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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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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The my.bham portal will unavailable today (Friday 10 July) at 4pm for around 30 mins. This is in order to undertake urgent system maintenance.

This means that the following services will be unavailable at this time:

• Online Registration
• Exam Marks and Progress Decisions
• Absence Recording
• GRS2 Postgraduate Researcher supervision
• BIRMS (for administration staff)

Apologies for any inconvenience that this causes.

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During the agreed maintenance window we will also be carrying out some essential maintenance to the University’s WiFi network.

Staff and contractors will be on campus from 6.00pm to carry out the work and there will be a short controlled outage to the wireless network in affected buildings.

Whilst this work is being carried out you may experience a brief loss of connection to the University’s Remote Access Service VPN at around 8.00pm. If this happens then you will just need to reconnect.

Affected buildings on campus

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Our next agreed IT maintenance window takes place on Tuesday, 14 July.

During this window, we will be carrying out our annual fire suppression testing in the Elms Road Data Centre. In order to carry out the testing we will need to reduce the electrical load in the Data Centre. This means that we will be switching over the majority of our services from Elms Road over to the Aston Webb Data Centre whilst the testing is carried out.

We will begin a controlled move of our network services from midnight on Monday, 13 July. The fire suppression testing will begin at 9.30am and is expected to be completed at around 11.30am. Once the testing is complete we will begin the task of moving services back over to the Elms Road Data Centre.

We do not expect there to be any disruption to services whilst we carry out the work and we will be monitoring the situation closely throughout the process. There is a small risk that you may experience slight performance issues with some University services during this time. Should we encounter any problems with services then we will provide up to date information on the IT Services Status Page at https://status.bham.ac.uk/.

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The Core Systems Optimisation Team (CSOT) are performing a routine System Upgrade on Oracle Fusion.

This will take place between 5.00pm Friday 17th July 2020 and 8.00am Monday 20th July 2020.

Oracle Fusion

You will be unable to login to Oracle Fusion from 5.00pm Friday until 8.00am on Monday morning, and it is important that everyone is logged off during the maintenance period to ensure the work is a success.

Fusion Taleo will not be impacted during this period so external candidates will not be impacted.

What do I have to do?

• Ensure you are logged out of Core Systems (Oracle Fusion) by 5.00pm on Friday.
• Please do not start any long running operations/tasks before 5.00pm on Friday, unless you are sure they will complete in time.
• Use the Service Status page for information and updates
• Core Systems may be slower than normal when you initially use the system after the maintenance is complete which is normal.
• Integrations will be paused from 5:00pm Friday – 8:00am Monday. You will not see data within some systems until Tuesday.

If you experience an outage outside of the maintenance timeframe, please raise a call at the IT Service Desk.

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