myTCU Gets a New Look

Faculty/Staff and Students,

On Friday, October 13th we will take myTCU down at 5 p.m. to do a system upgrade and we should have everything back up by noon on Sunday, October 15th.  This upgrade is focused on putting a completely new face on the portal.    

How does this affect me?

Keep in mind that myTCU manages multiple systems across campus so you will NOT have access to the following items during the upgrade:

• myTCU Portal:
  • Student Center
  • Employee Center
  • Faculty/Advising Center
• This will also include the following services that are not part of the sections listed above:
  • New TCU Guest Account Creation
  • Network Device Registration for Students
  • Financial Reporting
  • Qualtrics Survey Creation/Management
  • Computer Asset Management Information

We will have an outage page posted on the site during the maintenance window.  It will include links to some of the services like Email, Box, IT Self-Service, and TCU Online that you might have normally accessed from the portal. 

Please, plan your activities accordingly so you are not affected by this maintenance window.  If you have any questions, you can contact the IT Support HelpDesk for assistance.

As of Friday, August 11th, the new Cable TV channel lineup has been finalized.  All you need to do at this point is have your TV rescan for channels to pick up any recent changes. 

What changed with Cable TV?

The channel lineup has changed somewhat since we moved to a new Cable TV service provider in July.  All you have to do is rescan for channels in order to pick up any changes to the system.  If you would like a list of available channels, please reference the link below. 

Cable TV Channel Lineup

Faculty/Staff, over the course of the past two years we have done extensive work to prepare the campus for a true technology disaster.  Last year we did a disaster recovery test in June and are now ready to run a similar trial this summer.  The 2017 Disaster Recovery Test will start on Sunday, June 11^th and end at 5pm on Monday, June 12^th.  Please, make note of these dates on your calendar so you can plan accordingly.

What does this mean for you?

With all of the recent changes we don’t expect this test to impact the campus greatly.  All of TCU’s primary systems have backup servers running in our secondary data center which will take over when we do this test.  Our goal is to ensure that our redundant systems do their job in the case that TCU is faced with a true emergency.

Major systems like email, printing, file shares, Internet access, myTCU/PeopleSoft, ID card access, and TCU websites are expected to make a seamless transition or have minimal downtime.  We DO expect the following systems to be unavailable on June 12th, so please plan your use of these services accordingly.

• Affected Systems:
  • Archfile
  • ArcGIS
  • Dspace
  • Tableau
  • Wellness Gold
  • Several other select systems that have been communicated directly to the owner of the service.

If you have any questions or problems, please reach out to the IT Support HelpDesk using the information below and we will route your questions to the appropriate contact.

Faculty/Staff – On May 21st, the campus will be moving to a new print server called tcuprintsrv01.  After this date, Windows and Macintosh users must use this new server to print to a network printer.  The old servers (printsrv01 and printsrv64) will be decommissioned and the ability to print via direct IP will be restricted with the conversion to the new Layer 3 network. How does this affect me? Many of you have already transitioned to tcuprintsrv01 over the past several months and this new system should provide some added stability to your print requests. If you recently received a new Xerox printer, those devices have already been added correctly so no action is required.  The focus of this change will be on our networked HP printers. Windows Instructions We have created instructions on how to connect to a printer from tcuprintsrv01.  You only need to follow these instructions if you are still printing to a printer on the old printsrv01 or printsrv64 servers. Windows 7 Instructions Windows 8.1 and 10 Instructions Mac Instructions Many of our Mac users were printing to their network printers via direct IP and this will need to change before we move to the new system.  Please, review the instructions below on how to add your network printers using the new method. macOS Instructions Getting Help If you have any questions/problems with network printing, please reach out to the IT Support HelpDesk for assistance.  If you are not sure whether or not you are printing using the old method, please refer to the attached document for help.

Faculty/Staff, over the course of the past two years we have done extensive work to prepare the campus for a true technology disaster.  Last year we did a disaster recovery test in June and are now ready to run a similar trial this summer.  The 2017 Disaster Recovery Test will start on Sunday, June 11^th and end at 5pm on Monday, June 12^th.  Please, make note of these dates on your calendar so you can plan accordingly.

