From mobile banking access to drivers license appointments to online coffee orders, much of everyday life was interrupted Friday by a global Microsoft outage.

The outage was caused by a glitch in a software update sent out by CrowdStrike, a cyber security company that makes a product that aims to keep computers safe. The glitch impacted airlines, hospitals, and banks globally, and is anticipated to last throughout the weekend.

Locally, the city of Fort Dodge saw the glitch happen early in the morning and got information technology (IT) staff to work right away.

“It makes for a tough morning for staff that start anywhere between 4 and 9 a.m. to come to work and their computer/tech is not working as it should,” said Assistant City Manager Ryan Maehl. “Our IT team jumped into action, understood the outside issue, shared with our employees the problem, and quickly figured out how to get our organization going within the constraints of the software glitch.”

According to Maehl, those efforts kept the city’s operations Friday as close to normal as possible.

Webster County’s staff also came to work on Friday only to find that their computers weren’t working due to the software glitch.

“As of 7:30 a.m, we are working computer-by-computer to get the county up and running,” the county posted to its Facebook page.

Hours later, the Webster County Treasurer’s Office announced that it would be closing at noon as the global outage kept the staff from being able to access files for driver’s license and ID services, vehicle registration, and oversize load permitting. The State of Iowa encouraged Treasurer’s Offices to close due to lack of digital access from the outage.

By mid-afternoon, county IT staff had the Recorder’s Office back online with Webster County Recorder Lindsay Laufersweiler posting to social media that her staff was operating as “business as normal” and thanked the county’s IT team for their efforts to get the governmental offices back online.

Webster County Public Health was hosting a regular Women Infants Children clinic on Friday and because of the outage had to revert back to paper and pen instead of digital accounts.

“We only had about 2.5 hours without the ability to issue benefits for WIC clients,” said Emma Bayus, WIC program coordinator for Webster County. “According to the state, food benefits should be able to be used through approved vendors per usual. No vendors were impacted.”

According to Bayus, WIC nurse Jessica Cook had recently made paper binders to use in case of an emergency situation and the binders were used in this instance.

“Luckily, we were prepared and able to use paper charting this morning to complete client visits,” said Bayus. “Benefits have been issued and our system is back up and running.”

Iowa Central Community College, which utilizes Microsoft software for classes as well as for day-to-day business, also had an IT team that jumped in to ensure that offices could function.

“Our team tested a number of applications this morning and could not find any issues with Canvas, email, or other app or software based items,” said Mary Ludwig, vice president of development and alumni relations. “We also have not had a single student call into the Online Help Desk with any issues which is a good indication of things working properly.”

National banks including Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, US Bank, and Wells Fargo were also affected by the outage. Starbucks mobile ordering was also affected, including local ordering in Fort Dodge.