RISIS system upgrade: project schedule

Our student data platform, RISIS, is moving online, providing a more secure system and making it easier to access while working from home.

RISIS (Reading Integrated Student Information System) is supported by a database called SITS (Student Information Technology Services), which holds students’ personal and academic records and is accessed by teams such as Finance, the Library, Accommodation and Timetabling.

Between 20-26 March, the SITS database is being migrating from University servers on campus to a Cloud environment by software provider Tribal. This project is being managed at Reading by DTS teams and the Student Information Systems team.

What will change?

The move will provide a number of benefits to the University, including additional security, improved performance, increased resilience, and automatic scaling in size at periods of peak demand.

After the move, users will access RISIS via a browser or app, which will improve options for hybrid and remote working.

Most users will see little difference since the RISIS portal will still be web-based and integrated with University systems, as it is now.

Scheduled downtime

Most of the migration will take place over the weekend of 23-24 March. However, there will be unavoidable extended downtime either side of the weekend for the following systems:

• RISIS (SITS), Student Help Desk and Student WebPay will be unavailable from 16:00 on Thursday 21 March until 10:00 on Monday 25 March. During this period, payment of fees through Student WebPay and production of new student Campus Cards will not be possible. Updates to student data will not show on systems that take this from RISIS until Monday 25 March.
• MyID (IIQ) will be unavailable from 18:00 on Wednesday 20 March until 11:00 on Tuesday 26 March. Processing of account changes during this time will be paused.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused during this important work.

For students, the downtime periods may affect submission of assignments, uploading of references, completion of application forms, viewing of exam timetables and all other RISIS portal-based functions. We ask all staff to take account of this for any deadlines.

All RISIS users, system owners and students have been emailed to notify them of the periods of downtime.

Information and support

For further information please check the DTS Systems Status page (https://itsstatus.reading.ac.uk/), which will be kept up to date with any changes in timings.

You can also check progress on the RISIS, SITS, SID maintenance page, and the MyID IIQ Account Management maintenance page.

If you need any help, please contact the project team by raising a ticket with the IT Service Desk.