Track your tickets with Footprints

25 07 2011

At today’s IT Forum, Jim Franceschelli and Jason Wimmer presented on Footprints, the software that IT Services uses to track service tickets.  The U has been using Footprints for about two years, logging about 12,000 tickets so far.  This summer, IR has rolled out a new end user interface for Footprints, which is intended to help IT Services staff serve users more efficiently.  My notes on what faculty should know:

    • To date, there have been three ways you can report a problem or request a service from the Technology Support Center – you could call  (941-4357), email them, or walk up to the TSC desk in AMH.  Now, you can still use those three methods, but you also have the option of reporting a problem electronically through Footprints.
    • To get to Footprints, go to my.scranton.edu > University Links >  Footprints (under Administrative Links).
    • You’ll see three main options in the Footprints “Service Catalog”:

1. Report an IT Problem. Use this when something’s wrong and you need it fixed.  Pick the category of your problem (computer, phone, enterprise applications, audio/video, Royal Card, or cable tv), choose a subcategory from the options listed, fill out the form with as much information as possible, and then save it to submit the ticket. If you’re not sure exactly what category or subcategory to choose, just do your best – the TSC staff member reviewing the ticket can change the category to reroute the ticket if needed.

2. Change Management. Faculty probably won’t ever really need to use this option – it’s for modifications to existing University applications (changing Banner forms, querying Banner, etc).

3. Request an IT Service. This is for things like requesting multiple PCs for a special event, moving a VoIP phone, etc. You can also use this section to request installation of special software on a University PC. Just like #1, fill out the form with as much information as possible, and “save” to submit the ticket.

  • You can also use Footprints to check the status on a ticket, whether you called/emailed in a problem/request to the TSC or entered it into Footprints yourself.  Click on “Home” and choose from the dropdown menu of “My Requests” to see active and closed tickets. You’ll be able to see TSC staff members’ notes on what’s going on with your request (e.g., if you’ve reported a problem with ANGEL, Jason might leave a note that says that he’s waiting for a call back from ANGEL support staff).
  • Footprints also holds a Knowledge Base (see the link on the top of the page, next to Service Catalog), which holds keyword searchable solutions to common problems, written out by IT staff members.  Solutions are posted either in Q&A format or as step-by-step instructions.  The solutions are reviewed every six months to make sure they’re still accurate.  There are already 80 solutions posted, with more on the way.
  • Any University community member can contribute to the Knowledge Base – so TAG can use it to share technology shortcuts or tips that might be helpful to other faculty or staff.  Just write up your instructions and email them to ITServices@scranton.edu.

Hopefully, the end-user interface of Footprints will resolve some of the faculty concerns about communication with IR that TAG heard back on our Fall 2010 faculty questionnaire – so please give it a shot and let us know how it goes!

I’ll link to Jason and Jim’s slides when they go up, but in the meantime, post in the comments if you have questions.


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IT Forum on Footprints

14 07 2011

There’s a summer IT Forum coming up about Footprints, the software that IR uses to track service calls to the Technology Support Center.  I’ll be there and will post any updates of interest to faculty – but all are welcome to attend.

Here’s the announcement and registration info, as posted to the my.scranton portal:

Summer IT Forum
July 25th, 2011
BRN 509
11:30 am – 1:00 pm

Footprints Client View
The next IT Forum will highlight the use of Footprints from the view of the University Community. FootPrints is a ticket tracking system utilized by the University of Scranton Planning and Information Resources (PIR) Division, for information technology (IT) requests. It tracks IT service tickets and provides communication among PIR departments and our customers. Students, staff and faculty can submit a ticket to request assistance with an IT-related problem or check on the status of a ticket. They can also search through knowledge base articles that have been submitted by IT support staff on a variety of issues. Faculty and Staff can also use Footprints to submit Change Management requests (modification to existing applications, new applications, or report / query requests) and to request special IT Services (such as PC Setups, VOIP, Port Changes, RoyalDrive, etc).

Presenters: Jason Wimmer, of IT Development and Applications and Jim Franceschelli, Director IT Services

All members of our community are encouraged to attend. Lunch will be served however registration is required. Registration is now on the portal, under University Links-Events/Facilities, select IT Services Training and Event Registration.


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RoyalMail and RoyalDrive downtime

11 07 2011

This notice is up on the my.scranton portal – note that it includes RoyalMail and RoyalDrive, but not Angel:

A migration of the University’s enterprise database and related IT systems to a new hardware/operating system platform is scheduled from 4:00 p.m. July 28, 2011 through 8:30 a.m. August 2, 2011. This migration will affect the availability of my.scranton.edu, as well as all Banner-related systems, departmental applications found on the Employee Applications tab and many other systems accessed via the my.Scranton portal, including Royal Drive. For a complete list of systems that will, and will not, be available, go to http://www.scranton.edu/myscranton.

