Evolving vision for EUA includes realignment of governance groups

At a virtual town hall meeting in June, CIO Jessie Minton and Associate CIO for Applications and Middleware Melody Riley shared the evolution of their vision for Transform IT’s Enterprise University Applications (EUA) Program.

In 2020, the EUA analysis project team found more than 1,100 applications in use at the university, at an aggregate annual cost of $8.9 million, excluding staffing costs. At a virtual town hall meeting that summer, Minton shared the project team’s recommendations for rationalizing the university’s purchasing, development, hosting, management, support, and use of software applications and services.

Since Riley’s arrival at the university in September, she has worked to determine how best to proceed with the rationalization process, considering both the long-term vision for enterprise applications and the path to achieve that vision.

Long-Term EUA Vision

Riley outlined a vision for EUA in terms of the fundamental questions of why to make changes, who to involve, what will be achieved, how those changes will enable the UO mission, and what the ultimate result will be.

Why

Service advisory boards will be aligned to university organizational functions, strategic direction, priorities, and outcomes.

Who

The UO community — both IT staff and non-IT staff — and Information Services, with a focus on the constituents we serve.

What

Applications will be mapped to measurable, value-added services and capabilities.

How

  • UO employees can interact with a searchable catalog.
  • Consultations with IS about organizational functional needs will be available.
  • A path to the right solutions will be clear.
  • The right groups will come together from the conception of an idea to its delivery.

Result

The university’s spending plan for technologies is optimized. Technologies will be strategically sourced and will be architected to achieve the maximum value.

EUA Objectives

Riley expanded on the four main objectives for EUA. Here are some highlights:

  • Increase efficiency. Increase the reusability, supportability, and scalability of software applications while optimizing their impact to the university.
  • Reduce duplication. Understand and meet the organization’s functional needs, improve self-service and on-demand access, and improve training and adoption.
  • Optimize IT spending. Invest in the “right” capabilities and solutions, consolidate spending with greater value received, focus on the total cost of ownership and operation, and provide guidance for when to choose a campuswide solution.
  • Create equity. Increase the number of services available campuswide and reduce unit-to-unit disparities in technology access.

Foundational Realignments

As a starting point, Riley plans to oversee a series of structural adjustments within Information Services and in the service advisory boards that inform its work.

Riley is collaborating with the Applications and Middleware team to evolve the group’s organization. Also underway is an evaluation of existing service advisory boards (SABs). Some new SABs may be created to guide progress in unrepresented functional areas. Some existing SABs may receive adjusted scopes to better align with capability needs that contribute to the university’s mission.

“We want to reorient around capabilities, focusing on what UO faculty, staff and students are trying to do and the problems they’re trying to solve,” Riley said. “We want to develop and operationalize a model that will grow with us, one that includes hearing the needs of the university.”

Reassessment of governance groups will occur at regular intervals as part of a continual improvement process.

EUA Opportunity Assessment

Along with the realignments, Riley’s team will be conducting “opportunity assessments,” looking for areas of high need or high potential to increase the value per dollar spent. Once those opportunities have been identified, Information Services will assemble teams of technical and nontechnical staff, partnering with departments to assess the current state and identify the desired future state.

Current high-value opportunities — based on need or cost — include time and attendance systems, facilities and building management, web content management, and data analytics.

Existing and new service advisory boards with representation from across the university will provide feedback and guidance at the portfolio level to help prioritize projects and develop roadmaps for implementation.

University IT staff will be invited to participate in work groups throughout the enterprise university applications program.

A timeline and other details are available in the presentation slide deck.

Riley is available to provide the presentation from the town hall to departments throughout the university. Anyone interested can contact her directly at melodyr@uoregon.edu.

20×7 Support Launch, More Implementation Planning Under Way

The work streams have been meeting regularly since the kick-off in mid-July to develop implementation plans. Discussions around campus about Transform IT broadly and specifically the User Support Services project have raised a lot of good questions such as how the transition will be managed effectively, how users will request support, and where they can go for help.

