Reward and Recognition
Freshmen Arrival Weekend and Back to School 2011
"Connections" was the theme for our Back-To-School efforts. These mouse pads were given out by the thousands!
Back-To-School/Freshmen Arrival Weekend (BTS/FAW) is the annual large-scale effort where OIT staffers apply a hands-on approach to handling the computing needs of the entire Emory student body as it returns to campus each fall. Led by Dawn Francis-Chewning (Academic Technology Services), this article is her behind-the-scenes look at another fantastic job by her cross-organizational team.
Well before the weekend began...
Planning for this year's BTS/FAW started as soon as the last one was over, as the feedback from one year becomes actionable for the next. Of note, efforts to reach transfers in 2010 were very successful and as a result, our reach expanded in 2011 to include The Row (Frat Row – Eagle Row – The Row). In April, the BTS meetings began that included the Registrar, Office of Undergraduate Orientation, Admissions, Housing and a number of UTS teams. Sharon Gregory (Service Desk) was on the planning call every month, working to keep her team informed and at the ready to receive the Freshmen Class and the return of our upperclass students. Bonita Russell and Mary Secrest (Call Center) were also well prepared and kept current on the weekend events and the week’s schedule. Kudos to the Service Desk - they were right there with us, receiving calls and making sure students got the answers they needed.
In May, Daniel Palmer (Academic Technology Services) put Emory OnLine (EOL) under the microscope with scripting to make it flow as smoothly as possible with today's operating systems and automated configuration for Emory's ResNet network. A test team was created that included 26 members from all over UTS; the Student Technology Center, Cox Hall Computing Center, Faculty Services, ITS Architecture, ETS Desktop Support, Integration and Enterprise Security. This test team also included members from School of Public Health and Oxford College IT. Thank You EOL Test Team!
From June through August there was testing, orientation planning, vendor bidding and selection, order placing, reservations, staffing, communications, catering, documentation creation, training, assessments, assemblage, signage and staging. We did something pretty cool this year: the Office of Undergraduate Orientation (OUE) asked "Could we do a webinar that would telecast live?" Thank you to both Jim Kruse and Jason Brewer (Academic Technology Services), who said, "Yes we can!"
OUE recorded four different sessions over the summer with topics on Orientation, Residential Life/Dining, International Students and OPUS. These sessions were conducted at 7:30 pm EST so that international students could see it in real time. OUE also opened a Twitter account, so UTS did some tweeting over the summer months. Our Blackboard Training for both Account Masters/Coordinators and Tech Essentials was overhauled by Linda Mayes (IT F&A), who trimmed the quantity of each course, creating more succinct content and an assessment that was intentionally thought provoking. Great Job Linda Mayes!
What was developing into one of the smoothest BTS Weekends on record developed one little hiccup: the new CERTS loaded on 8/17 didn't work with EOL. Late into that Wednesday night, nine people wrestled with different scenarios to mitigate the current CERTS effect and work with the expiration of the CERTS on the radius server(s). The decision was made to roll back to an older certification, delaying our action for the coming expiration but securing breathing space to get through the imminent Back to School weekend. Thank you nine people (you know who you are)!
We held Tech Training for Oxford on September 11, which was a win/win for us as Oxford got an opportunity to understand our approach and utilize our techniques while we got a practice run. Because Oxford moved their check-in day to the Friday before our BTS weekend, we offered to help them check-in students, hoping to get a preview of our own BTS check-in. They gladly accepted and our preview held no surprises. Thank you Oxford College IT!
Additional thanks to Daniel Palmer for an excellent Tech Training Day and a smooth-running Emory OnLine program delivered via flash drive and CD. Daniel worked hard to make the wireless experience easier to comprehend, putting it in terms that could be understood and applied in both the Residence Halls and in fact, campus wide. He was outstanding as Technical Lead for both the Oxford and Emory check-in and spent serious time mitigating the CERTS situation both immediately before and well after BTS weekend.
Special thanks go to all our Residence Hall teams who willingly detangled lanyards and were prepared for meltdowns from any direction while working to get our students connected. These same folks spent a day learning about the current world of wireless to apply it both in the Residence Halls AND across the campus in their own work spaces. They reached out to students in the lobbies and the halls - literally! Sweeper Teams trolled the halls to encourage students to run the flash drive and get registered on the network.
On Sunday, these teams were looking for transfers in upperclass housing and on the Row. Teams went house to house and on Clairmont Campus, apartment to apartment. We had an A-Team in the Woodruff PE Center on Saturday at Orientation, helping students with everything from IT questions to directions to the nearest Target. Thank You Steve Bransford (Academic Technology Services) for recording some of our most special moments on film - The BTS Scoop 2011. Everyone worked hard to make sure our students were well connected.
Sincere appreciation to Cox Hall Computing Center's Student Services and the STS for taking up the mission on Monday without skipping a beat and continuing the effort to connect all manner of devices for our students. Kim Braxton's crew (Academic Technology Services), alongside volunteers from the BTS Team, processed over 607 students the week after BTS!
Finally, many thanks to a few more folks responsible for a successful BTS 2011: Norman Hulme (Integration) for his design of the mouspads, Alan White (Infrastructure) for providing up to the moment ResNet reporting, Shannon O'Daniel and Tricia Goddard (Academic Technology Services) for maintaining Lanyard Land, Student Technology Services (STS) Summer Student Staff for a great message and Marianne Schneider (Academic Technology Services) for a cool t-shirt design, and Alan Cattier (Academic Technology Services), Dana Haggas (Enterprise Applications) and Brett Coryell for handling the WPEC Orientation with great energy and enthusiasm.
We rocked!
