Letter from the CIO
Greetings,
I invite you to review the Information Technology Services (ITS) Quarterly Review, October 2020. You’ll have the opportunity to learn more about the people of ITS—e.g., Tiffany Temple and Tosha Woods. You may enjoy reading about the post-pandemic reconfiguration of ITS’ internal information sharing forum, “Peer to Peer.”
The pandemic hasn’t stopped us from making long-term strides in improving foundational technologies: ITS is beginning a migration to a different Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) phone system; the new system from AT&T presents considerable advantages and opportunities; we’ve upgraded core database system platforms. In partnership with Human Resources, we released the new “My Learning” module of Carolina Talent—this is the first step of UNC-Chapel Hill’s implementation of the Cornerstone software suite.
Whether for these or other efforts thus far unmentioned—there is, to be sure, a little more about ITS’ pandemic related undertakings—I hope you take a little time from your day to review a sampling of our work on behalf of the University.
Multidivisional
Creativity and preparedness fuel Fall semester support
When the University returned to remote teaching and learning, ITS’ customer-facing groups switched focus to support fully remote instruction.
Classroom Hotline team members spent spring and summer getting faculty and the technology in teaching spaces ready. They figured out specifications and purchased equipment for classrooms such as at the Friday Center and the football stadium. The entire Educational Technologies division accomplished a big lift of preparing faculty and tech for Fall 2020.
ResNET team members exerted all their creativity and know-how to keep students engaged, entertained and feeling supported as they moved into on-campus housing for move-in weekend. ResNET conducted live demonstrations via Zoom and held conversations with students on how to set up equipment in the residence halls.
The Service Desk, with much support from across ITS, installed contactless lockers for a safe and fast way of dropping off and picking up laptops. In the first week of classes, the Service Desk supported 4,830 contacts, with 1,409 contacts in the first day alone.
Contactless lockers enable safe client interactions
ITS installed contactless Luxer Lockers at Carolina’s Student Union during the first week of classes of the Fall semester when COVID-19 necessitated a new safe way of dropping off and picking up laptops for repair. Getting the lockers up and running was a collaborative effort across ITS, with assistance from the Information Security Office, the Networking group and the Service Desk. Over the first four days, the lockers were used 120 times.
The use of these lockers enables an automated workflow that both save resources and protects employees and customers from increased COVID-19 risks associated with face-to-face interactions. It also enables ITS to think differently about its work.
The Luxer unit works both from an iPad built into the unit and can be accessed via the Luxer app, enabling that virtually contactless experience. Students and the rest of the campus community are able to drop off machines that need repair, pick up repaired machines, and access loaners in a virtually contactless experience.
“Providing a contactless method for laptop support was crucial for us this semester,” said Kate Hash, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Customer Experience & Engagement, whose oversight includes the Service Desk. “We wanted to ensure that our students had a way to quickly drop off computers in need of repair and retrieve loaner laptops in a safe and reliable manner.”
The locker unit is a great long-term solution for the campus community, Hash said. “Contactless customer support is likely to endure long past the pandemic.”
ITS holds inaugural Peer to Peer session
Peer to Peer’s inaugural meeting was held at the end of July. The meetings are intended to foster a sense of togetherness within the ITS community while serving as an effective means of technical knowledge sharing.
Changes to the series from previous tech talks included limiting the session to an hourly format, moving the occurrence of the talks to quarterly from monthly and the introduction of two segments per session; one where individual teams within ITS are celebrated and the other being a more traditional tech talk. These changes were the result of staff surveys, perspective sharing sessions, and a review of proposed changes by senior leadership. Response has been positive with over 100 members of ITS tuning in via Zoom for the inaugural session.
User Support & Engagement
ResNET uses Zoom to engage students
ResNET focuses its team to help as much as possible at its move-in support sites every Fall semester.
Given the restrictions of the pandemic, ResNET adapted their start-of-semester in-person support to rely heavily on Zoom, the video conferencing platform, to keep students safe and supported as they moved into on-campus housing.
Team members conducted live demonstrations and held conversations with students on how to set up a wide range of technology from connecting a PlayStation to the network to printing using CCI printers.
ResNET was able to efficiently target its resources to issues specific to those living on campus by taking proactive measures such as emailing residents about the wide array of technical support options available to them through use of the help site portal or the Service Desk.
Frontline groups meet support challenges head on
Frontline User Support & Engagement groups responsible for providing in-person technical support services to the campus at the start of the Fall semester were faced with a special set of safety challenges brought about by the increase in the on-campus presence of students.
To meet these challenges, the teams emphasized health safety measures, creativity in providing expected services, and overall flexibility in the face of the “new normal” imposed by COVID-19.
