Multidivisional and Office of the CIO
ITS names first Director of Project Portfolio & Change Management
Brenda Carpen became ITS’ first Director of Project Portfolio & Change Management on February 1. Carpen had served as IT Project Manager for ITS’ Infrastructure & Operations division since July 2016. Carpen now oversees ITS’ existing six-person Change Management team and reports to CIO Mike Barker.
The Change Management team moved from Enterprise Applications and now supports projects across the ITS organization.
Providing professional project management and change management expertise on projects will enable ITS to better prepare campus members and partners for change, improve project implementation, and deliver project benefits sooner and with less friction.
Project will enhance phone services
ITS Voice Services will migrate the University’s VoIP phone system to AT&T from Verizon over the next 2-3 years. Verizon is discontinuing the service Carolina uses. Moving to AT&T enables the University to save money and provide additional features that support mobile and remote work settings.
This complex project entails updating 19,000 phones across most campus buildings and departments. It requires coordination by teams from ITS, University IT partners, UNC administrative staff and external vendors. Communication Technologies’ Cheri Beasley is leading and managing the project’s technical aspects.
This is the first project for the new Project Portfolio & Change Management team. Project Manager Brenda Carpen will use the CommTech phone project as a template for how her team gets involved in projects to provide value to ITS, IT partners and the University.
PeopleSoft upgraded
In March, ITS upgraded to the newest version of the PeopleSoft software. Work to prepare for this upgrade started in October 2020. More than 50 people from teams across campus including ITS PeopleSoft Administration, ITS Database Administration, and ConnectCarolina Student Administration, Finance, HR & Payroll have tested and validated that the new software version seamlessly supports ConnectCarolina and its integration with other systems across the University.
Change Management supports Performance tool rollout
ITS’ Change Management team members played a major role in efforts to prepare the University for a shift to the Carolina Talent Performance tool. The system was ready on April 1 for SHRA employee performance management and will roll out on July 1 for EHRA non-faculty.
Performance lets managers and employees keep the performance documents at their fingertips, making it easier to continue the performance conversation all year. Less paper, pre-filled employee details in forms, online approvals, and easier entry of goals enables managers to focus on employee development instead of administrative details.
Digital accessibility training registrations move to Carolina Talent
The Digital Accessibility Office is the latest University group to move its training registrations to Carolina Talent. As of March 1, permanent faculty and staff can sign up for training by the Digital Accessibility Office via the Learning component of Carolina Talent. The DAO joins several other groups and content providers in offering registrations through Learning. On the site, permanent faculty and staff can register for LinkedIn Learning courses, training for compliance with the Clery Act, and training provided through the Office of Human Resources’ Organization and Professional Development.
ITS’ Change Management team created the training for this shift to Carolina Talent, and the Carolina Talent team from central HR conducted the training.
ITS Service Desk improves customer experience for resets
For several months, the ITS Service Desk has been using Duo Push to reset customers’ Onyen passwords and to reset and unlock 2-Step verification for Microsoft 365 applications (MFA), including University email accounts.
The Information Security Office worked with the Service Desk to streamline the reset process.
With Duo Push, the Service Desk staff can conduct the resets faster while still doing them securely, thereby improving the customer experience. When someone needs a password reset, the Service Desk sends the person a verification code to use on the authentication prompt of the Duo mobile application. After the person confirms the Duo code that was sent to them, the Service Desk resets the password or MFA. The person no longer has to remember and match pre-established personal questions and answers, nor fill out an ID verification form and provide two forms of photo ID.
Given the initial success of this pilot, the Information Security Office is exploring options to automate password resets leveraging strong authentication technology such as multi-factor and 2-Step.
ITS is helping to improve background check process
Enterprise Applications and Identity Management began working on a project to improve the background check process by streamlining the process, enhancing technology and boosting security. Other contributors include Office of Human Resources Information Management business analysts and reporting groups, and the Office of Human Resources’ Employment & Staffing unit.