Departments should have contingency plans ready in case the restart of the enterprise IT systems is delayed. Notice(s) of system availability will be provided via the Personal Announcements channel on my.scranton.edu, beginning on August 2nd. Please do not attempt to use any part of my.scranton.edu prior to August 2nd.

Following the migration, problems should be reported to the Technology Support Center at 941-4357 or techsupport@scranton.edu . This will assist us in prioritizing and focusing on the problems of highest importance. Please do not contact individual IT departments’ staff directly with problems.

Robyn Dickinson
Associate Vice President Information Resources

The PIR website offers some additional details on what will be unavailable:

Due to maintenance on the University’s IT systems, Banner, the my.scranton portal and RoyalMail will not be available from 4:00 p.m. July 28, 2011. until 8:30 a.m. August 2, 2011. In addition, the following Enterprise Systems are NOT available during this time:

  • Banner INB
  • Banner Self service
  • Imaging
  • Banner Workflow
  • Auxiliary Systems and/or Employee Applications such as the Work Order System, Events System, and OIT Equipment Request Form
  • Web Content Management System
  • Royal Drive
  • Royal Lists
  • Online Course Evaluations

Systems that will be available are:

 

 


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New Survey from the Department of Planning and Information Resources

11 07 2011

Hi all,

I just received the following e-mail from the VP of Planning and CIO, Jerry DeSanto. TAG was not involved in the planning or execution of this survey, but it has the potential to be very valuable and I would encourage you to fill it out. There are approximately 5 pages of questions, including some option demographic information, and asks you to rank a large number of items from 1-9 in three categories: Your minimum acceptable level; you desired level; and the level the university currently offers for this service. For each question, there is a place to add comments. Personally, I ranked and commented on nearly every question, and completed the survey in about 40 minutes. I understand that this is a long time to spend during your busy summer, but the more feedback we can aggregate, the more we can figure out what we need and what our next steps are. So please take the time to provide some thoughtful comments if you receive this survey! Thanks!

Dear Colleague:

To help us evaluate and improve the University’s technology services, please take a few moments to complete the TechQual survey via the link below. The survey, developed out of Pepperdine University, asks questions related to your desired level of service and how well you think we are doing in several key technology areas. Your response will not be individually identifiable, and all results will be reported in aggregate form.

The survey can be accessed via the following web link through August 1, 2011.

Survey Link: https://survey.techqual.org/
Respondent ID:

To begin follow the survey link and enter your respondent ID. The respondent ID is unique to you and allows you to start the survey and finish it later. You should not forward this respondent ID to other individuals as they will be able to see the feedback you entered.

I thank you in advance for helping us assess our services. If you have any questions about the TechQual survey, visit: http://www.techqual.org, or contact the Planning & Institutional Effectiveness Office at planning@scranton.edu

Jerry DeSanto
VP Planning & CIO

P.s. – the “Respondent ID” should be different for each person’s email.


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New Live@EDU Timeline

23 06 2011

Jim Franceschelli just sent the faculty another update regarding the e-mail transition. In short, faculty will not be transitioning over the summer months. Delays in the Identity and Access Management conversion are pushing back the Live@EDU conversion for most faculty until, likely, early September. We’ll keep you posted as new information becomes available.

Change is inevitable in Information Technology and the conversion to Live@edu is no different. Planning and Information Resources has run into delays with the email conversion because of continued issues with the implementation of the Identity and Access Management (IDAM) system. The latest technical challenges put the email project time line in direct conflict with the Banner ERP migration to Linux. As you can guess, the Banner ERP migration takes priority. Conversions into the Live@EDU environment won’t start until the August time frame. That means that email will not change over the summer. The hope is that the Email team will take the leap into Live@EDU in late August with general users beginning following sometime in the fall. Work continues on a revised time line. Additional notifications will be sent to the University Community as the progress is made on the IDAM issues.
It is worthwhile to note that the problems that have arisen and the delays encountered don’t have anything to do with the email/calendar system. The work and testing confirm that the Live@EDU system continues to provide a sound and robust email and calendar system. The problems surround the applications that are being built to provision accounts, manage access, centralize passwords, etc. This IDAM system is being written by an external vendor and ties to the corporate database for automatic management of accounts. Unfortunately the Live@EDU system is the first of many systems that will have the accounts setup and managed by the IDAM and we are forced to modify our implementation schedule because of the delays.
Given the current schedule, collision with the Banner ERP migration dates, and technical difficulties with the IDAM, the window of early faculty adopters in the summer months is no longer possible. Furthermore, new staff and faculty arrivals, as well as incoming students, will be provisioned accounts in the existing email system. Student conversion will also be delayed, possibly until the end of the Fall 2011 term. We are conscious of the academic calendar and the heavy workload that the beginning of the fall term brings for faculty, staff and students and we will continue to make every effort to make this transition as smooth as possible.
The delay of the Live@EDU implementation is a disappointment to many of us; however, the email & calendar conversion plans need to be realistic on how we can effectively accomplish the goals. We are putting a great deal of effort into developing information, documentation and training sessions to make the eventual transition an easy one for all of our users.
IT Services will continue to keep you updated and as more solid information becomes available we will provide the University Community an update on the project time line. If you have any question, please contact the Technology Support Center.


