IT Services will upgrade McGill’s Data Center firewall on Saturday, July 18, 2026, from 6:00 a.m. to 6:30 a.m.
This change is not expected to impact Internet access. However, users may experience brief interruptions when accessing systems hosted in the McGill Data Center.
This upgrade is part of an ongoing initiative to replace end-of-support firewall infrastructure, enhancing security and ensuring more reliable access to McGill applications and services.
Due to year-end activities, MMP will be unavailable from Friday, April 24, at 5:00 p.m. to Friday, May 1st, at 9:00 a.m.
Update:
The REDCap system (Administration & Research) is now back online and fully operational.
The necessary updates and security measures have been completed, and service has been restored. We continue to monitor the system to ensure stability and security.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Original message posted yesterday:
The REDCap system (Administration & Research) has been temporarily shut down following the identification of critical vulnerabilities by the vendor.
Attackers, scammers, marketers: these days they’re all taking advantage of AI to generate polished, typo-free content. Figuring out if an email is legitimate has definitely become more challenging. But when you access your McGill email through Microsoft Outlook, you benefit from several extra features that help protect you from phishing.
Keep an eye out for: phishing safety tips
Microsoft Copilot is a generative AI tool that can help you write texts, generate images, translate texts into other languages, and much more. Learn how to access this powerful tool and use its main features with our self-paced introductory online module on myCourses. Through hands-on exercises and real-world scenarios, as well as a discussion of ethical AI practices, you’ll be well-equipped to use Copilot productively and responsibly.
IT Services recently migrated many Webex softphone users to Teams Phone.
As a result, users may have received a message from Microsoft stating their license will be deactivated soon. (See screenshot above.) It is a legitimate message from Microsoft.
All McGill faculty and staff are assigned Microsoft 365 licenses that provide access to applications such as Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, Word, and Excel. As part of the recent migration, IT Services changed the type of Microsoft 365 license assigned to some users.
We have received reports of a Read.AI bot attending or attempting to attend online meetings organized by McGill faculty and staff. The bot uses generative AI to create a text summarizing a meeting’s discussions and decisions; it then shares a link to that document with all participants.
McGill University must vet all IT solutions to ensure they safeguard data privacy and security. Read.AI has not been approved for teaching, research, or administrative activities at the University.
We are transitioning Webex softphone users to Teams Phone throughout December. Our IT team will contact individual users to provide specific timelines.
The benefits of switching to Teams Phone include:
Reduced costs
Same calling functionality as Webex (internal and external calling)
Keeping existing phone numbers
The University is already using the platform for internal calling, meetings, and collaboration
We are currently experiencing an issue where outbound external calls from Microsoft Teams phone are not functioning. Our team is actively investigating the cause. Incoming calls and internal Teams calls are not impacted at this time.
Resolved.
Please be advised that MS Copilot chat is only allowing file uploads up to 1MB at this time. Microsoft is investigating the matter, and we will communicate any updates we receive.
UPDATE SUCCESSFUL:
We would like to thank you for your patience during the recent Banner downtime.
The scheduled upgrade has been successfully completed and all related systems are now up and running!
ORIGINAL MESSAGE posted on March 12, 2023:
La version française suit.
IT Services is preparing for a required upgrade to Banner. Upgrading our systems on a regular basis is a fundamental activity that McGill University does to ensure we get the most functionality and security out of our tools and systems.
The Human Resources Office in the Faculty of Arts is pleased to announce the latest updates to Administrative and Support Staff positions within the Faculty. Join us in wishing your colleagues well as they continue their important work in the Faculty.