The CRC, which returned to campus earlier in the summer, continued to limit in-person interaction from employees and clients through setting appointments in Microsoft Bookings, staggering employee work shifts, and taking on tasks like software installations and reimaging that other groups normally handle.
Meanwhile, the Service Desk, Managed Desktop Services and the South Building team continued to take advantage of support tools like Bomgar to provide remote technical support while finding creative ways to decrease in-person interaction with clients by using neutral pick up points for serviced computer deliveries.
Earlier in the pandemic, the Service Desk reassigned Walk-in staffers to help clients using ServiceNow’s chat support. As Fall classes started, the Service Desk added a contactless locker system to enable clients to drop-off their broken computers and decrease employees’ risk from further in-person exposure to the virus.
All groups minimized the number of staff required to be on-site to provide services. Team members accomplished this with client appointments, staggered work schedules, redirected workflows, set rules of in-person engagement with clients, and the responsible use of personal protective equipment while in the presence of others.
Software Acquisition changes name to reflect service goals
The ITS Software Acquisition group changed its name to Software Distribution after 25 years. The change was a long time coming because the team’s core service shifted to distributing software.
Initially, the group maintained only a few core software programs for the University, like Windows, SAS and MATLAB.
“Over the course of time with technology changing to be more efficient, we’ve taken on more services due to having the cloud and being able to manage accounts instead of managing a distribution point,” Manager of Software Distribution Greg Neville said.
Now, software programs are tied to the accounts of individual students, faculty and staff members created by the Software Distribution team allowing the future of the Software Distribution group to take advantage of increased digital literacy and focus on more automation-based services.
Stats
During the first week of the Fall semester in August, the Service Desk supported 4,830 contacts, with 1,409 contacts in the first day alone. The overall volume increased over 2019 by 9%, or 450 additional contacts.
The week-long tally via phones reached 2,335, a 38% percent jump from last year, or 721 more calls. Web surged 142%, or 508 additional web tickets. Chat, meanwhile, skyrocketed 161%, or 1,092 additional chats.
The average phone wait time for the week was only 4 minutes, 14 seconds. The wait time maxed out at 9 minutes, 6 seconds. Wait times were in the face of the one part of the Service Desk services being impacted as Walk-in support was suspended due to COVID-19 and the Service Desk as a whole operated without the 15 contractors it had during 2019 Fall Rush.
The first week of classes beat move-in week by nearly 900 contacts.
Enterprise Applications
Enterprise Applications helps roll out new marketplace: BuyCarolina
BuyCarolina, a new marketplace portal which UNC Finance and Budget department launched with the help of ITS Enterprise Applications, went live in mid-August. The portal replaced the former campus purchasing solution, ePro.
With BuyCarolina, shoppers search across multiple vendors at once instead of having to view each catalog individually. Suppliers, meanwhile, can log into the BuyCarolina portal to get payment information on their invoices. Ordering materials for a department or school was made easier by giving shoppers more vendor options. Ultimately, there will be 50-60 vendors available to shoppers with the idea that increased vendor competition will drive competition and lower costs over time.
In the first month after BuyCarolina launched, users placed nearly 650 orders with multiple suppliers within the marketplace. With this level of use, BuyCarolina has made Finance’s strategic initiative to streamline procurement at the University a successfully realized one.
Enterprise Applications helps launch Graduate Student Hub
Enterprise Applications worked with the College of Arts and Sciences, The Graduate School and several other groups across campus to launch the Graduate Student Hub.
The impetus behind the project came from a need to resolve a department’s corrupted database.
Before the Hub, each graduate program had its own way of tracking its graduate students’ information, from Excel spreadsheets to physical file cabinets. The Office of Arts and Sciences Information Services (OASIS) soon received requests from other departments asking for easier ways to access graduate student information in one central location.
This request led to a partnership between the College, The Graduate School and Enterprise Applications. Enterprise Applications team members began building out the project in ConnectCarolina and got the Gillings School of Global Public Health and the School of Education on board to participate.
The Graduate Student Hub is now live for all graduate programs at the University. It stores student profile information, degree progress, achievements, courses taken, courses taught, funding and alumni information.
In addition to making sure that University staff has access to all current graduate student data in a single place, the Graduate Student Hub advances the University’s Carolina Next strategic plan to strengthen student success and optimize operations.
If the Hub continues running smoothly for The Graduate School, groups across campus are considering using it to manage undergraduate student data.
Enterprise Applications provides easy access to professional development tool
Enterprise Applications provided campus-wide access to new professional development module, My Learning, through ConnectCarolina in July. My Learning is the first of several components launched as part of the Carolina Talent program — an integrated talent management system implemented to attract, develop and retain potential and current employees to the University.