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Follow-up on Faculty Webserver (Tiger) move

21 06 2011

If you have an account on the old webserver, Tiger, you should have just gotten this message from Connie Wisdo:

There is an attached file (here) with instructions for faculty to get their own website on the CMS. We highly encourage faculty who wish to maintain campus-based webpage to look at these instructions and consider building their own web page in the CMS this summer. The transitional webserver will NOT be a permanent space. Late this summer, TAG will be posting some more detailed instructions, as well as demo webpages, showing what is possible for faculty within the CMS. More details to follow.

Dear Faculty Members,

In case you missed the notices in Royal News, my.scranton, and Bboard, I wanted to share the following information, because you have a non-empty Web directory on the Tiger (academic.scranton.edu) server.
The Web server which is known as both “Tiger” and academic.scranton.edu will be officially retired on July 28, 2011, due to its operating system’s end-of-life. (Nearly all of the official web pages/sites of our academic departments and programs that were previously housed on the academic server (Tiger) have been migrated to the Web Content Management System (CMS).)
A transitional Web server is being set up for departments, clubs, and faculty/staff that have not yet migrated their Web sites to the CMS. Individuals (Faculty/Staff) who wish their web directories moved to the transitional server must send an email request to me (Connie Wisdo (wisdoc1@scranton.edu)) by July 1, 2011. In your email request, please specify the URL of the home/index page of the site(s) you need moved.
You also have the option of moving your Web site(s) to the CMS. Attached is a document containing more details. If you would like to move your site to the CMS, please contact the CTLE, as directed in the attachment, and they can provide assistance to you.
If you have your site moved to the transitional server, you will have SFTP access to your site on the new server, on July 29th, using your my.scranton username and password. Instructions will be sent to faculty in a few weeks, and will also be posted to the TAG Web site. Your Web site address (URL) will not change when it is moved to the new server. URLs will still begin with “http://academic.scranton.edu/”

Note: both the old academic server and the new transitional server will be unavailable for any updates to any Web sites from July 27th to July 29th. Web sites will be accessible on a read-only basis during this time.

If you have any questions, please contact me. For those of you who already sent me an email requesting your site be moved, and have received a reply, there is no need to contact me again.


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Live@EDU Schedule and Update

15 06 2011

We just received an update from Jim Franceschelli on the transition to Live@EDU. See below.

I just wanted to give you a quick update on the email conversion. We continue to run into delays because of continued issues with the implementation of the Identity and Access Management (IDAM) system. The latest technical challenges put the email project time line in direct conflict with the Banner ERP migration to Linux. As you can guess, the Banner ERP migration takes priority. Conversions into the Live@EDU environment won’t start until the August time frame. That means everyone stays in Thunderbird through July. We hope that the Email team will take the leap into Live@EDU in August with general users following in the fall. We are working on revised time lines and I will get notices out to the user community as the progress is made on the IDAM issues.

It is worthwhile to note that the problems we are having and the delays that we face don’t have anything to do with the email/calendar system. Our work and testing confirm that the Live@EDU system continues to provide a sound and robust email and calendar system. The problems surround the applications that are being built to provision accounts, manage access, centralize passwords, etc. This IDAM system is being written by an external vendor and ties to the corporate database for automatic management of accounts. Unfortunately the Live@EDU system is the first of many systems that will have the accounts setup and managed by the IDAM and we are forced to modify our implementation schedule because of the delays.

Given the current schedule, collision with the Banner ERP migration dates, and technical difficulties with the IDAM, I don’t foresee the window of early faculty adopters in the summer months. I would be ecstatic if we could, but I also have to be realistic on how we can effectively roll this out. New staff and faculty arrivals are likely to be given accounts in the existing email system, Thunderbird, and corp time. Student conversion will also be delayed, possibly until the end of the Fall 2011 term. I also need to be conscious of the academic calendar and the havoc the begging of the fall term brings for both faculty and staff. Much of this is in flux, if progress is made quickly on the IDAM issues the implementation calendar can swing back in a more positive position.

I will continue to keep you updated and as I get more solid information I will provide the University Community an update on the project time line. If you have any question, please let me know.

Thanks
Jim


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Categories : Announcements

Tiger Retiring

5 06 2011

The following was posted to Bboard on July 3rd. Thanks to Stacey Muir for bringing this to our attention.

