Supporting the University during a pandemic and more discussed at Leadership Team meeting

The Leadership Team met on September 30 to discuss the following projects and updates:

Salesforce App for Contact tracing, Isolation, and Quarantine

Dave DeMichele shared an overview of the Salesforce App his team developed within two weeks to support the University’s COVID-19 data reporting needs.

Starting on July 27, with a requirement gathering discussion, the team set out to develop a robust solution that offered resulting, isolation/contact/quarantine tracking, integrations with EPIC and the COVID-19 data mart, complex notification processes, reporting, and dashboards. Next, the team developed a prototype (in partnership with Yale Health IT), conducted user acceptance testing (UAT), and concluded with a launch on August 17—just in time for the start of the academic year.

The App integrates with Banner, Qualtrics, the COVID-19 data mart and EPIC and delivers important information to support university decision making and compliance tracking. Authorized users have the ability to customize dashboards, view health records, and more. The App’s reporting capabilities include tracking trends among other benefits.

While out-of-the-box functionality was employed for this solution, the App was enhanced with custom elements to support Yale’s unique needs, such as real-time integrations with banner for setting student compliance exception dates.

Reporting and Compliance

As with the new Salesforce App, the Enterprise Applications team was asked to create a series of on-demand or scheduled email reports, in very short time, to monitor compliance with Yale’s Health and Safety Guidelines.

Kate Hathaway explained how reports deployed on the Power BI server are supporting managers, deans, Health and Safety Leaders, Human Resources Generalists (HRGs), and others by providing them with information on testing and daily health check compliance, testing patterns and other data points to ensure that Yale community members are honoring their commitments and retaining their access to Yale’s campus.

She shared that an “executive summary” of this data was also deployed on a secure website for the Public Health Committee and select members of the leadership team. The website was developed in partnership with the Office of Institutional Research and the Web Technologies team to create a single landing page for data on health metrics, campus population, compliance metrics, and more.

Kathleen Omollo provided an overview of the underlying software flows that feed into or pull from the Return to Campus data mart, which supports over 35 institutional COVID-19 reports and 30 data feeds. The data mart integrations provide the ability to track test and badge trends, testing tracing reports, voluntary testing group reports, and more, all of which facilitate the university’s capability to track compliance and respond to non-compliance.

As part of the testing software workflows, Kathleen worked with Heather White to understand the student’s testing experience. These guided the highly complex software and the cross-departmental collaboration. Collaborators supporting Return to Campus testing operations and reports include Yale Health, the Provost Office, and Faculty advisors across the School of Medicine, Public Health, and School of Management, among others; one half of the ITS leadership team; and one fourth of ITS overall.

Authorized users can view Power BI and data mart reports on the Reporting Resources and Tools for a Safe Return to Yale webpage, within It’s Your Yale.

John Barden and others expressed their thanks for the effort that went into building all compliance solutions, including the Salesforce App, Power BI, and data mart reporting solutions in such a short timeframe.

Refined Balance Scorecard

Apriel Biggs-Coker shared an update on the balanced scorecard, which now reflects 12 initiatives. Seven modifications were made to the Scorecard, including combining goals, shifting goals to FY22, and adding one new goal, which focuses on responding and acting on Workplace Survey initiatives. Staff can view these Scorecard items at any time on the About IT website.

The Scorecard continues to focus on service quality with an emphasis on honoring commitments made to clients. Service Owners were encouraged to deepen their customer focus as we align around these FY21 goals.

Moving forward, Apriel asked IT Leaders to do the following:

• Refamiliarize themselves with new Scorecard language
• Update charters, in partnership with Balanced Scorecard Leads and SLT members
• Develop high level milestones to report on progress
• Provide others with opportunities to get involved and join teams

Ask John Anything

Do you anticipate that remote working will continue to be an option after the pandemic ends?
Yes—I don’t see how we could “roll this back” after we’ve seen how effective we can be while work remotely. 

How are we looking at projects with more of an integrated process view, rather than through a technology lens?
While we may have to resolve short-term technology gaps, there is also a desire to develop long-range plans and conduct a more strategic review of IT projects. We’re in a position of being asked to help lead those conversations, which is a huge pivot point for the team and sets us on a good path to align with the institutions’ needs and to be more effective at delivering IT services and support.

The next leadership team meeting will be held on October 28.