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ITS Maintenance/Information for this week:

This is your weekly digest of system maintenance/information and downtime. All notices are also posted on the myÂÜÀòÉäÇø Student Portal (Ellucian Experience), gounbc.sharepoint.com for Employees, support.unbc.ca and on unbc.ca /its. Please see one of these locations for maintenance notices.

ITS Maintenance Notice:Thursday, December 14^th  || Time: 10:30pm

Windows Workstation patching (all desktops and laptops running Windows)

• Windows Workstation Patching - Important information regarding the release and install of Software Security Updates for ÂÜÀòÉäÇø Workstations
• Security Updates are available to install from Tuesday, December 12^th  at 12:30pm
• Please follow restart instructions prior to the Thursday, December 14^th  at 10:30pm, when restarts will occur automatically

ITS Advanced Maintenance Notice: Tuesday, December 19^th  || Time: 8:00pm to 9:00pm

NetApp Servers: During this maintenance window, users may experience service interruptions with their G:\ drive & H:\ drive.

Important Note: If you are unable to access your G:\ drive & H:\ drive, please restart your computer and login again.

ITS Information Notice: G:Drive Folders & H:Drive will be decommissioned as of September 2025

What is happening?

The Shared on-campus storage (G: Drive folders) & Personal on-campus storage (H: Drive) for file storage, will be decommissioned as of September 2025. As a best practice for modernizing and safeguarding our file storage infrastructure, ÂÜÀòÉäÇø ITS is continuing its shift towards cloud-based file storage.

Moving data into the cloud makes campus files easier to access due to the increase in people who require remote access to their files and the difficulties with VPN-based file shares. With the increasing use of OneDrive, Teams and SharePoint, it is no longer viable to use an older & less secure shared space for file storage.

How to prepare?

To prepare for this change, ÂÜÀòÉäÇø ITS recommends that Faculty & Staff begin migrating their files over to the preferred location.

Files	Preferred location
Personal ÂÜÀòÉäÇø- related documents & files	One Drive
University files for all employees & Department documents and files	SharePoint Online
Department documents and files	Microsoft Teams

• OneDrive offers seamless collaboration capabilities, online and offline document editing and syncing, and editing and syncing files across web, mobile, and desktop.

• SharePoint Online is a Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based service that helps users share and mange content, knowledge and applications, encourage teamwork and facilitate seamless collaboration across the organization. It provides a secure location to store, exchange and access data from virtually any device and all major online browsers. 

• Microsoft Teams offers a workspace for real-time communication and collaboration (text chat and video), file and app sharing. Teams and Channels can be used for tracking projects, conversations, files, meetings, etc. A Team is essentially extra functionally and features added on top of a SharePoint Online site. This means that every Team has a corresponding SharePoint Online site, which stores all the Team content.

Resources

Please visit our knowledge base article, available on our support portal for further information.

ÂÜÀòÉäÇø employees have access to LinkedIn Learning, an online professional development portal. To start, click on the link below and use your ÂÜÀòÉäÇø username (in the format username@unbc.ca).

Contact Information

Thank you for your assistance while we keep our systems maintained and secure. If there are any questions, please contact the IT Service Desk using the information below.

 IT Service Desk Contact Information:

• Telephone: 250-960-5321
• Toll Free: 866-960-5321
• Email: support@unbc.ca
• Web: unbc.ca/its
• Customer Support Portal:  support.unbc.ca
• Service Desk hours: Monday - Friday 8:00am to 4:00pm
  • Closed daily from 12:00pm to 12:30pm
• Located on the second floor of the Teaching Lab, room 8-264.