Academic Web Server (Tiger) Being Retired
PLEASE NOTIFY FACULTY IN YOUR DEPARTMENT:

The Web server which is known as both “Tiger” and academic.scranton.edu will be officially retired on July 28, 2011, due to its operating system’s end-of-life. Nearly all of the official web pages/sites of our academic departments and programs that previously were housed on the academic server (Tiger) have been migrated to the Web Content Management System (CMS). A transitional Web server is being set up for departments, clubs, and individuals that have not yet migrated their Web sites to the CMS.

• The web directories of departments, organizations and clubs that fall into this category (i.e. not in the CMS) will be moved to the transitional server.
• Individuals (Faculty/Staff) who wish their web directories moved to the transitional server must send an email request to Connie Wisdo (wisdoc1@scranton.edu) by July 1, 2011. In your email request, please specify the URL of the home/index page of the site(s) you need moved.
• If your department has some pages in the CMS, and others remaining on the academic server, please send an email to Connie Wisdo (wisdoc1@scranton.edu) by July 1, 2011 specifying the URLs of the pages you need moved, or better yet, move them to the CMS!


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ANGEL downtime

18 05 2011

An all-faculty email just went out about the ANGEL downtime next week. Thanks to Jason for spreading the word and for scheduling the upgrade for after grades are due:

ANGEL will be unavailable on Wednesday May 25, from 8:00AM – 12:00PM to install Service Packs 10 & 11 for Version 7.4.  Thank you for your cooperation.

Thanks,
Jason


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Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn, Outages, Upgrades

Server Retirement for Simba Shares and WPROD

6 05 2011

If you have a SIMBA or WPROD folder on your desktop, please pay attention to this post!

An e-mail (copied below) was sent yesterday in regards to a server migration happening in IR. It primarily affects people who run reports through banner (Advisors), but also anyone who gets monthly budgets reports from the Finance Office (people who have grant money available).

Any data you have stored on your Simba Share (Usually a “Z:” drive) needs to be moved to your Royal Drive or will be lost. If you have any data saved on a Simba Share, please follow the instructions below. If you have any questions, contact tech support (techsupport@scranton.edu or 941-4357), e-mail your friendly TAG departmental liaison, or send an e-mail to tag-members@scranton.edu.

Dear Simba/WPROD Users & Simba “Shares” Users:

You are receiving this email because:
(1) you actively run reports from Banner, and your report output is saved to the “Simba” server
or
(2) you are a receiver of Monthly Budget Reports from the Finance Office, which reside on the WPROD server.

Both of these servers are being “retired” in July, in conjunction with the ERP Migration, and their contents will no longer be accessible after July 27, 2011.

The new home of Banner reports and Monthly Budget Reports will be Royal Drive.

Below (and attached) are the instructions to copy files from Simba/WPROD (monthly budget reports) and Simba “Shares” to Royal Drive. It is important that you complete this task by June 30, 2011.

If you have two drives mapped, the first to a Simba directory and the second to a shared, departmental Simba directory, then you need to move the contents of both those directories to Royal Drive. In the case of a shared directory, you should consult with your department supervisor or Data/Technology Coordinator before copying any of the files to determine which folder on Royal Drive the files should be copied to – your personal folder or a Group folder.

Copying Files to Royal Drive from Simba or WPROD Server

Make sure you are connected to Royal Drive with the Xythos Drive client (see below). If you need help installing, or using it, please contact the Technology Support Center. techsupport@scranton.edu or 941-4357.

To Save Current Monthly/YTD budget report:

1. Click link in email to open the current budget report
2. Log in with your username and password
3. Click File
4. Click Save Page As
5. Select R:Usersyour-usernameBanner (to save the report to the Banner folder on Royal Drive)

Note: You may want to create a separate folder for each month under the Banner folder
Click File
Click New
Click Folder
Enter a name for the folder (e.g. July 2011)

To Save Previous Budget Reports:

1. Click link in email to open the current monthly budget report
2. Erase 2011_MAR.PDF at the end of the URL
3. Press Enter
4. A list will appear of previous monthly/yearly budget reports
5. Open each file (with Wordpad)
6. Click File
7. Click Save Page As
8. Select R:Usersyour-usernameBanner (to save the report to the Banner folder on Royal Drive)

To Save Files Currently Residing on Your Simba Mapped Drive:

1. Click Start
2. Click My Computer
3. Double-click on the mapped Simba drive (e.g. (Z:) bontragerg1on ‘Advanced Server V7.3A for OpenVMS (…)
4. Right-click File
5. Select Open with
6. Select Wordpad (or whatever is applicable for the file type)
7. Click File
8. Click Save As
9. Select R:Usersyour-usernameBanner (to save the file to the Banner folder on Royal Drive)

Files on other mapped drives can be saved to Royal Drive in a similar fashion.


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