In the system they were tasked with improving, campus background check initiators commence and monitor background check requests through an external vendor website. Potential candidates or appointees complete the background check questionnaire through that same external website. Going forward, most of the background check process and reporting will be managed in one system — ConnectCarolina. Improving the process also will significantly reduce administrative burden, time and effort.
UL’s lower-level space refreshed
The lower-level space in the Undergraduate Library used for many years exclusively by the Service Desk, Computer Repair Center and Software Distribution gained new carpet, fresh paint and a more purposeful layout – and welcomed new officemates — to ring in 2021. The refresh was courtesy of the School of Education, which fully paid for the improvements as part of an agreed upon move of the Classroom Hotline team from the School of Education’s space at Peabody Hall. The move to the UL enables the Hotline to maintain a strong presence on central campus while also giving back significant space in SOE’s primary building.
User Support & Engagement
WordPress migration completed
In March, ITS Digital Services completed a massive effort of cleaning up and moving the University’s decade-old WordPress system to the cloud.
This was no ordinary migration — it was not a “lift and shift.” Digital Services, with help from others within the ITS organization, worked for several years evaluating, preparing for and then moving the University’s WordPress platform to Pantheon, a cloud hosting provider. Over three summers, Digital Services whittled down the number of Web.dot websites to 4,000 from more than 20,000 sites. In March, Digital Services completed the entire migration which included all self-service webdot websites, enterprise hosted departmental and school sites and the Med School — roughly 6,000 sites in all.
Groups and individuals helping Digital Services with the move to the cloud included the Digital Accessibility Office, ITS Middleware Services and Linux Administration, ITS Database Administration, Identity Management, Matthew Mauzy as project manager, and IP Services, specifically Will Whitaker.
ITS Service Desk offers a call back alternative to waiting on hold
In January, the ITS Service Desk began giving customers the option to get a call back instead of waiting on hold for tech support — without losing their place in line. The campus community has been clamoring for this call back automation, and ITS has been eager to provide it. The call back feature is a new option available with the latest upgrade to PureCloud, the automated call distribution software that the Service Desk uses to field its incoming service calls. For a small one-time fee, ITS was able to offer the call back queue. The Service Desk anticipated it will increase customer satisfaction and save staff time.
DAO launches Siteimprove newsletter
The Digital Accessibility Office debuted its Siteimprove newsletter in January. The newsletter will be sent to all Siteimprove users every three months. It includes accessibility tips and tricks for using the platform and updates on the latest features.
People
Mark Wampole was one of the Carolina employees selected by Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz to serve on his new Staff Advisory Committee to the Chancellor.
DAO Consultants Kat Moore, Chelsea Porter and Sarah Arnold earned certifications for Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies through the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. The three studied for several months on cross-disciplinary conceptual knowledge about disabilities, accessibility and universal design, and accessibility-related standards, laws and management strategies.
Matthew Mauzy spoke on 97.9 The Hill WCHL-FM on December 14 as Chief of the South Orange Rescue Squad. The all-volunteer organization provides emergency medical services, specialty technical rescue, and education to the Orange County community. The squad was one of the recipients of the radio station’s Campaign for Local initiative.
Information Security & Identity Management
Virtual event is a strong draw
The Information Security Office’s half-day virtual event on March 26 drew about 100 campus members. Data@Rest: Bits n’ Bytes featured a variety of speakers from Carolina’s IT community in a TED Talk style format. Speakers brought engaging topics across themes that were either security related or security adjacent and represented IT professionals from across the University. Presenters were Kim Stahl, Dave Eiselman, Drew Trumbull, Stephen Allen, Quinton Johnson, and event hosts Michael Williams and Charlie Mewshaw.
ISL sets attendance record
The Information Security Liaisons group set an attendance record at its January 21 meeting — via Zoom — with 80 participants. The group had 154 members as of January.