This functionality replaces the training the Office of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity and Compliance Office previously offered, integrates with LinkedIn Learning and is accessible to the campus community through ConnectCarolina.
Permanent employees will now be able to track all training required by management and be provided a record that shows their completed training. From a supervisorial perspective, this new tracking system also makes it easier to manage employees’ professional development over time.
Eventually, Carolina Talent will become the go-to place for finding professional development opportunities as more departments across the University begin using it to manage training.
Enterprise Applications builds Project Notifications system
Enterprise Applications built an award management system, called Project Notifications, in PeopleSoft for OSR audit requirements. The system is live as of August. Various campus projects are managed in this system and updates or changes are recorded. Specifically, each time a change is made that impacts funding, the managing department or the duration of the project, a PDF email notification is circulated to the managing departments for reference.
Groups involved are EA, OSR, ORIS and campus departments managing the projects within the system.
Educational Technologies
Teaching & Learning changes name to reflect service
ITS Teaching & Learning has changed its name to ITS Educational Technologies.
The ITS division determined it needed a new moniker after being known as Teaching & Learning for about 15 years. Along with the name change, Educational Technologies (ITS ET) has a new website and a new Twitter handle of @UNC_EdTech.
Teaching & Learning “was so encompassing it proved confusing for collaborators, customers and even colleagues in other ITS units,” said Suzanne Cadwell, Director. “The new name helps clarify the specific services this group of 24 IT professionals provides the campus community.”
The team, she said, “understands well how technologies are used online and in classrooms by instructors and students. Our collective understanding draws from decades of experience in end-user support, but also in system selection, design, implementation, integration, and maintenance.”
Classroom Hotline reconfigures classrooms for hybrid learning
Educational Technologies, specifically Classroom Hotline, played a key role in helping faculty prepare for Fall 2020.
In preparation for the start of Fall classes and the reopening of campus to students, Classroom Hotline had to reconfigure the technology in general-purpose classrooms for HyFlex and mask-to-mask teaching.
Team members set up 21 new campus locations that originally had zero technology that would fit either model including the Friday Center and Kenan football stadium.
To be successful, the general-purpose classrooms needed pan-tilt-zoom cameras and ceiling microphones to pick up the voices of the in-person students, but only 15 out of 205 rooms met that description. The 26 large auditoriums that did have the appropriate microphone system were not capable of capturing the voices of the in-person students to provide to the remote students.
Despite running into delays caused by competition for needed equipment by other institutions, team members quickly figured out the specifications, solicited and received quotes and got the ball rolling for equipment to be purchased to outfit 50 additional HyFlex rooms.
Classroom Hotline ultimately met its goal of completing the rooms for faculty demonstrations August 3 – 7 in advance of the first day of class on August 10.
Stats
To assist faculty with educational technologies, staffers addressed 1,380 ServiceNow requests, met with 400 instructors and support staff in personal consultations and workshops and created 150 new Poll Everywhere accounts since the end of July.
Educational Technologies had a record-breaking 16,000+ Sakai sessions active during each class day for the 3,900 courses in Sakai. During the first week alone, more than 46,000 Zoom meetings were held, and 690.5 gigabytes of media were added to the Warpwire video-streaming service in Sakai.
Infrastructure & Operations
Infrastructure & Operations upgrades Jira
ITS Middleware/Linux team updated Jira from 7.13.8 to 8.5.5. As this was a major release upgrade, there were numerous changes. The upgrade involved UI changes, administrative changes and performance increases.
Out of a 500-user license, ITS has some 340 active Jira users. The Middleware/Linux team uses Jira internally to track tasks for service lines, but several other groups use it for managing Agile projects and programs.
Infrastructure & Operations’ Oracle upgrade advances automation
Infrastructure & Operations began efforts to upgrade the University’s Oracle software to a newer version. The upgrade, which is expected to be completed by November, will change the way ITS configures the infrastructure of Carolina’s databases. This summer, upgrades to the PeopleSoft environments were completed.
With the updating of Oracle to the 19c version from 12.2, ITS introduces automation. Automation will make it easier for Infrastructure & Operations to implement security updates in the future and to minimize the probability of errors.
Automating Oracle upgrades will also reduce the number of employees needed to run testing comparisons in the future, freeing up time to focus on more valuable tasks. The Infrastructure & Operations team hopes that automation will soon be widespread for many processes. Groups across ITS, in fact, are examining possible new resource-saving opportunities through automation.
Until now, each Oracle upgrade was done by Database Administrators performing manual configuration changes.
The project’s focus on resource efficiency directly aligns with the University’s Carolina Next strategic plan. The Carolina Next plan outlines the University’s improvement goals over the next three years, including a commitment to automating student support services.
