The SCOOP. System Office ITS Department News August In this Issue:

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1 The SCOOP System Office ITS Department News August 2012 In this Issue: Employee Spotlights: Walt Swanson, Doug Torgersen Scoop Interim Replacement for Communications Manager State Fair Booth Hyperion Training Opportunities in September Vice Chancellor and CIO, Darrel Huish Participates in a Multi- Government Technology Panel Fall Semester Start-Up Preparation ITS Help Desk Walt Swanson: Employee Spotlights Please join us in welcoming Walt to the System Office, Security Team. He has 15 years of Security and IT Management (Data Center/Network) experience from the Department of Natural Resources with anywhere from 6 to 14 direct reports. In his 24 years in the Twin Cities area he has worked for Target Stores, Fortis and US Bank within IT. Also, he s involved with the State of Minnesota's Information Security Counsel for the last 12 years. Within MN IT Services he has been a member on the Architecture Review Board - Technology Framework committee for the past three years and was the Chairman of the Hardware/Infrastructure sub-committee. He is a volunteer Hunter Safety Instructor for the State of Wisconsin, and he enjoys outdoor sportsman activities such as hunting and fishing, along with enjoying movies, video games, and working on outdoor landscaping projects around the house and is a firm believer in fitness. August

2 Doug Torgersen: Please join us in welcoming Doug Torgersen to the System Office Web Team in St. Paul. Doug will be working non-stop on our SharePoint roll-out for the foreseeable future. Doug has been in IT for five years working with a little bit of everything from SharePoint to infrastructure implementations. In the last couple of years his work focused on SharePoint at General Mills in Golden Valley. At General Mills, he managed approximately 400+ SharePoint sites across SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010, supporting approximately 4,000 users. Also, he is in the Army Reserve where he works as an IT Information Assurance Officer. He has lived in seven states but claims Minnesota as his home, and currently lives in Maple Grove. He has a five year old daughter and a five month old daughter, and drinks lots of Caribou coffee. Scoop Interim Replacement for Communications Manager In the interim of finding a replacement for our Communications Manager, all of the Scoop articles will now be going to Christine Carr, who will be in charge of handling the scoop articles and the newsletter. Please send all your communications information to her at Christine.carr@so.mnscu.edu State Fair Booth Help in finding the right affordable college will be readily available at the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities State Fair booth in the Education Building on Cosgrove Street near the fair s main entrance. Admissions officials and financial aid experts from the colleges and universities will be on hand to assist anyone recent high school graduates, working adults and new residents who wants information about attending college and paying for it. The booth also will have information about the short-term training and education programs that can lead to new careers and job promotions. Many of these programs take less than a year to complete, are available online and lead to entry-level or higher-level jobs for individuals who add credentials. Other booth features include prizes that will be awarded once an hour to fairgoers who spin the "Wheel of Luck." Members of the Board of Trustees and presidents from the state colleges and universities will be available to talk with prospective students and their families about higher education opportunities. August

3 Hyperion Training Opportunities in September Hyperion Training Opportunity Schedule for September, Please view the Training Schedule web site for detailed information September 12, 2012 Hyperion 9.3 Introduction & Refresher (WebEx) September 20, 2012, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM, Room 3354 Hyperion Training Opportunity at the MnSCU System Office (hands-on) August 2012 CEMRS Update Training has started for the first wave schools. There are 2 major parts to the training: configuration and administration. Configuration training has 8 different components to it. The first wave schools have completed the first 6 components. We will not be conducting any training during the freeze, but each school has homework from the sessions to keep them busy. We will complete configuration training during the week of September 10th. After that administrative training will occur. So far the training has gone well and everyone is excited about getting hands on experience with EMS Campus. The timeline for the project has been extended by 5 months. This extension is due to hardware delays and a more conservative approach to training for waves 3 and 4. Once we complete the first wave training, we will review the process and determine if our approach to the remaining waves needs to be modified. Progress continues on the production, test, and failover environments. A temporary production environment is in place allowing the first wave schools to continue their work. The hardware has been ordered and is in the process of being installed and configured. During September update meetings will be held on the project. The task force, key contacts, and working group will meet to review the progress to date and answer any questions or concerns about the project. To learn more about Classroom, Event Management, and Resource Scheduling go to the project web page. August

4 Vice Chancellor and CIO, Darrel Huish Participates in a Multi- Government Technology Panel At the Minnesota Digital Government Summit on July 31, 2012 Darrel Huish participated in a panel discussion led by Carolyn Parnell, Chief Information Officer, State of Minnesota. The panel included: Spencer Cronk, Commissioner, Department of Administration, State of Minnesota Otto Doll, Chief Information Officer, City of Minneapolis Darrel Huish, Chief Information Officer, MnSCU Judy Regenscheid, Chief Information Officer, Hennepin County The panel of IT leaders discussed how to transform Minnesota government organizations to meet the ever increasing changes in the information technology industry. The session was an interactive discussion on changing the culture of IT to meet the new global economy and provide insight on how to guide the institution of government towards the innovations needed to face the future. Fall Semester Start-Up Preparation On behalf of the 2012 Fall semester start up team, we ask for your continued support, assistance, and participation in maximizing success before, during, and after the Fall semester start date. From August 20 thru September 7, the system office ITS department will freeze all non essential changes to the application systems, servers, and network. We also encourage campuses to avoid major changes in networks and servers during the critical start up period, if at all possible. This will help us avoid problems associated with changes and to quickly find the source of problems if they do arise during this important time of the academic calendar. Fall start-up planning to ensure that the MnSCU infrastructure, network, and application systems are ready and available for the August 27th semester start date is well underway. To assist the process, the Fall Start-up cross-functional project team has been working on: Assessing, planning, and preparing for Fall start up Improving system availability; isolating issues seen in previous semester start ups and implementing changes/improvements as needed to ensure a stable environment Assuring that systems are in place to handle any issues that may arise before, during and after Fall Startup We appreciate your support as we all work together to make the start of this school year a successful one. If you have any questions or would like additional information, please contact Russ Roering at: Russell.Roering@so.mnscu.edu August

5 ITS Help Desk The ITS Division of the MnSCU System Office has completed a consolidation project of the various Call Centers and Help Desk functions it funds or supports. Several separately managed Help Desk functions are now managed under one umbrella, the MnSCU Help Desk, including the system-wide D2L Help Desk. Enterprise applications already incorporated in the consolidated Help Desk services include ISRS, Resource 25, Reporting and Data Warehouse, StarID Self Service, Web Conferencing (WebEx), and others. All users will continue to enter tickets and research FAQs in the same manner and at the same instance of RightNow presently being used. By consolidating these previously separate Help Desk functions into a single location, several benefits are envisioned: The creation of a customer focused single point of contact, making information about whom to contact for which application, less confusing Cost savings through common staffing, cross-training, and enhanced capacity planning Consistency of call center/support practices across applications through a scalable business model which can manage the day-to-day operations and the hiring, training, and management of all call center staff. ITS Help Desk Hours: Sunday Thursday 7:30AM 11:30PM Friday Saturday 7:30AM 6:00PM 877-GO-MNSCU ( ) The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system is an Equal Opportunity employer and educator. August