- Dawn Francis-Chewning, Business Analyst, Academic Technology Services
High Five - What can Otto's Majik do for you?
Otto Mater: Junior coder and chief bottle washer for the UTS UNIX Systems Group. What can "Otto's Majik" do for you?
In an example of innovation through necessity, Bruce Anderson (Infrastructure) created a process to automate the often arduous task of maintaining and provisioning current documentation.
When Bruce was working with the HP Blade Environment, he began looking for an easier way to maintain his spreadsheets that tracked the server data. Doing the work by hand took forever and within mere days the data would be outdated. Instead, using readily available tools, he was able to automatically generate this important data, refreshing the information daily and publishing it to the Wiki to be accessible to others. He began to affectionately refer to his work as Otto Mater.
In time, Bruce began to be aware of other applications for Otto Mater. The Emory Shared Data (ESD) team wanted to present the ESD Meta Data (table and column names and descriptions) on the Wiki. Otto Mater stepped in and completely automated the process by pulling the data directly from the ESD database and publishing it in an easily readable format on the Wiki. Now the data can be made available to non-database users. This data could have been presented in a manually maintained spreadsheet, but it would have become outdated as soon as a structural change to the database occurred.
In addition to the daily schedules, Otto Mater can also update and publish on the fly in about a minute. Bruce has applied this technology to Disk Storage, ESD, HP Blade Environment, SAN Storage, and Oracle Rack Storage. Chris Alexander (Integration) consulted with Bruce and began doing charts himself based on ideas from Otto Mater. Paul Petersen (Infrastructure) and John Connerat (IT F&A) have found uses for Otto Mater as well.
Bruce's tool is an example the creative thinking that supports our drive to innovate. Way to go, Bruce!
A Thank You Letter From Amcom
Emory is the featured "Healthcare Spotlight" on Amcom Software's homepage.
The following "Thank You" letter was sent to the Amcom project team by Tom Nodsle, who is the Director of System Implementations at Amcom Software. As always, we appreciate the kind words from our business partners!
September 18, 2011
To: Bonita Russell, Marisa Benson, Jay Flanagan, and Paul Petersen
On behalf of the Amcom Implementation Project Team, I would like to thank Jay Flanagan, Felicia Bianchi, Tamika Pichardo, John Hawkins, Jason Stanaland, and the entire switchboard staff for the excellent preparation and positive attitude during the recent Amcom upgrade project.
Jason Stanaland deserves special mention. Jason’s knowledge of Amcom is second to none! I have never had the pleasure of working with someone as knowledgeable of the Amcom applications, including the technical side of the entire Amcom system as Jason.
The Call Center staff was absolutely awesome during the cut and after the cut, so thanks to them:
| Sheila Ackie | Valencia Anderson | Kendra Austin | Debbie Blanchette |
| Barbara Bryant | Veronica Brown | Elaine Cain | Gwynda Cantlow |
| Nicole Chandler | Shani Coleman | Nichelle Dooley | Samantha Dacas |
| Angela Ford | Lynne Sadler-Harrison | Moledy Holschbach | Moniqueka Jones |
| Meltha Jordan | Lorissa Jordan | Litceacha Davis | Lois Spikes |
| Pharrah Jackson | Janice Richardson | Pamela Robinson | Sharon Rose |
| Josette Simpkins | Tabitha Pirtle | Nicola Walker | Desiree Fortune |
| Aderienne Graham | Tamika Pichardo | Mary Secrest | Tanisha McNichol |
Not only was the call center staff prepared; I was very impressed with the way Tamika managed the call center and her direct reports. The Emory Call Center is one that you should be very proud of.
The call center staff made activation week one of the best I have experienced in my 13 years with Amcom.
In addition to the great attitude of all the operators, I want to highlight Jason, Tamika, Felicia, and Jay during the cut. Their calm presence during activation week was extremely helpful as well as the way they triaged the Emory end user calls. I have never experienced working with a staff that handled "issue calls" from the Emory user community as efficiently as Jason, Tamika, Felicia, and Jay.
This was the best-prepared customer site I have had a pleasure to work with!
Sincerely,
Tom Nodsle, Amcom Software, Inc.
Call Center / Service Desk Kudos
Every good IT Organization needs its stars, and the Call Center and Service Desk have plenty of them!
Each month, we recognize the awards and kudos received by the Service Desk and Call Center. The purpose is to show our appreciation for the arduous, and often underappreciated work of our front-line, tier one support staff.
Thanks for their continued support! Without them, OIT would not be able to provide the consistent service that has become a hallmark of our organization.
Perfect Attendance for July 2011
(100% - no tardies, no absences, no grace period tardies - specialists are allowed three grace periods per month of 3 minutes and under, however getting a grace period does not qualify you for perfect attendance): Nichelle Dooley, Maletha Jordan, Josette Simpkins, Nicola Walker
Quality for July 2011
(100% call quality for the month - 7 calls per specialist are monitored per month, must have an overall quality score of 100%): Thelma E. Cain, Gwynda Cantlow, Liteacha Davis, Samantha Davis, Angela Ford, Debra Harrison, Pharrah Jackson, Tabatha Pirtle, Janice Richardson, Pamela Robinson, Eloise Spikes
Top Specialist for July 2011
(Must achieve 100% in Attendance and 100% in Quality): Sheila Ackie, Nicole Chandler, Shani Coleman
- Bonita Russell, Manager, Call Center
We love to receive thank you notes!...
To: McCants, Geneva
Subject: RE: Password help today
Geneva,
I was EXTREMELY HAPPY with your service - your patience, persistence, kindness. Not all IT people are "people people. I am so glad you are tuned into actually helping!
Gratefully,
Bonnie Jennings, School of Nursing