Getting to know the SOM IT team, space planning, and more at the IT LT meeting

The IT Leadership Team met on October 20 and reviewed the following highlights:

Getting to know the Yale School of Management (SOM) IT team

In the spirit of promoting connections across Yale IT’s central and distributed units, John Barden asked Ken Wieler, CIO at the Yale School of Management, to present at the IT Leadership Team meeting. According to John it will be the “first of a series of presenters who will help us have a better sense of the work taking place by our IT partners across the university.”

Ken kicked the meeting off by sharing SOM’s focus, which is to “educate leaders for business and society.” Kerwin Charles, SOM’s 12th dean, oversees 36 departments and 10 degree programs, including joint programs with other schools at Yale. To support SOM’s robust programming, their IT department includes 35 staff, including six Client Services staff led by Dana Augur, eight Media Services staff led by Froilan Cruz and Robert Dietz, and 17 DevOps staff led by Derek Hunt. Their services include:

• Client Services, which closed over 3k issues in FY22, provides technology and computing support; tier zero, one, and two support; Evans Hall support (Mon-Fri); and a self-help service catalog.
• Media Services, which closed over 3,000 support requests and completed over 4,000 recordings in FY22, provides operational support, technical design, and implementation support; presentation space support; media control center support; a production studio; immediate classroom help
• DevOps, which closed nearly 20,000 issues in FY22, provides business analyst and project/process management support; tier two and three support; web platform (external and portals) support; data warehouse support; and applications to support the academic mission including integrations like BANNER, Workday, HOPPER, etc.

Much like Yale IT’s anchors, SOM established three key “anchors,” with goals mapped to each area, including:

• Operations, focusing on launching a new directory, conducting a Risk Assessment Office Security Audit, continuing to expand Salesforce, and more.
• Academics, starting a new admissions cycle, improving the hybrid classroom experience, supporting programming (which is returning to pre-COVID levels), and more.
• Research, overseeing a hardware update, streamlining queuing (Slurm), improving backups, and more.

Additional presentations by IT partners are forthcoming.

Space planning update

Cheri Ross provided an overview of space planning efforts for 25 Science Park (including the fourth and fifth floors), which are estimated to occur between Thanksgiving and early 2023.

All moves from the fifth floor to the fourth floor will be completed through early 2023, ideally by Thanksgiving recess. Cheri is assessing space and equipment needs, followed by assessments of remote staff, equipment and recycling needs, current residents of the fourth and fifth floors, office repairs and cleaning, and more. Throughout this phased effort, she will be focusing on the following short-term goals:

• Making the fourth-floor feel “more occupied, with folks sitting next to each other, and with more energy”.
• Using the fourth floor as assigned seating and the fifth floor as hoteling and collaboration space, with the understanding that “we have some work to do to get there.”
• Considering creative ways to use the fifth-floor space.
• Preparing the fifth floor for use by short-term guests, such as the Emergency Operations Team.

Cheri anticipates minimal construction or furniture moves to achieve these goals and is working with partners at Yale to determine what the hoteling and collaboration spaces will look like, from schematics to technology. The plan will be modified and adjusted as it is developed.

Over the next five years, Cheri will look at alternative building plans (similar to the second-floor model) to bridge the gap between building plans and IT needs on the fifth floor.

YaleSites update

Hadar Call provided a status update on the three-year YaleSites Upgrade Project, co-sponsored by ITS and OPAC to improve the user experience for people who maintain websites, make it easier to comply with brand standards, and keep Yale technologically up-to-date.

Recently, Yale signed a contract with Siteimprove to provide more unified analytic services in addition to content services. Eventually, every YaleSite will benefit from Siteimprove analytics, and the university will have the opportunity to view analytics from across all YaleSites. A proof-of-concept site will be developed with Siteimprove in October, but the broader launch of Site Improve will occur in FY24.

Michael Vaughn provided a demo of these analytics features, including access to information on key metrics, life analytics, visitor data, content information, entries and exits, traffic sources, campaigns (to monitor UTM’s), internal searches, behaviors, and more. YaleSites users can look forward to benefiting from these new features.

Graduate Student Funding (GSF) update

Tedd Darash celebrated the launch of Graduate Student Funding (GSF), which went live as planned in July.

The launch provided the ability to:

• Make external student, compensation plans, and costing data available
• Pay stipends (since August 31)
• Calculate commitments and actuals for each payroll cycle using the finance Boomerang
• Provide access to a new data mart

As with any launch, there are a few post go-live challenges, all of which are being addressed in the areas of process, reporting (including reports pending user review), requirements, etc. Additionally, the team plans to provide additional training on Power BI GSF reports, such as how to utilize tabs, modify filters, and download data.

The project was deemed a success based on the teamwork, collaboration, deep technical knowledge exhibited, and use of the QA team. For the next project, they will consider spending more time with functional owners and improving the testing environments.

Ask John Anything

With YSM having their own instance of Site Improve, how will that change (or will it) when they roll into the site license?

Michael Vaughn shared that Yale consolidated Site Improve licenses, but when the analytics features launch, it will be helpful for other units to join the university’s instance to benefit from accessing broader Yale data, as well as website-specific data.

Can the coffee and tea supply be addressed at 25 Science Park?

Cheri Ross said she’s looking to refresh the offerings in the kitchen as part of the space planning assessment.