15th of December, we are using this time to upgrade all of our BEAR Services.  We will be doing the following works

• Updates to the Research Data Store
• Upgrade to, and hardware replacement in the BEAR network
• Upgrading the BlueBEAR systems to CentOS 8

• BlueBEAR ( HPC )
• Research Data Store ( including CaStLeS data stores )
• BEARCloud VMs
• CaStLeS VMs
• GitLab
• BEAR DataShare
• BEAR Globus services ( large data transfer )

• Log a ticket via the IT Service Desk ( preferable )
• Email bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Best regards,

ARC Team

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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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