Enterprise Reporting & Departmental Systems
ERDS’ dashboard aids campus COVID-19 planning
Enterprise Reporting & Departmental Systems developed a dashboard solution when the University needed to know the movement of students through campus for Fall semester COVID-19 planning.
Groups such as the Emergency Operations Center, Emergency Management and Planning, Transportation and Parking, and Facilities Services’ Operations unit sought this information so they could ensure that Community Protective Equipment (CPE) was appropriately stocked and available and that there was enough capacity on bus routes to transport students. They also needed to be able to deploy Facilities staff to the correct locations at the right times.
Enterprise Reporting & Departmental Systems (ERDS) was working closely with ITS Enterprise Applications to support the Registrar’s Office. With input from the Registrar and Enterprise Applications, the ERDS team created a flexible data model to quickly answer the questions around scheduling and then provided that data to a broad base of users via Tableau, a data visualization software platform.
When others in ITS needed the data to ensure CPE availability, ERDS was already able to extend that data model to provide the answers they requested.
The data provided unexpected insights too. One of the largest times of student turnover is noon, when Facilities staff typically schedule lunch. Seeing the student volume, Facilities staggered schedules so staff members would not be overwhelmed by the number of rooms requiring attention.
In another finding, the University learned the sanitation stations that it had set up were in rooms that would not be used much for classroom activities. As a result of gaining that insight, Carolina decision makers redeployed those stations to higher traffic areas.
Most recently, the ERDS team was able to provide the data right into decision makers’ email inbox. Each day, facilities staff get the report for the next day’s schedule in their inbox. Having up-to-date data enables staff to use resources more efficiently.
Communication Technologies
ITS starts migration to VoIP phone system
ITS’ Voice Services started its two- to three-year migration to a new VoIP phone system.
The University is migrating to AT&T hosted-cloud service from Verizon Business, which comes with new services and features. They include call center service, voicemail to email, more flexible caller ID, and a better way of providing 911.
Number porting to the new phone system will be required for existing phone numbers. 7,500 nonworking numbers are being ported as well. The University has about 16,000 Mitel/Aastra devices on campus.
ITS kicked off the migration on August 17 by moving 7,500 nonworking numbers to the new phone system. ITS has begun migrating its own phone lines.
This has been a collaborative effort by ITS Networking, Voice Services, UNC Campus Safety, UNC Privacy Office, Identity Management, ITS Billing and Enterprise Applications.
Stats
A glance at campus network use from the Quarterly Network report released October 5.
Wired:
- Number of switches on campus: 2,918
- Number of ports: 174,202
- Peak download rate: 14.5 Gbps (August 15)
- Peak upload rate: 11.5 Gbps (July 22)
Wireless:
- Number of access points on campus: 9,974
- Peak concurrent connections:19,700 (August 11)
- Devices onboarded to eduroam:18,229
- Top onboarded OS: iOS at 45%
People
Tosha Woods has been on the front lines of user support with University Operators for five years. She gives some insight into the University Operators’ experience battling both the pandemic and adjusting to the changes to instruction for the Fall semester.
“In the very beginning, it seemed most callers were parents who were mostly confused, fearful, and some were even angry not knowing how they could pick up their children or retrieve items left behind on campus. Later, having the Carolina Together website was really helpful as a lot of people were used to going to separate departments instead so telling parents about that was helpful.
Right now, the biggest challenge is just interacting with cell phones because we are working from home. The general nature of cell phones with background noise and dropped calls on a caller’s end can be challenging. If calls drop, callers unfortunately have to call back in, but our team communicates with each other via Skype if that happens so that if they call back in. We all know to look out for them and route them to who was originally helping them. For the most part, though, we’re working under normal conditions.
As school started, we still got the usual questions regarding Admissions, Registrar and the Cashier’s Office but then COVID-19 took over most of the enrollment questions. The changes really affected so many areas, like housing, classes and campus health, but the fact there was one number and site to assist with answering questions related to health concerns and protocols really helped.
People often just want to talk to somebody, even though websites are the best way to get information. We’ve had callers say that they appreciate UNC has live operators.”
Information Security, Privacy & Identity Management
Information Security Office rolls out LastPass Premium to campus
In July, Information Security Office rolled out LastPass Premium to campus. Students, faculty and staff were able to sign up for this upgraded password manager from LastPass to store and share personal credentials, notes and small files. LastPass is a secure password manager that stores passwords for users and can sync them across devices.
Information Security Office pays for UNC CAUSE
Information Security Office paid the UNC CAUSE group registration fee so that all members of the UNC-Chapel Hill IT community could attend the October 6 – 22 virtual conference.
People
Tiffany Temple of the Information Security Office is featured in an eBook released by ISC2, a leading association for information security professionals.
Temple shared how earning her Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) certification in 2015 has helped her career in information security.