Today was marked both with failure and success as we made significant progress replacing the faulty, aging voicemail and call processing hardware. Despite our best efforts throughout the day we were only able to repair part of the system. Due to some additional equipment failures that occurred during the outage, we had to overnight more parts and expect to complete the maintenance during the day tomorrow (Friday 8/17).

Throughout this process we have been working closely with the vendor, taking every precaution to increase the likelihood of success. We are working hard to ensure we protect the existing data to the best of our ability. Once the additional hardware has been replaced and tested, we will synchronize the system and determine if there is any data loss.

We expect to complete the maintenance tomorrow afternoon and we will send a follow up email upon completion of the outage.

The campus community has been very patient and understanding during this process and we apologize for any inconvenience this extended outage has caused. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to discuss any concerns with you.

Ray Soellner

Telecommunications Manager

DoIT - UMBC

The Voicemail and Call Processing maintenance window, originally scheduled for today, will be extended to tomorrow, August 16th beginning at 8am. During today’s work we experienced unforeseen complications while installing the new hardware. Service has been restored using the old hardware and will remain in service until tomorrow. We believe to have resolved the complication experienced today and hope to complete the remaining work tomorrow.

We expect this maintenance window to be 8 hours, during which users will not have access to Voicemail or Call Processing. Inbound and outbound calling will be unaffected. Due to the age of the Phone and Voicemail system the potential for lost data still exists. DoIT recommends that you capture all Voicemail and Call Processing settings if you have not already done so.

We recommend users take the following measures to protect any critical voicemail messages ahead of the outage:

- Make note of all your voicemail greetings and settings.

- Capture information from all saved or new Voicemails. DoIT recommends playing voicemails over speaker phone while using a usb recorder or recording app on your smartphone. DoIT’s Capturing Voicemail Messages FAQ

- Please go to DoIT’s Phone FAQ if you have any questions about how to access your voicemail or voicemail settings.

- Please delete any unneeded messages. This will decrease the duration of the service window.

If you have further questions, please contact the Technology Support Center by either submitting a support request at my.umbc.edu/help or calling (410) 455-3838.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we try and repair this system.

Ray Soellner

Assoc. Director of Telecommunications

DoIT - UMBC

Tomorrow August 15th starting at 8am DoIT will be performing maintenance on the campus voicemail and call processing systems to address failing hardware. We expect this maintenance window to be 8 hours, during which users will not have access to Voicemail or call processing. DoIT staff are working with the vendor to copy the voicemails and call processing configuration prior to replacement of the hardware; however, there is no certainty that this copy will be successful.

Due to the age of the phone system and voicemail system we don’t have any way to back this information up other than the copy we are attempting prior to the disk replacement.

Departments with call trees or call processing are encouraged to capture all recordings and menu options prior to the service window in the event that this information is lost and needs to be recreated.

We recommend users take the following measures to protect any critical voicemail messages ahead of the outage:

- Make note of all your voicemail greetings and settings.

- Capture information from all saved or new Voicemails. DoIT recommends playing voicemails over speaker phone while using a usb recorder or recording app on your smartphone. DoIT’s Capturing Voicemail Messages FAQ

- Please go to DoIT’s Phone FAQ if you have any questions about how to access your voicemail or voicemail settings.

- Please delete any unneeded messages. This will decrease the duration of the service window.

If you have further questions, please contact the Technology Support Center by either submitting a support request at my.umbc.edu/help or calling (410) 455-3838.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we try and repair this system.

Ray Soellner

Assoc. Director of Telecommunications

DoIT - UMBC

The DoIT Technology Support Center is looking to hire additional consultants to work during the Fall. Please see our job description below and visit our job posting on UMBCWorks to apply. (Search for TSC Student Consultant.)

TSC Student Consultant Job Description

Technology Support Center (TSC) student consultants are the first points of technical contact for the UMBC community and those who do well often go on to work in other areas of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). Minimally, consultants are expected to provide initial triage and support for a wide-range of information technologies including accounts, hardware, instructional technologies, networking, software, telecommunications, and basic web development.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Provide technical assistance to users by phone, online and in person;
• Answer TSC phones in a professional and courteous manner;
• Create, update and resolve tickets in the Request Tracker (RT) ticketing system;
• Create, update, suggest and recommend relevant FAQ articles to users (www.umbc.edu/faq);
• Provide direct assistance to users on technical issues they cannot easily resolve on their own;
• Complete in-person or online training about quality support as defined in umbc.edu/go/ticketrubric;
• Respond to all work-related communications in a timely manner;
• Escalate urgent problems to the Full-Time staff, as appropriate.

Required Skills and Experience

• Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate by phone or in person.
• Demonstrated writing ability.
• Demonstrated ability to achieve successful outcomes in handling difficult situations and customers.
• Demonstrated analytical and troubleshooting skills.
• Ability & willingness to learn coupled with a clear understanding of one’s technical abilities, so as to triage and escalate an issue that leads to an effective solution for the user.

Andrew Gribben (pictured at right), Specialist in Undergraduate Admissions and Orientation, recently helped assist his colleagues in switching to Duo two-factor authentication as part of DoIT’s upcoming two-factor authentication requirement for faculty and staff with Peoplesoft access above “self-service” functions such as timesheets, etravel requests, etc.

Andrew demoed Duo during a staff meeting including having someone sign up in real time. He helped ease the transition to Duo by making himself available to walk staff through the sign-up process, as well as, answer any of their questions. When asked about what helped his group the most, Andrew says he targeted those who were skeptical or concerned before the rollout to the entire group. "This helped ensure a smoother process overall."

To help make sure your office’s rollout goes smoothly, Andrew and DoIT recommend the including the following to help your department’s rollout go smoothly:

• Demo Duo live to show not only how it works but how to sign up.

• Leverage the Duo FAQ collection to help users

• Send out email reminders encouraging users to sign up.

• Be available to offer 1 on 1 support to staff if necessary.

Once again, DoIT strongly encourages all faculty and staff to enable Duo 2FA now, but all employees with PeopleSoft access will be required to do so (staff by 12/31/18, faculty by 9/1/19). After these dates, DoIT will automatically enroll required employees into Duo. DoIT will also provide a “count-down” weekly reminder 90 days before the relevant deadline.

Click here to learn how to activate Duo today.

Additional information about Duo two-factor authentication is available in the FAQs.

If you have further questions, please contact the Technology Support Center by either submitting a support request at my.umbc.edu/help or calling (410) 455-3838.