This page provides information about network and service outages that might affect access to the myASU portal and online courses.

If you're having problems accessing myASU, there are two types of outages that might be affecting your ability to access an online course:

• MyASU Server Outage: When a problem occurs with the myASU servers, you might encounter problems authenticating with myASU and viewing any course materials posted on myASU.



• General Network Outage: When a general network outage occurs, you might encounter problems with one or more of the following: authenticating with or accessing any centralized server, viewing web pages, reading/sending e-mail.

Usually, the ASU IT staff plans maintenance to the network and the servers during the early morning hours or weekends. In general, myASU is unavailable at the following times:

• Nightly from 3:00 AM to 3:30 AM MST to allow for system backups.
• Friday nights from 9:00 PM until Saturday at 2:00 AM MST for system maintenance.

The schedule for any other planned outages can be found on the IT Outages page. You can also subscribe to receive announcements via e-mail about electronic messaging and network outages by signing up on the IT Announcements web page.

Sometimes, however, unexpected events occur that cause network or system problems. If you believe you are encountering a general network or system outage, please refer to the section on what you can do if you are having problems accessing myASU.

NOTE: Before you log a problem with the ASU IT department, please check to verify that your problems accessing myASU are related to system or network outages at ASU.

If you are having problems accessing myASU:

1. Check the ASU IT Outages web page to determine if you are experiencing a planned system or network outage and, if so, which services are impacted by the outage.
   
   For questions about the web page or to listen to recorded system messages, contact the ASU IT Help Desk at (480) 965-6500.
   
   
2. Log the problem with the ASU IT Help Desk and insist they create a help ticket (or request the help ticket number if a ticket already exists for the problem).
   
   The IT department may already know about the situation or may not be able to respond to your e-mail right away, but your action will help establish a log of the difficulties you are experiencing and emphasize the necessity to fix the problem.
   
   You can contact the ASU IT Help Desk either by phone: (480) 965-6500 or by e-mail: helpdesk@asu.edu.
   
   
3. Please be patient.
   
   We understand that when unplanned network outages occur it can be frustrating to encounter issues and to experience a lack of information about the outages and how they're being handled. Please trust that the IT staff members are working full-time to correct the problem and restore system and network access as soon as possible.
   
   

We understand that when unplanned network outages occur, it can be frustrating to encounter issues and to experience a lack of information about the outages and how they're being handled. To prepare for these situations there are some precautions you can take in order to minimize the impact of an unplanned network or myASU server outage.

1. Establish an alternate e-mail account (such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Cox.net, etc.) from which you can send e-mail to students in the event of network problems.
   
   NOTE: If the network outages are affecting campus e-mail, you may be able to still send and receive e-mail through your alternate account.
   
   
2. Keep a local copy of the names and e-mail addresses of students enrolled in your course. If the technical problems are related only to the myASU servers, you should still be able to send your students e-mail to keep them notified of the problem.
   
   To obtain a copy of the names and e-mail addresses of students enrolled in your course, use the Roster/Grade Application.
   
   NOTE: If the network outages are affecting campus e-mail, it will not be possible to send a note to your students from your campus e-mail account to their campus e-mail accounts. You may be able to send e-mail to and from other accounts such as Hotmail or Yahoo e-mail accounts.
   
   
3. Write documents and discussion postings "offline" in Microsoft Word or another text editor and then copy, paste and post the text into myASU when you've finished writing the text.
   
   This precaution applies to both you and your students and allows all of you to keep a local copy of your work and then upload or post material once you have finished composing your comments. If a network problem occurs while you are composing an online posting, it will not be possible for IT to recover the text of your message.
   
   
4. Keep local copies of all course materials that are posted on the myASU servers.
   
   These copies should be kept on a local computer (home and/or office), a floppy or zip disc, your personal drive at ASU and/or another location. Materials for which you might want to keep local copies include discussion board messages, online grade books, course documents, test results and uploaded files.
   
   
5. Be flexible.
   
   If an unexpected system or network outage occurs before a paper or an exam is due, try to be flexible with assignment deadlines. In most situations, access will be restored quickly and students will be able to continue working on their assignments or exams. In some extreme circumstances, the system or network may be unavailable for an extended period of time and it may be necessary to postpone assignment or exam due dates.