Planned phone system outage on Oct. 19

Note: This notice has expired.
Published October 7th, 2020; last updated October 15th, 2020

Brandon University is upgrading our phone and voicemail system on campus. Both our Winnipeg Campus and our Brandon Campus will be getting these upgrades. This will require a complete outage of phone services for a full day at each campus. You will not be able to make or receive phone calls to or from Brandon University.

What if I need to contact someone?

Please make alternate arrangements ahead of time, including exchanging email addresses or cell phone numbers.

If you need to contact BU security during the upgrade, please call the Paladin mobile cell for the Brandon area at 204-726-3575 or contact Michael McCormick, Director of the BU Physical Plant, at 431-541-6383. In an emergency, call 911.

When are the upgrades and outages taking place?

  • October 14th, 2020 the Winnipeg Campus will be upgraded. — COMPLETE
  • October 19th, 2020 the Brandon Campus will be upgraded.

During these dates, the phones at those locations will be offline for the entire day, and incoming phone calls will be answered by an automated greeting informing the caller of the temporary outage.

What does this mean for people with BU phones?

Initially, not a lot. After the upgrades your desk phone will continue to operate as normal, your phone number will not change, your voicemail will continue to work as usual. What these upgrades do for Brandon University is allows us more flexibility with our phonesystem.  The voicemail upgrade lets us integrate more closely with the Microsoft Office 365 platform, and it gives our core phone system more resiliency and redundancy to reduce the chances of unexpected outages, among other things. 

With that said, there will be some minor tasks that you will need to complete to ensure a seamless cutover for your voicemail:

  • Your voicemail password is going to change.
    • As of Oct. 14th (Winnipeg campus) and Oct. 19th (Brandon campus), your voicemail password will be set to a temporary password. This has been emailed to you.
    • When migrating to the new system we can bring over lots of settings, but your voicemail password isn’t one of them. You will be given a default password on your voicemail, but when you access it for the first time you will be prompted to change it.
  • Any messages currently in your voicemail box will not transfer over.
    • If you have any unread or saved messages in your voicemail box, they will not transfer over to the new system. So please listen and note any information from any voicemails in your voicemail box before the phone system upgrades on Oct. 14th(Winnipeg) and Oct. 19th (Brandon).
    • If you have integrated your voicemail into your email, no action is required. Your voicemail messages will remain in your email
  • If you are currently set up for email integration you will continue to receive your voicemail to your email after the upgrades.
  • Your recorded name and your voice prompts will transfer over to the new system, but it is recommended to log into your mailbox after the upgrades and confirm they are correct.

Questions?

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Michael Leroy, BU’s Coordinator, Networks and Operations at 204-571-8509 or leroym@brandonu.ca.