Tips From Your Admin

Did you know that in order to comply with IRS rules, requests for reimbursements need to be submitted in iOU and fully approved within 60 days from the date of purchase or event?

Otherwise, the money you receive as reimbursement will be taxable as income.

Staff Happenings

Babies! Babies! Babies!

Happy news from Sean Riordan! On Dec 30, 2008 at 3:20 a.m., Katelyn Izzy Riordan was born. The parents and baby are doing great! Congratulations are definitely in order!

The Pilat family welcomed its newest addition on January 11, 2009 at 11:57 p.m. Samuel William Pilat weighed in at just under eight pounds. Mom, Dad, and big brother Nathan are all doing fine. Congrats!"

- Heather Flanagan
System Administration

Comings and Goings

I am thrilled to announce that Carol Oliver has started as our new QA Lead Analyst! Carol is a Stanford grad who has spent her career here at Stanford in a variety of roles, supporting infrastructure computing services. Most recently she was QA Lead for the Registry Middleware group. She is an ASQ Certified Software Quality Engineer and is looking forward to working with folks to improve QA within IT Services. Carol loves to knit and is frequently seen with a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino in hand. Her office is in Polya, but she is known to raid the Redwood fridge for ice cubes! Please join me in welcoming her back to IT Services!

- KPK (Katherine Pappas-Kassaras)
Project & Process Management

The following people have joined Information Technology Services. Welcome.

Megan Williams (Carolyn Kane)

Noel Reyes (Relu Vasiliu)

Carol Anne Oliver (Katherine Pappas-Kassaras)

Frank Sadigh (Rocco Petrunti)

The following people have left Information Technology Services. Please contact their manager if you need to follow up on any open items.

Greg Steiger (Suzanne Schiessler)

Jane Marcus (Nan McKenna)

Larry Ibarra (Vicki Hallett)

its in bits welcomes more detailed employee news submissions from all staff. Please submit to itsinbits-submissions@lists.stanford.edu

Tech Briefings

Tech Briefings

Fridays
2:00–3:30 p.m.
Turing Auditorium

Friday, January 23

Introduction to Networking
Drew Saunders, IT Services. If you've ever been curious as to how computers talk to each other, this class will give a brief overview of some of the concepts of computer networking. The class is a very basic introduction to common modern networking technology and terminology and how they apply to Stanford. Topics covered include networking models and protocols, Ethernet, wireless Ethernet, the Internet Protocol (IP), and networking equipment.

Friday, January 30

Introducing Stanford Captioning
John Foliot, Stanford Online Accessibility Program (soap.stanford.edu).

Check the Tech Briefings home page for future sessions and to subscribe to the mailing list. Also see the Tech Express home page for information on upcoming presentations.

Technology Training Courses

Tech Training Courses

IT Professional Development:

SQL Basics, Wed, Feb 4, 9:00–4:00, $325

Advanced Drupal Training, Tues-Thurs, Feb 17, 18, 19, 9:00–4:00, $1,600
Advanced Drupal training (theming, module development, data migration, views, and other advanced topics) is coming to campus on February 17–19 (three days), sponsored by IT Services Technology Training. Drupal is open source software that is a powerful framework for managing web content. The Stanford Drupal community and IT experts from across campus, including Academic Technology Specialists, SUL, and IT Services, worked with the vendor, Lullabot, to tailor the curriculum for the Stanford community. This collaboration across campus entities is a positive step in building relationships with fellow IT professionals to provide support for an important technological trend, employing Drupal, in schools and departments. It also represents IT Services' efforts to support the same clientele who would otherwise incur significant travel and training expenses to attend a comparable event at an off-campus location.

All curriculum is based on the latest Drupal 6 release. Each day will include ample opportunity for questions as well as hands-on, independent exercises.

  • Day 1 (Feb 17) : Theming
  • Day 2 (Feb 18) : Module Development
  • Day 3 (Feb 19) : Advanced Topics

If you are interested in registering for this training and/or would like more information, please contact Nancy Baumann directly no later than January 23. The fee for the course is $1,600 per person. You can use any combination of STAP, PTA (department), Hospital Tuition Assistance, and personal funds to pay for the training. Contact me if you have any questions. Please feel free to share this announcement with other interested parties.

