Microsoft automation systems update

Owned by Sarah McKone
Last updated: Nov 10, 2022
2 min read

Published: November 15, 2022

What is happening? The automation systems used to request Microsoft Teams, Planner, Bookings, and UW Teams Roster Sync (TRS) are being upgraded to increase security and transparency.

When is it happening? Tuesday, November 15th, from 10:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. 

What is the impact? There will be an expected 30-minute outage of the aforementioned systems while the updated applications are published to the production servers. New requests for the impacted services can continue to be submitted via the Jira Portal during this time and will be processed once the systems are brought back into service. 

Why is this happening?

  • Set up each service to run as separate service accounts with unique permission to ensure:

    • The minimum permissions required are exposed to create and maintain the objects

    • Properly identify the service accounts creating and managing the resources

      • Teams requests are completed by: UW Teams Automation

      • Planner requests are completed by: UW Planner Automation

      • Bookings requests are completed by: UW Booking Automation

      • TRS requests are completed by: UW Teams Roster Sync

  • Address an issue with Bookings accessed either via the system default username (@uofwaterloo.onmicrosoft.com) or the updated proper username (@uwaterloo.ca) creating duplicate entries on the Bookings portal page.

    • To address this, we have introduced a 15-minute timeout after the Booking is created and updated before adding the requestor to the Booking calendar so that the only address exposed to a requestor is the @uwaterloo.ca address

    • As this created a significant delay between processing multiple requests, the system has been upgraded to process multiple jobs at a time to reduce the potential longer wait if many requests are received at any given time

  • Implementation of the Azure Key Vault service to enhance the security of the application and to further streamline the development process.

Questions or concerns? Please submit a support request via the IST Jira Help Portal.