Project Updates
Online Directory Service Upgraded
Directory data comes from various sources and presents information for university & healthcare personnel.
A new version of the Online Directory Service was installed around 8:15 pm on the evening of Saturday, July 16 to align with changes to ENID that had been made earlier in the evening in support of a project that is enhancing the Amcom paging system. The change to ENID enables people to use ENID to update most of their directory information themselves with the change viewable in the Online Directory immediately.
As a result, the previous IT F&A web form to submit requests for such changes was no longer the place to go to make such corrections. Thus, the Incorrect / Missing Information page of the previous Online Directory and the associated pages with details needed to be updated.
This need for an update provided an opportunity to freshen the look and feel of the Online Directory service. The update to the design was based on input from John Connerat (IT F&A) and Norman Hulme (Integration).
The following are changes of note:
- The wall of text no longer appears on the main search page, giving it more of a Google-search look
- The navigation buttons under the header and the links in the footer now give the page less of a university-specific feel and instead more of a One-IT Experience look
- The buttons now use the same style as the HR login page and the Emory Login service
- The links to "Search Tips" and "Incorrect / Missing Information" have been moved to a general Help page
- Search Tips now says a few words about the Advanced Search
- The "Incorrect or Missing Information" page has been reorganized into groups by person type, and each group has its own page of detailed "How To Correct" information
- The "Incorrect or Missing Information" page and the associated detailed "How To Correct" information pages have been updated to indicate when to use ENID
- The link to the "Advanced Search" is shown even when the access is not from on campus or VPN, and when clicked, it will give a pop-up explaining that it is only available from on campus or VPN
The Online Directory is a work in progress that continues to evolve to meet the needs of Emory. Who knows what changes and enhancements the future has in store.
- Peter Day, Operating Sys Analyst/Dev, Lead, Integration
Amcom Technical Upgrade Success!
There are over 6,000 active pagers at Emory now using Amcom.
On Thursday, September 8th, we successfully upgraded our Amcom Paging Software to version 4.5. All applications, including SimonWeb, On-Call Calendars, Smart Speech, VRU, and eNotify were upgraded without issue. Call and ticket volume were average, with the majority of issues being login questions, as one of the changes to the new system was the requirement for users to login.
The only major problem that surfaced was an issue where non-Emory staff at Grady, CHOA and the VA Hospital were unable to access the system to send pages to Emory physicians because they did not have IDs with which to access the new systems. This issue was reviewed, solutions implemented and communications sent to the institutions to mitigate the problem.
The project team, which included Chris Alexander (Integration), Elizabeth Bell (Integration), Kelly Bray (Integration), Erika Buchholz (Integration), Lionel Clark, Gerry Hall (Integration), Russ Havard (Integration), John Hawkins, Tanisha McNichol (Enterprise Applications), Tom Nguyen-Pham (Infrastructure), Mary Kay O'Brien, Tamika Pichardo, Jason Stanaland (Infrastructure), Doug Trail, and Felicia Bianchi (PMO), as our project manager, did a fantastic job of keeping this project on track and moving forward. We also had help from many other individuals across the University and Emory Hospital, who are too many to name, but were indispensable to the project. Help also included numerous resources on the Amcom side, which made the upgrade that much smoother.
Amcom Mobile Connect, which was released to early adopters on September 13th, is a new smartphone technology that allows for specific paging over the phone, includes better reliability and security, more tone and template options, and support for iPhone and Android mobile operating systems.
The key features of Amcom Mobile Connect include: separating critical messages from less important emails and SMS messages, continuous tones and reminder tones for missed notifications, acknowledging message and free-form text responses, supporting a variety of devices to accommodate hospital-employed and independent physicians(including the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry), and providing automatic delivery and read receipts for messages.
The hard work, planning, and effort made all the difference in the world for a successful upgrade. WAY TO GO TEAM!
- Jay Flanagan, Manager, Infrastructure
UTS Installs Six Miles of Fiber Optic Cable
Contractors installing fiber cable just outside of Cox Hall. That's a LOT of cable!
We installed miles of fiber optic cable on campus this summer! UTS invested about $200k in the infrastructure by adding over six miles of single mode fiber optic cable.
This effort sets the foundation for this year’s radically different router configuration, referred to as the "core router refresh."
Three major UTS communication facilities (North Campus, Clairmont Campus and EUH D207) are each connected to the Cox Hall (Host) switchroom and the NDB Lights Out with cables routed in as diverse routes as our underground conduit system would allow. Significant hardware cost savings are anticipated with the router consolidation, a project managed by the Architecture team to follow in the near future.
Appreciation for a project extremely well done must be extended to our contractors involved, Wade Wilkinson and his project manager, Steven Toms of Communication Cabling Specialists (CSS), and Jason Johnson, PM with Network Cabling Infrastructures (NCI).
- Roland O. Farrar Jr, Project Manager, Outside Plant