Notice Board

Thursday, August 3

The new online parking permit request system performed smoothly during this week’s sales, with permits for all student lots selling out quickly. The system, which collected permit requests using a simple form, could process requests almost instantly. Within 10 seconds of opening today, approximately 1,300 forms were already being administered, and the volume of requests was so high that all available parking permits were allocated based on requests received within the first two and a half minutes.

All request forms were time-stamped when submitted; permits were assigned on a first-come, first-served basis according to time submitted and lot preferences. There may be instances where a student who submitted a form prior to another student did not receive a parking pass because their preferred lots were sold out. For example, Taylor submitted the form at 7:02 and chose lot M, lot N and lot E. Asher submitted the form 15 seconds later and selected lot N, lot F and lot Q. Taylor did not receive a pass, since no passes remained available for lots M, N, and E, but Asher received a pass in lot Q because there were lot Q passes available at the time of submission.

Staff in Parking Services are working hard to finalize the wait list and are beginning to distribute passes. They will respond to your messages as quickly as possible; your patience is sincerely appreciated.

Tuesday, August 1

The first phase of parking permit sales for residence students was a success!

The general release for student parking permits will launch on Thursday, August 3 at 7 a.m. We will follow up with all students as to whether they received a pass within 24 hours.

All general pass students will be sent a unique link to the parking request form from Parking Services (noreply@qemailserver.com) no later than 10 a.m. tomorrow to “@uleth.ca” email accounts.  Students wishing to apply for a general parking permit must use this link, and the request form can only be completed once. 

Check your inbox after 10 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday, August 2) to confirm you received the link.

 If you do not receive an email with a link to the parking pass form, check your junk folder to ensure it wasn’t caught by your mail filter. If not, contact parking@uleth.ca before 4 p.m. on Wednesday, August 2 to have it resent to you. We cannot guarantee link requests made after 4 p.m.

Parking permits will be assigned to students based on preference and first come, first served. Students will have the opportunity to rank lots in which they are eligible to park.

Friday, July 28

Next week parking permit sales will be launched in two phases; Tuesday, August 1 at 7 a.m. for residence pass students and Thursday, August 3 at 7 a.m. for general pass students.

All students will be assigned a unique link to purchase a parking permit. Remember, the link will only work once. Residence pass students will receive their parking link through the online Check-In System and instructions to access this system will be emailed to students on July 31 by Housing Services.

All correspondence will be sent to “@uleth.ca” email accounts.

General pass students will receive their link via email on August 2 from Parking Services (noreply@qemailserver.com). If you do not receive an email with a link to your inbox, check your junk folder. If you do not receive one at all, please contact parking@uleth.ca and they will resend it to you.

If you have not set up your uLethbridge webmail account login and password, please do so now. Instructions can be found here. ulethbridge.ca/loginsetup

We encourage students to access the parking form promptly on their respective launch day. Based on the number of parking spaces available, and the demand for on-campus parking, it is unlikely that all students who request parking permits will receive them. Permits will be assigned on a first come first serve basis.

Students will receive an email from Parking Services with the status of their request. Residence pass students will be informed within 24 hours and general students will be informed within 48 hours.

Those students who successfully acquire a pass will see a charge on their student account on August 15. Those who do not receive a pass will have the option to be put on a waiting list.

Stay tuned for your emails next week.

If you have any questions, contact parking@uleth.ca.

Wednesday, July 26

Thank you for your continued patience as we streamline our parking pass process at uLethbridge. We have developed a parking permit form for you to complete online. It will be mobile-friendly and take only a few moments to complete.

Since the process is different for students living in residence than for the general student population, the forms will be launched in two phases; Tuesday, August 1 at 7 a.m. for resident students and Thursday, August 3 at 7 a.m. for general passes.

Resident students will only be able to purchase passes for resident student designated parking lots on August 1.

Students must be registered for the Fall 2017 semester to be eligible to purchase a pass.

