By David R Cole
Please use “Server Administration” and not “Systems Administrations”
Please be sure to use “Server Administration” when escalating to that team. “Systems Administrations” is a legacy group name and should no longer be used for escalations.
Student version of MS Windows no longer sold
The IT Help Center will no longer be selling the student priced version of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft has ended the Student Select Licensing program that it was a part of.
Key Information:
This does NOT affect our selling Microsoft Office for $39. That continues as before.
This does NOT affect BU departments getting Windows through the Enterprise Agreement. That continues as before.
From now on, students can purchase Windows through the Microsoft Student Store for $64 (license only, $15 for the optional media disc). The software from the store is licensed for students only, faculty and staff must look elsewhere for personal purchases of Windows. (And they may NOT download it from the Enterprise Agreement page for their personal computer.)
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/cat/categoryID.37826100
New BU Calendar design launching March 27th
The new interface to BU Calendar is in final QA and is anticipated to launch on 3/27. This is a fairly dramatic interface change so you may receive feedback/questions. If clients contact us about this update, please create tickets and escalate them to the "Web Publishing" assignment group in ServiceNow
You can preview the new site here: http://www-test.bu.edu/calendar/v2/
New CAS website launching March 21st
The main CAS website is scheduled to launch on 3/21. This site is heavily trafficked and will now be hosted in WP for the first time. In anticipation, CPU capacity was increased CPU on the production servers, but please create tickets if clients contact us about an impact on performance and escalate them to the "Web Publishing" assignment group in ServiceNow.
You can preview the new site here: http://www-test.bu.edu/cas
Support for College of General Studies – March 19-23
During the week of March 19-23, Desktop Services will be covering for the College of General Studies support team. Please assign any calls or tickets we receive from faculty and staff of CGS to the Desktop Services team.
New version of E-mail Forwarding System (EFS) on Tuesday, 3/20
On Tuesday, March 20, a new version of the E-mail Forwarding System
(EFS) will be released. EFS will continue to be hosted at http://www.bu.edu/computing/email/forwarding
If you'd like a sneak peek at the new version, please visit http://www.bu.edu/nisdev/php5/efs-qa
The new version of EFS will integrate Exchange forwarding into the EFS system, and allow Exchange clients to manage their bu.edu and Exchange forwarding via the same interface.
EFS will serve different options to the client based on where the client has accounts. Here are some specific examples:
- If a client has an account on ACS, but does not have a Google or
Exchange account, the client will be put into a legacy EFS
system which is similar to the one they see today. All existing EFS
legacy services will continue to work for these clients.
- If a client exists on Exchange and/or Google, they will see options
to forward their mail to those systems, as well as an option
to choose a custom e-mail address. Clients who have Ph "email" fields
still pointing to login@acs.bu.edu will also see an "ACS mail" button
in the upper right corner which will put them into the legacy system.
Once a client with either an Exchange or Google account changes their
forwarding away from ACS, the "ACS mail" button will no longer be
visible and they will not be able to use EFS to point forwarding back
to ACS. In the event someone in this situation really needs to have
their forwarding pointed to ACS, e.g. in the case of a migration
problem, please contact Sean Pfeiffer.
- Clients with Exchange accounts will be provided with the option to
forward a copy of their mail somewhere else as well as retain a local
copy of mail on Exchange. This option only supports forwarding to a
single address outside of Exchange. Clients who want to do more
advanced things, e.g. forward to more than one address, filter mail
before forwarding, etc. will need to create rules in OWA instead
of using EFS to manage their forwarding.
- Clients who only exist in Ph without an associated ACS, Exchange, or
Google account can continue to use EFS to change their Ph email field.
Please note that while faculty and staff who have Google Apps accounts may see the option in EFS to forward their mail to Google, the IT Help Center should strongly encourage all faculty and staff to migrate to Exchange rather than Google.
If you have any questions regarding EFS please contact Sean Pfeiffer.
Please escalate any tickets or reports of problems with the new service to Sean.
Support for BU Academy – March 8-11
During March 8th-11th, Desktop Services will be covering for the BU Acadmey support team. Please assign any calls or tickets we receive from faculty and staff of BU Academy to the Desktop Services team.
OnBase ticket escalations
Tickets related to the installation of the OnBase desktop software should be routed to Desktop Services if the client is part of a supported department.
Escalate any other OnBase related Incidents or Service Requests to the "Application Development - General Business Applications" Assignment Group and put Charlie LaSalle [clasalle@bu.edu] on the Internal Watch List.
This information is also posted in KB article KB0010253.
Housing Reservations via The Link – February 2012
On Thursday, February 2, 2012, shortly after 9 a.m., BU Housing plans to "turn on" the Housing Reservation websites that will be used by continuing students to reserve housing for the 2012–13 academic year.
Please note that the Housing Reservation deadline is 5 p.m. on Friday, February 24, 2012.
The URLs for the Housing Reservation websites are as follows:
Students: https://www.bu.edu/link/shortcut/housing_reservations
Parent payments: https://www.bu.edu/link/shortcut/housing_reservations_payment
Admin: https://www.bu.edu/link/shortcut/housing_reservations_admin
If you receive any inquiries that you cannot answer, please forward them as an external email to housing@bu.edu.
This information can also be found in KB article KB0010379 in ServiceNow.
Escalation of tickets regarding ServiceNow
Going forward, please assign all incident/service request tickets regarding ServiceNow (aka Service-Now) to the Applications Development - Process Applications assignment group.
For future reference, this is a link to the related kb article.