Upcoming Tech Training classes of interest to IT Services staff:

Wikis: Setting Up A Wiki at Stanford, Wed, Jan 28, 1:30–4:30, $195

*Dreamweaver Level 1, Wed, Jan 28, 9:00–4:00, $325

FileMaker Pro Lite v9.0: An Overview, Thurs, Jan 29, 1:30–4:30, $195

Excel 2007: What? You Don't Know Excel Yet?, Mon, Feb 2, 9:00–4:00, $325

Adobe Acrobat & PDFs: Creating, Collaborating, and Saving (The Basics), Tues, Feb 3, 1:30–4:30, $195

*Web Design Level 2: Enhancing Your HTML Skills (Making Your Website Work), Wed, Feb 4, 1:30–4:30, $195

Excel 2007 Pivot Tables, Thurs, Feb 5, 9:00–4:00, $325

Access 2007 Lite: An Overview, Thurs, Feb 5, 1:30–4:30, $195

Office 2007: What's New? (Two Sessions)
- Thurs, Jan 29, 9:00–12:00, $125
- Thurs, Jan 29, 1:00–4:00, $125

* Class is part of the curriculum to help prepare for:
Certification Workshop:
Web Professional in the Stanford Environment, Tues, Mar 31, 9:00-4:00, $325
More information at webcertificate.stanford.edu.

Free Email / Calendar Training:

Moving from Eudora to Other Mail Applications, Mon, Jan 26, 1:30–4:30

Thunderbird Mail, Tues, Jan 27, 9:00–12:00

Apple Mail, Tues, Jan 27, 1:30–4:30

Stanford Email (Webmail), Fri, Jan 30, 9:00–12:00

Introduction to the New Stanford Email and Calendar
- Mon, Jan 26, 9:00–10:30
- Wed, Jan 28, 2:00–3:30
- Mon, Feb 2, 2:00–3:30
- Fri, Feb 6, 9:00–10:30

The full listing of Current Courses is available on the Tech Training web site.

Sign up at axess.stanford.edu.

Classes with low enrollment may be cancelled one week in advance. More information on courses, registration, and training is available at the Technology Training Services site.

- Nancy Baumann
Technology Training Services

IT Employment Opportunities

There were no new job postings for IT Services this week.

To view the complete listings or to apply for a position, visit the StanfordJobs web site at: jobs.stanford.edu.

There are other open Information Technology positions at Stanford. To see what other opportunities exist on campus, link to the full list of all open IT positions at Stanford.

Quote of the Week

“If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.”

- Barack Obama

News

A Note From Bill...

Over the past several months, the most common topic of discussion across Stanford has been the University's call for the various schools and departments to institute budget reductions. As the University learns more about the current value of all of its non-equity investments, we are gaining a clearer understanding of the gravity of the situation. Today, it appears that Stanford will see a reduction of about 25% in the value of its endowment. In addition, we expect that requests for student financial aid will grow significantly in the future.

Taking current information into account, I believe that the University will ask IT Services to reduce its General Funds support by 10% in FY10, and an additional 5% in FY11. As the EDs and I evaluated input from staff across IT Services and from our clients, we were guided by the following criteria:

  • maintain critical University services;
  • avoid service level reductions; and
  • minimize staff layoffs.

Thanks to the quality of the your contributions, I am pleased to say that we believe that we have met these criteria. We have developed and reviewed a preliminary budget-cutting proposal with Randy Livingston and are scheduled to review a revised version of that proposal with the Provost in February. While nothing is certain until the Provost reviews and comments on our package, our plan currently meets our service and service level commitments without having to impose any layoffs in FY10 related to these budget reductions.

That said, if our clients were to significantly reduce the services they purchase from us, it could certainly lead to layoffs. Fortunately, we have already seen a number of our clients actually increase their business with us, using technology to reduce their overall costs. If we continue to improve our services, grow more efficient, and reduce our rates, we can continue to significantly assist the University during these difficult times and continue to minimize staff reductions.

Given the current target for the annual General Funds budget reductions, you can imagine that there will also need to be a reduction in spending on new buildings and large remodels. IT Services has a number of Capital Projects that will be affected. The projects have each been assigned to one of three categories. Here are the categories with each of the IT Services-related projects:

  1. Move Forward (complete design; confirm before construction start):
    • Auxiliary Data Center—Livermore (will complete this spring)
    • Forsythe Phase 2 (a modest addition to the downstairs raised floor)
  2. Hold (re-evaluate every 6 months)
    • Scientific Research Computing Facility at SLAC (at conceptual stage now)
    • Redwood City (it will be on hold after the Redwood City entitlements phase)
  3. Cancel the Project (reallocate money to other projects)
    • No IT Services projects in this category

We will meet with the Provost in January to review the Capital Projects, and again in February to review the General Funds budget proposals. We expect his decisions before the end of March. If any decisions are made before that time, I will share them with you sooner.

