Example Communications Channels 


Comms Channels For Communicating with
Email to  Enquiries or Helpdesk Colleagues who may have to field calls about the change or its impact
A message in Inside Strathclyde All staff where a change has a cross University impact - such as an outage to a major system or service
A message on My Place Where a change has a widespread impact on students
A message on IT Spotlight To communicate with IT staff across the University 
A notification on Service Status of an outage or a at-risk period Communicate with all customers about outages or at-risk periods.  
A notification on FreshService To warn anyone logging a call via the FreshServe Portal of an outage or at-risk period
An email to the Major Incidents Email List to notify senior University staff of the change.  Generally reserved for changes that will result in an outage or at-risk period that could potentially have a major impact 
A message on the relevant Teams site To make colleagues aware of the change 
Briefing ISD senior management by email, Teams or In person  Usually where a change will have a high level of risk associated with it
Tweeting  Another route to reaching staff and student regarding a change.  



Advice for Communications


  • Short as possible
  • Tailored to the group being targeted by that communication
  • Non-technical (unless aimed at a technical audience)
  • Concentrate on the impact the individual can expect (so give the times of any outages and the times that a service is at risk; if the times of outages are unknown you might want to say “There will be outages of a duration of XX minutes between the times of XX:XX and YY:YY but please consider the service at risk throughout that time”)
  • Warn them of anything they should do before the change (like log out); direct them to more information, if relevant, like service status.    And if relevant how they will be updated during/after the change.  
  • Saying “sorry for the inconvenience caused by this essential maintenance” goes a long way.  




Example Comms


System X will be unavailable from XX:XX YY:YY on DD/MM/YY.  This is to allow the application of urgent security updates.  IT Services apologises for the inconvenience.  


Regular patching will be applied to System Y on DD/MM/YYYY.  This is not expected to cause any outage however, the system should be regarded as being "at risk" between XX:XX and YY:YY.  IT Services apologises for the inconvenience.  Information on the availability of systems is available at:  https://status.strath.ac.uk/