Category: General News
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.
Documentation & Tools is now Communication & Documentation
When assigning tickets in ServiceNow, please note that the group formerly known as "Documentation & Tools" (which auto-completed with "Doc") is now "Communication & Documentation" (which auto-completes with "Com").
Tickets related to TechWeb content and Knowledge Base content can be mapped to us, as well as requests for interviews from media (e.g. The Daily Free Press) and any other topics that seem related to IS&T communication or documentation.
Thanks and please submit a ticket if you have any questions.
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.
The BU Admissions process and related Web Accounts
Please note that there is a different admissions process for undergraduate and graduate school applicants. You should become familiar with the information related to Web Accounts and the admissions process outlined in KB article KB0010970 titled "Web Accounts - Application for Admission - Setup and Common Problems" or search on key words such as "Web Accounts" or "Admission".
Client-facing information is provided at
http://www.bu.edu/tech/accounts/special/applicants/web-accounts/
While the KB article and TechWeb page should be reviewed, the key difference in process is as follows:
U: Undergraduate applicants to Boston University should begin the process for Undergraduate Admissions outlined at www.bu.edu/apply. As part of that process, undergraduates who apply to Boston University using the Common Application will receive an e-mail with instructions for creating a BU Web Account. Once they have a BU Web Account, they will be able to use it to check the status of their application credentials and their admissions decision through the Applicant Link. If they have questions about their application or the BU Web Account, they should contact Undergraduate Admissions.
G: Graduate Applicants should begin their online application on the website of the school to which they are applying. During the application process, they will be prompted to create a BU Web Account. If they have questions about the application or the BU Web Account, they should contact the admissions office of the corresponding graduate school. Also note: Graduate applicants should take care to click on "New client" when applying for a Web Account. Specific questions about the actual application should be directed to the relevant graduate admissions department.
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.
Online W2 access
A new Knowledge Base entry has been added regarding Online W2 access through the BUworks Central Portal/ESS. In short, online W2's will not be available this year.
https://bu.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0010363
New MATLAB license servers
Starting on January 3rd, 2012 we are switching over to new MATLAB license servers. Anyone using a local version of MATLAB prior to 2011b will require a new license file.
Support information can be found in this KB article on ServiceNow. Additional information about this service can be found on Tech Web.