What does this mean for me?

With all of the recent changes we don’t expect this test to impact the campus greatly.  All of TCU’s primary systems have backup servers running in our secondary data center which will take over when we do this test.  Our goal is to ensure that our redundant systems do their job in the case that TCU is faced with a true emergency.

Major systems like email, printing, file shares, Internet access, myTCU/Peoplesoft, ID card access, and TCU websites are expected to make a seamless transition or have minimal downtime.  If a system does NOT have redundancy in both of our data centers, then you could see a loss of service during the test window.  We will provide more details about specific systems that fall into this category as we move closer to the test date.

Faculty/Staff, since the new version of iOS and macOS Sierra (which will be released to campus later this week) no longer support our current VPN tool, we have been testing a new solution that we are ready to release to campus.

If you connect to TCU resources from off campus using the VPN, then it will be important for you to transition to this new solution. We expect to turn off the old VPN system at the end of this semester so you have time to decide when you are ready to move over.

How do I install the new VPN?

We have created instructions on how to install the VPN on your device.  Keep in mind that the VPN tool only needs to be installed on a device that you are using off campus in order to securely connect to TCU resources (i.e. Remote Desktop).

• Android Instructions
• iOS Instructions (iPhone and iPad)
• Windows Instructions
• macOS Instructions

How does this affect me?

We recommend that you take time to test out the new VPN connection tool now before we retire the old system at the end of the semester to ensure that your devices work to connect to TCU resources from off campus. If you use the VPN and have upgraded your iPhone/iPad to iOS 10 or your Macintosh computer to macOS Sierra (coming later this week), then you must use the new VPN tool.

We are excited about this change and hope that you enjoy using the new tool.  If you have any questions/problems with VPN, please reach out to the IT Support HelpDesk for assistance.

Faculty/Staff, last week we announced that the campus is moving to a new voicemail system and now it is time to start taking action to prepare for the transition.  Please, review the information below to find out what you need to be doing.

How does this affect me?

The new system is ready to go and we will switch over on Friday, February 3^rd at 5pm.  This will give you one week to setup your new mailbox and save any important messages before the old system goes away.  Please, review the two items below on how to prepare:

1. Setup Your New Voicemail Mailbox Now – Moving to a new system will mean that you have to setup a voicemail passcode and greeting.  We have created a temporary number so you can call in early and begin this process.  Keep in mind that not completing this step before the transition date will mean that people won’t be able to leave you a voice message.  See the attached instructions on what to do.

2. Save Your Old Messages – Unfortunately, your current voicemail messages will NOT be moved over to the new system.  We recommend that you review the messages in the current system to verify that you don’t need to keep anything.  Messages that you need to keep can be recorded via speakerphone to a small handheld recorder (or even your mobile device).

If you have any questions/problems, please reach out to IT Technical Services for assistance using the information below.

Attachment – Setup Your New Mailbox Early

Faculty/Staff, on Monday, January 23^rd, we will be making some changes to your TCU email that will affect how web links show up in your messages.  We are adding a new product called Proofpoint, to help protect against specific threats distributed via email, including phishing messages and targeted attacks. This change requires no action on your part, but we recommend that you review the information below for details on how to prepare.

What does Proofpoint do?

In order to block malicious links, the product essentially rewrites all URLs contained in emails that are coming from non-TCU addresses.  The new URL begins with “urldefense.proofpoint.com” and can be seen by hovering over the link, as in the example below.

Proofpoint reviews the links and works to protect your computer by blocking malicious pages.  If the link is safe and you click on it, you will see no difference. If it is malicious and you click on it, you will see a notification in your browser that looks like the image below.

How does this affect me?

We have been testing this product with several departments for the past few months so we don’t expect you to see any problems.  Again, this added protection does not require any action on your part.  The only notable difference will be that web links from non-TCU emails will look slightly different.

If you have questions about this tool, please reach out to the IT Support HelpDesk for assistance.