The answers to those questions (and many more) are currently under development by one or more of the 11 ‘work stream’ teams that are a key part of the User Support Services project.

Examples of work in progress:

Work stream team leads have developed a task sequencing and dependency map so that work streams understand which tasks need to be accomplished early so that other tasks can be completed or decisions made in the correct sequence.

The work stream team leads are developing a transition checklist to ensure that key transition details are not missed.

The HR work stream, in close coordination with Gary Sullivan, the Director of User Support Services, is developing an organizational structure for User Support Services. This work is required for Human Resources review, and it is a key component for the new IT support structure.

The Electronic Device Management (EDM) work stream and Information Services staff are determining key technical details that will enable the new support structure. (From a technical perspective, they are determining what Organizational Unit (OU) changes need to be made to accommodate User Support Services.)

For more detail on the work stream activities and timelines, see the User Support Services milestone diagram posted on the front page of the Transform IT website.

Work completed:

On Monday, October 14, the Technology Service Desk launched expanded service hours. Tech support is now available by calling 346-HELP between 6:00am and 2:00am PT seven days pers week. Live chat support is also now available during the same time at livehelp.uoregon.edu. In-person assistance is available in 068 PLC weekdays from 8:00am to 5:00pm PT. For more details, see the Technology Service Desk overview.

Frequently Asked Questions

As noted in this post, there are many questions circulating campus about User Support Services. To help connect answers with those questions—as those answers are developed—we will add a Frequently Asked Questions section to this website. If you would like to submit a question for the FAQ, send it to transformit@uoregon.edu.

This and future posts to this website will also be shared with the campus IT professionals community in a summary form.

User Support Services Report Draft in Editing

The User Support Services (USS) project teams are developing a rough draft of the User Support Services report, including recommendations. The co-program managers and the CIO will be reviewing the report for edits and revisions typical for a first draft starting the week of April 15.

The User Support Services recommendations, which are part of the draft report, should be available by April 30.

In May, those recommendations will be shared with campus, and the plan will be discussed broadly. Jessie Minton, chief information officer, will hold a discussion of the USS recommendations at a Town Hall on Transform IT. (The date and time of the Transform IT town hall has not yet been determined.) The goal is to get consensus for moving ahead with implementing the User Support Services recommendations starting in mid-June.

Campus Email project eyes summer deadline

The Campus Email project continues its work toward consolidating email and calendaring services. This project, announced in October 2018, aims to provide a common set of full-featured email, calendaring, and collaboration tools to all students, faculty, and staff.

During the first half of 2019, Information Services staff and CASIT will be working as partners to aid employee transitions from Basic Email in CAS departments. Others, such as the College of Design, are continuing their transition work as well.

The project aims to have all university employees moved from Basic Email (also known as IMAP mail) into Exchange by summer term 2019.

In 2018, the Campus Email project completed work that gives recent graduates the ability to keep their University of Oregon email accounts for life.

User Support Services Project to Kick Off the New Year

During the winter holidays, Transform IT staff continued developing the project charter and scope for the User Support Services (USS) Analysis project, the next project to be launched under Transform IT. The team aims to complete scope and project charter by January 14, 2019. Once the scope and charter are complete, we will post that information in the Documents section of this site.

The User Support Services Analysis project will be comprised of four areas that will be addressed by four teams of university users and service providers:

  • Helpdesk and Desktop Services
  • Computer Lab Management
  • Knowledge Management
  • Accounts and Access Management

The USS Analysis project is scheduled to start in January and deliver draft recommendations in March 2019, with the goal of delivering completed recommendations to the Transform IT Steering Committee and the IT Steering Committee by April 2019.

CIO Presents Update to Board of Trustees

On Tuesday, December 4, Jessie Minton, chief information officer, presented an update on Transform IT to the Board of Trustees’ Executive and Audit Committee. For her presentation materials, see the section titled, “Agenda Item #2: Transform IT and Information Services Update” in the Executive and Audit Committee meeting notes.

The video of the meeting, including Minton’s presentation, is available via webcast.