Project Updates
Lee Helps Japanese Customers Find Assistance
"When you're dying of thirst it's too late to think about digging a well." - Japanese Proverb about planning.
Venise Lee (Enterprise Services) recently created a Japanese-language call tree for the customers of Emory Family Medicine of Dunwoody (FMD). The Dunwoody office had been getting a lot more Japanese-speaking customers lately (mainly due to the addition of Japanese-speaking physicians) and needed the ability to route them to the correct areas in the calling system.
The effort was a challenge for Venice, as she does not speak Japanese. However, Venice relied on a pair of Japanese nurses on the FMD staff to translate and record her instructions. Venice could not do her own testing but the FMD office tested it themselves over a couple of weeks and are pleased with the results.
Interestingly, there is an option in the call tree that routes calls to the Fayetteville call center, where no one speaks Japanese. Venice programmed instructions that identify the caller as Japanese-speaking and allows an interpreter to be brought in from Language Line Services.
Project Updates For December
"All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result." - Stephen Covey
At our monthly project review/release meeting, we rearrange the Top Projects in Progress list as well as Top Operational Initiatives.
View these at https://wiki.service.emory.edu/display/projmgmt/Project+Management+Office.
While the list doesn't automatically control resource assignments and contention, UTS and project managers both use these rankings to help make determinations on daily and weekly priorities.
If you've any questions about the items on this list, please talk to your director for more information or shoot me an email at marisa@emory.edu!
From our project portfolio -
Efforts initiated in December: Box.net
Efforts due to close in December: IDX Training at Call Center, SDLC/Scrum in ServiceNow, PeopleSoft ESB Integrations
- Marisa Benson, Director, PMO
Switch Installation at SJH
"A switch serves as a controller, enabling networked devices to talk to each other efficiently." - Cisco.com
A vital step of bringing St. Joseph's Hospital into the Emory network has been to build the network in parallel with the network SJH already has in place. In this way, all of the SJH users can be migrated to the Emory network more easily.
The project, which began back in June, featured 10-gig connections that required the installation of over 50 switches to connect this fully operational hospital back to Emory.
One of the key challenges was making room at the facility, because their networking closets were never designed for two simultaneous networks. By consolidating the closets, the team was able to finish the work this week.
As the project lead, I worked primarily with Melvin Dozier and Bernard Sanders (both of Infrastructure), plus any network personnel at SJH. Next phase will be the migration of the users, which we will coordinate with Emory Healthcare in April.
It has been a grueling but refreshing project.
- Winfred Sneed, Network Engineer III, Infrastructure