Blog

BUworks Business Warehouse reporting Unavailable 5pm Friday July 13th thru 7am Monday July 16th

By David R Cole
July 13th, 2012 in Service Interruptions, Support Information.

The Integrated Planning (IP) budget development program loads are being completed this weekend which require that Business Warehouse (BW) be unavailable for usage. Business Warehouse (BW) reporting will be unavailable from 5pm Friday July 13th thru 7am Monday July 16th, 2012.

Update to BU Mobile iPhone app

By David R Cole
July 12th, 2012 in Support Information.

An update to the BU Mobile iPhone app is expected to be available in the next few days once it gets approved by Apple.

Please assign any issues related to the BU Mobile iPhone app to the "Application Architecture - Innovation" assignment group in ServiceNow.

The release notes are:
* The bus module now displays the live bus map by default
* Bus stop detail pages include a bus arrival estimate (based on the bus location, bus speed, and traffic conditions)
* Usability, design, and layout improvements
* Support for Retina display-capable devices
* Bug fixes and stability enhancements

Please use “Server Administration” and not “Systems Administrations”

By David R Cole
May 21st, 2012 in Support Information.

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.

Knowledge Base Search Enhancement

By awhipple
May 9th, 2012 in General News, Support Information.

A recent ServiceNow enhancement enables easier searching of knowledge base articles by improving the behavior of the global search box. Now, using the global search box to search for terms in knowledge articles not only displays the top 10 matches, but it also provides a clickable link to the full list of results.

  1. Enter your search tearm in the global search box in the upper-right corner.
    KB Search 1
  2. Scroll to the Knowledge Base section for the top 10 results.
  3. To view all search results and/or refine your search with advanced options, click on the Knowledge Base link.
    KB Search 2

Student version of MS Windows no longer sold

By David R Cole
May 8th, 2012 in Sales.

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

By David R Cole
March 23rd, 2012 in General News, Support Information.

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

By David R Cole
March 19th, 2012 in General News, Support Information.

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

By David R Cole
March 18th, 2012 in General News, Support Information.

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

By David R Cole
March 16th, 2012 in General News, Support Information.

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

By David R Cole
March 7th, 2012 in General News, Support Information.

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.