Dear
Colleagues,
Thank
you for your patience as we continue to assess the impact of the global IT
outage on our systems.
Based
on current best estimates, more than 7,000 USPTO employees could be impacted by
the faulty code deployed yesterday by CrowdStrike. Our IT Service Desk is
still fielding an extremely high call volume despite doubling our support
staff. At peak, the IT Service Desk queue exceeded 600 employees with an
estimated wait time of three and a half hours.
Next steps
If
you have been impacted and are not already on hold in the IT Service Desk
queue, please
call 571–272–9000
and leave a voicemail with your name, phone number,
workstation ID (located on front of laptop starting with EGUSXXXXXXX) and
availability over the weekend when you will be near your computer.
Technicians will work to contact you during your availability window, if
possible and in the order calls are received to resolve the issue. Please note
our review of your voicemail may not meet your availability window. We are
doing what we can to streamline the process and reduce wait time.
If
you already have a ticket number, an IT technician will call you back as soon
as possible in the order your call was received. The IT technician will
reference your specific Ticket Number prior to proceeding with your resolution
(a legitimate Ticket Number begins with INC followed by a Zero “0” and six
additional numbers – EX: INC 0123456).
If
you miss the call back from the Service Desk, an IT technician will leave a
voicemail message with your Ticket Number. When you are available at your
computer for resolution, send an email from your personal email address to ServiceDesk@uspto.gov, with your Ticket
Number in the subject line, and an IT technician will call you as quickly as
possible. If you do not
include the Ticket Number, you will not receive a reply.
Current work
Our
current goal is to work through those with ticket numbers and then will turn to
those users who left voicemails. This work will continue into the weekend. We
have added more IT technicians and extended IT Service Desk hours:
- Friday, 5:30am-10:00pm
ET - Saturday & Sunday,
7:30am-10:00pm ET
Throughout
the weekend, we will post updates to the System411 blog regarding the voicemail receipt window currently being addressed.
For example:
“We
are currently listening and processing voicemail messages received to the IT
Service Desk on Friday, 7/19/24 between 5:00pm and 7:00pm ET”
This
is an unprecedented service interruption. We are working diligently to rethink
our usual processes to ensure timely service and minimize your wait
time.
Additionally,
beginning Monday morning at 8 am, we will have on-site IT support for local
employees who would prefer to come to campus to resolve the issue. IT staff
will be located outside the Public Search Facility in the Madison East
atrium.
Accounting for time
I
know this has caused stress and frustration, and there are many questions. We
will be granting administrative time in response to this outage. More details
will be provided early next week from your BU leadership.
Please
stay tuned to the USPTO System411 blog, where we will provide subsequent updates as more relevant information
becomes available. We will publish an update at 10:00am ET on Saturday, July
20.