Last night Microsoft announced a service outage, which has impacted millions globally.
Schools, hospitals and offices currently face distruption in their communications and data processing. Ambulance services have been unable to refer patient details, likely causing a backlog once the server is functional again.
So how does this affect students?
Outlook is completely down. So, if you are looking for Canvas updates from lecturers you should check Canvas directly. If a question is more urgent, reaching out to your lecturer or personal tutor in person is likely the best solution at this time.
Microsoft Teams and Copilot have also been affected. According to the university app, messaging on Microsoft Teams is working normally.
Airthrey Park Medical Centre is unable to receive or respond to emails at this time. For enquiries about prescriptions, you can still call 01786 463831 and select option 2. If you want to book an appointment, expect delays or issues.
The UniDesk on campus has reported they are unable to import emails. If you send an email to Information Services, it may be received, but not through “usual channels”.
Kristina Wilkenstein, Brig’s news editor, has been very distressed by the outage. She said: “As a student who relies so much on outlook this has caused a lot of stress. At the time of the outage I needed to email my lecturer quite urgently about other technical issues for an assignment, but there was no way of getting in touch.”
A status report from Microsoft showed some progress towards normality. “Recovery actions are ongoing and have progressed in phases across affected Microsoft 365 infrastructure. Global telemetry and customer reports show incremental improvement in several workloads; however, service health remains variable and capacity has not yet fully returned to baseline.”
Featured image credit: Angel Bela, Pexels.com
Third year journalism student. 2025/2026 Lifestyle and Comment Editor at Brig. Published in The Yucatán Times, Mi Campeche and The Mourning Paper. Host of From the 40s with Air3Radio.
