Outage Communication Policy

Policy Purpose

This policy defines the appropriate communication procedures for outages on the UAFS campus.

Policy Statement

It shall be the policy of the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith to communicate outages to the campus community. This policy covers both planned and unplanned outages. This is considered a best practice.

Applicability

This policy applies to all University employees and students.

Definitions

Change control – A process that is created to make sure that changes to computer systems are introduced in a controlled manner to minimize disruptions to services.
Planned outage – A disruption to computing services that is planned in advance in order to update or maintain systems.
Unplanned outage – An outage that occurs without notice or planning due to system failures.

Policy Procedure

Unplanned Outages:
1. Unplanned outages will be posted on the MyUAFS intranet.
2. Campus wide users will be notified by email if an unplanned outage will be for an extended period of time.
3. Follow up communication will be sent out with an updated status as needed.
4. Follow up communication will be sent out upon conclusion of the outage.
Planned Outages:
1. The IT department will create a change control request via the campus ticketing system.
2. Change controls will be reviewed by the IT management team.
3. After the change control has been approved, a communication template will be used to send out an email notifying users of the upcoming change. The template will include a list of systems affected, the date and time of the change, the length of time that will be blocked out for the change, and the change control number assigned to the change.
4. Planned outages normally occur on Wednesday and Friday nights from 9:00pm to 6:00am.
5. Occasional planned outages will fall outside of the Wednesday or Friday night time periods, usually due to requests by the vendor.
6. If an outage is not resolved as planned, a follow up communication will be sent out with an updated status.

Enforcement

None Applicable

Policy Management

This policy is managed by the IT department. The IT Director and appointed IT personnel are the primary administrators of this policy. The responsible executive is the VCFA.

Exclusions

None Applicable

Effective and Approved Date

This internal policy was approved by Terry Meadows – Director of IT/CIO on 3/7/2023

Last Updated

10/31/2025 – Reformatted for accessibility by Terry Meadows Director of IT/CIO