Infrastructure & Operations
AVC John Mack discusses designing for safe cloud computing
In January, AVC John Mac, shared his group’s efforts to advance cloud computing at the University. Over the last year and a half, Infrastructure & Operations cloud engineers have collaborated with Research Computing, the Information Security Office, Networking and other ITS engineering resources to establish secure boundaries by which the University’s research and administrative units can safely explore cloud-based technologies. Now that ITS has done a lot of foundational work for information security, the next phase is to weigh options for production migrations.
People
ITS and then The Well published stories about how Neil McKeeman has performed double duty at the ITS Operations Center. Since last spring, McKeeman has been working five shifts a week at the ITS Operations Center on top of his full-time job of managing the center. He graciously accepted this double duty when one of his employees, a U.S. Army Reservist, was deployed for a year in Poland. Given the University’s tight budget, McKeeman could not hire a temp for the year the reservist is away, leaving the Operations Center short staffed. McKeeman has learned from this experience of performing the job of the people he supervises. He feels he has become a better manager.
ITS and then The Well published stories about how working decades at UNC is a family tradition for Mike Whitfield, who marked 21 years with ITS in February. He comes from a long line of relatives who served a couple decades or more at Carolina, going as far back as his great-grandfather who began his 24 years at the University in 1945.
After 22 years with ITS, Brian Biswas, Shared Applications Specialist, retired at the end of February. He said his greatest achievement at ITS was working with Kim Vassiliadis on ServiceNow knowledge management and development.
Communication Technologies
CommTech is integral to infrastructure
Dan Pellegrino, CommTech Project Manager, and Tyler Johnson, R&D Network Specialist, worked with ITS Communications to tell an important story — that ITS Communication Technologies plays an integral, and often overlooked, role in the University’s infrastructure. Whether it’s a residence hall, chemistry lab or office space, ITS is involved in the planning and execution of all construction, renovation and demolition projects. Reliable access to computers and the internet is a necessity to the daily routines of on- and off-campus community members, but many are unaware of how much behind-the-scenes work goes into ensuring these systems run smoothly. New construction or renovation requires designing and planning for technological infrastructure just as electrical wiring or plumbing does, so CommTech is involved from the very beginning of a project. As a result, all facilities are online and fully functional upon a project’s completion.
Annual Network Report published
Communication Technologies published its 2020 Yearly Network Report.
People
Communication Technologies’ Dawn Douglass has earned her Certified Wireless Network Expert (CWNE) certification. She was awarded CWNE No. 427 in March. There are fewer than 450 CWNEs worldwide. Douglass is the only CWNE employed by the UNC system.
Len Needham became acting manager of the Network Deployment unit within Communication Technologies following the retirement of David Valleroy.
Educational Technologies
Touch-free printing rolls out
ITS Educational Technologies equipped 26 CCI Printing stations to support touch-free printing for the Spring 2021 semester. With the simple addition of a QR code to each printer, users are able to complete a print job without touching anything but their own devices. Due to the ongoing pandemic, people are more conscious than ever about touching surfaces in public spaces. Only half of the 50 existing print stations were needed because of decreased on-campus activities.
Pharos, the vendor that manages the University’s printing software, began creating the framework for this feature in summer 2020.
The hope is that this faster, touchless method of using the CCI printers will help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and improve the overall user experience.
People
ITS published a story on how Charlie Wilcher of Classroom Hotline uses his digital art talents on the job and away from work. He has supplemented his primary duties with creating custom wallpaper art for the classroom computers, room signage for new spaces and custom graphics for the control interfaces of classrooms. Separate from his ITS work, Wilcher creates digital art for clients, including book covers and character illustrations.
Enterprise Applications
Retro pay process improves
In February, Enterprise Applications completed a complex project that enables University administrative staff members to save significant time processing retroactive pay funding source re-distributions in the ConnectCarolina system. In this six-month project, Enterprise Applications created the ability in ConnectCarolina to have retroactive pay charged to the same funding sources as the employee was originally paid from for that pay period.
Campus users can now save hundreds if not thousands of hours of work during high-volume retro pay events, such as legislative increases and annual raises.
The University’s Payroll team helped with this project.