You will be sent an email to your “@uleth.ca”account that includes a unique link to purchase a parking pass. Residents will receive the email on July 31 and general population on August 2. Resident students will receive their link through the online Check-In System.

Passes will be distributed, first come, first served.

To register for a permit, please click on the url link provided to you in your email.

This url is unique to you; it’s attached to your student account and will only work once. Please be mindful of your selections as you fill out the form as once it is submitted, your selections are final. The form will not be active or available until 7 a.m.

The email will be sent from the “University of Lethbridge”; make sure to check your junk folder if you do not see a message in your inbox. If you do not receive an email, please contact parking@uleth.ca and they will resend your link.

We will share additional instructions as well as an FAQ on Friday, July 28.

Friday, July 21

Once again, thank you for remaining patient as we work through this process.

After a week of extensive work with our vendor and significant testing of the parking permit system, we are unfortunately still experiencing issues and are not confident to relaunch the system as it is.

As a result, we have abandoned plans to use this system as a means of distributing parking permits.

“I cannot go to our students and guarantee they will have the experience they deserve,” says John O’Keeffe, Executive Director, Campus Safety.

The University is developing a streamlined process that will operate much like an online survey; it will allow students to logon via a personalized link, then simply complete and submit a short form. Students will be able to complete the form on a computer or mobile device, and it will take only a few minutes.

This system will be available beginning Tuesday, Aug. 1. Complete details of this system will be announced on Wednesday, July 26, including how to access the survey, when you will receive your personalized link and more.

This information will be communicated via email, ULink, the Notice Board and on social media.

Tuesday, July 18

Thank you for your patience as we continue to work toward a solution to the parking pass system.

Since the system was taken offline Monday morning, the University has been working with our external vendor to identify and fix the issues that prompted the system to fail.

Our tentative plan is to relaunch the system in two stages in order to ease the number of students who access the system at one time.

We are planning to start with resident students at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, July 25. These students are not being given priority over other students; they already have the ability to purchase a parking pass during their check-in process and can only apply for parking in student residence lots at that time. If anything it is envisaged this will reduce the number of login attempts during the general parking permit release.

We will then open access to the general parking permits at 7 a.m. on Thursday, July 27. 

Please note: This is a tentative plan only. Over the next two days we will continue to carry out extensive testing of the system to ensure all issues have been resolved.

We will finalize details for the relaunch only when we are confident in the system and it performs as expected. We will update you on Friday, July 21 to either finalize the relaunch plans or provide further information. We will communicate this via email, ULink, the Notice Board and on social media.

Monday, July 17

The University of Lethbridge has suspended the sale of online parking passes because the system was not meeting expectations during periods of high online traffic. We feel your frustration and sincerely apologize for the poor performance of the system. We are working on a solution and will relaunch as soon as we can and will provide plenty of notice to give everyone time to make arrangements to purchase a pass at that time.

While we now understand some of what happened, we don’t have all the answers as to why the system did not perform as planned. For example, a few students were able to purchase a pass before the system launched. On Friday, the system was locked until Monday at 9 a.m., and we are investigating how the system was accessed. Right now we are focusing all available resources on fixing the problem. We will be honouring the payment transactions that were made both prior and during the time the website was live.

This was the first time using a brand-new parking permit management system; we offer this as not an excuse but an explanation. While we take responsibility for the failure of the launch, we exercised as much due diligence as possible in the planning of our parking system. As of 4:30 p.m. on Friday, July 14 all tests reported the software was functioning perfectly.

In our planning for the release of this year’s parking passes we partnered with EDC Corporation, a North American industry leader in parking management services, to manage the software. During the implementation of the system, we ensured that all system requirements would support the expected high volume of users and despite load testing prior to launch, the system reported no errors. We will continue to perform these tests before our relaunch until we are confident the system will perform as expected.

We appreciate your patience on this matter. While understandably this situation has been less than ideal, the lessons learned will help us better manage systems going forward.