This week was frustrating for many people at McMaster. Mosaic, the University’s new information system, was unusable for several hours on multiple days, interrupting access for many students and disrupting work for many staff.

The Mosaic interruptions are challenging and stressful for everyone.

Resolving these system performance issues is the highest priority for UTS and the Mosaic team. Every available resource that can help is being put towards improving Mosaic performance.

It’s natural to ask “how could this happen?”  The answer is that McMaster initially configured Mosaic’s infrastructure to emphasize redundancy. With experience, we are seeing that the balance needs to shift towards increased performance and stability. Our technical team is working to adjust the situation, focusing on stability first, performance second, and redundancy third. Users will continue to see gradual performance improvements as we continue to make adjustments to the system.

In the meantime, we’re asking members of the University to be flexible, when possible, with deadlines. For example, Financial Affairs has extended the March month-end approval deadline. Please prioritize activities that have firm deadlines, such as grade submission, time entry for employee pay, admissions processing, and graduand reviewing.

A week like this past one can lead all of us to doubt the path we’ve chosen with Mosaic. As difficult as this transition has been thus far, McMaster needs a modern system to support students, teaching, research, finance and HR. Implementing this system is essential to the University’s long-term success.

The implementation, training and adjustment to the system have been hard work and we appreciate all of your efforts. We have immense respect for, and pride in, the incredible teamwork that has allowed us to get to this stage. We will complete this journey together. Please be patient with each other and Mosaic.