Guidelines for writing IT alerts on the Rutgers IT website

Avoid using jargon
Words such as audit, client, domain, machine, and other technical language may have a specific meaning to IT staff and an entirely different meaning outside of IT. Be general and avoid specific IT language whenever possible in alerts for the general Rutgers community.

Make sure the IT Alerts title and content are clear
The Alert title should be clear, direct, and specific.
IT alerts should only be a few sentences that will be understood by faculty, staff, and students.
Use bulleted lists if you want to highlight services that will be affected due to an outage/planned maintenance.

Simplify Rutgers IT and avoid acronyms
When you are explaining why there is an issue with a service or an outage, make sure to use words that simplify IT at Rutgers. The initial status in the IT alert should include what’s happening and how it’s being addressed. Do not use acronyms (i.e. ESD, TD, UCS, etc.). Spell everything out.

Proofread your content
Don’t send out an IT alert without proofreading your content. Use a mix of these methods:
Use the spelling and grammar check available in various word-processing tools.
Run your content through  Grammarly, a free tool for improving writing.
Ask a colleague to review your content.

Examples of alerts

For planned maintenance

Status:
Scheduled/Update/Completed

Date:
XX

Sample title:
Planned maintenance: IT services unavailable XX

Status “scheduled” description example:
A number of Rutgers information technology services and systems will be unavailable on XX due to scheduled maintenance and upgrades. This work is necessary to XX.

The following services may be unavailable during the maintenance period:
XX
XX

Status “completed” description example:
The technology upgrade has been completed. The Rutgers information technology services and systems are being restored. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Office of Information Technology Help Desk:  https://it.rutgers.edu/help-support/

For service issue

Status:
Investigating/Update/Resolved

Date:
XX

Sample titles:
Issues accessing XX
Intermittent issues when accessing XX
Problems with XX
XX service unavailable

Status “investigating” description examples:
Users may be experiencing issues when accessing XX. The Office of Information Technology is investigating.
An issue with XX is resulting in the loss of access to XX for (faculty/staff/students). The Office of Information Technology is working to address the issue.
There have been reported issues with XX and it is currently (down/offline/unavailable/intermittently available). The Office of Information Technology will provide an update as soon as one is available.
Users have reported issues when accessing XX.
The Office of Information Technology is investigating reports of XX.

Status “update” description examples:
The Office of Information Technology is actively working to resolve the issues with XX. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide additional details (as soon as possible/at XX time).
The Office of Information Technology is continuing to troubleshoot the issues with XX.
Users of XX may continue to experience intermittent issues. We will report back as soon as we have an update.

Status “resolved” description examples:
The reported issues with XX have been resolved. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Office of Information Technology Help Desk:  https://it.rutgers.edu/help-support/
The issue with XX has been resolved. Users who continue to experience issues should XX.
XX is reporting that the XX service is operating normally. [To be used for issues with vendor software or services only.]
XX is now working. The Office of Information Technology will continue to monitor.