If you have any further questions, comments, or ideas, please do no hesitate to let me or your Executive Director know. While these times are not easy, they are an opportunity for us to contribute more than ever before to the important mission of the University.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Emergency! Emergency! An Exercise is Coming!

Stanford University actively supports its emergency preparedness status by conducting frequent meetings between members of the Satellite Operations Centers in schools and key business units and the campus-wide Emergency Operations Center. In addition, to enhance and make real those meeting discussions and to simulate real incidents, occasional drills are called for.

Two such drills are coming up in the new year:

  • Friday, January 30: 1 p.m.–4 p.m. (SOCs Only—Local Field Exercise)
  • Thursday, February 5: 8 a.m.–Noon (all SOCs and EOC together in campus-wide scenario)

For the most part, these drills involve only the members of our Satellite Operations Center—designated staff from key areas in IT Services who are called upon to respond in the event of major campus events or service disruptions. But because a major seismic event would involve all IT Services staff in some way, we want to take this opportunity to exercise a few aspects of our emergency preparedness setup.

So, a tip for its in bits readers: Be prepared on Friday afternoon, January 30, for a few unexpected things to happen around Jordan Quad. It would be no fun if we told you more than that, but you get the drift.

It would be good if you knew your EAP (Emergency Assembly Point)—just in case… In a real emergency, if you are at a client's work location and need to evacuate the building, follow your client's lead! But otherwise:

  • Acacia: Open area along Panama St. west of Jordan Quad parking lot.
  • Encina Hall: Front of Encina building along Serra Mall.
  • Encina Modular B: Eating Club Lawn.
  • Forsythe Hall: Open area South of Carnegie Inst. along Panama St.
  • Laurel: Open area along Panama St. west of Jordan Quad parking lot.
  • Oak: Open area along Panama St. west of Jordan Quad parking lot.
  • Pine Hall: Open area along Panama.
  • Polya Hall: Open area along Panama St. west of Jordan Quad parking lot.
  • Puichon: Open area along Oak Rd.
  • Redwood Hall: Lawn area east of Redwood Hall.
  • Spruce Hall: Lawn area east of Redwood Hall.

On Thursday morning, February 5, the drill will involve activation of our IT Services Satellite Operations Center, so members of the SOC should reserve that time on their calendars. We will be interacting with a simulation team organized by the University, and working closely with Emergency Operations Center that morning.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation in these preparedness activities.

- Chris Lundin, Client Support
Matthew Ricks, Computing Services
Tom Prussing, Computing Services

What’s “SOC INFO”?

The SOC (Satellite Operations Center) is the group of IT Services directors and managers who are called together to respond to a major service outage or campus incident (power outage, seismic event, etc.).

Currently, in the case of a major outage all members of the SOC can be contacted via their pagers and cell phones and asked to assemble. However, there have been certain circumstances when we had enough of an issue we wanted just to alert those same people, but not have them assemble in Forsythe 246 in emergency-action mode.

Thus, SOC INFO was born. It is a process to alert the SOC members of the status of a current Incident, but without activating the IT Services Satellite Operations Center. A Service Alert continues to be generated as usual, but an SOC INFO update can provide more immediate information because it is delivered immediately to cell phones and pagers.

Sample messages:

SOC INFO ONLY: The Stanford home page is down. UNIX Systems is investigating. More info will be posted at italertsme.stanford.edu. The SOC IS NOT BEING CONVENED.

SOC INFO ONLY: Medical School network is down. SUNet Backbone team is investigating. More info will be posted at italertsme.stanford.edu. THE SOC IS NOT BEING CONVENED.

We plan to use SOC INFO in these types of cases (these are only examples):

  • School- or department-wide networking outage or power problem
  • One email server is down
  • AFS is down, but expected up in 15 minutes
  • VoIP phone service is down

All members of the SOC have instructions on how to invoke this new process. Other subject matter experts or technical contacts who are aware of an outage and need to communicate that information urgently to the members of the SOC should call the IT Operations Center (723-1611) and ask that the SOC INFO process be activated. The ITOC staff will take your message and work with the Operator Services Center to get it distributed promptly.

- Chris Lundin, Client Support
Nan McKenna, Business Services
Heather Flanagan, Computing Services

Service Management and Integrated Email and Calendaring Project Update (2 for 1)

I'm happy to announce that the final piece of the Service Management puzzle is now in place. Bernadette Drechsler has agreed to become the Service Manager for Computing Services, joining Michelle, John, Liz, and Meighan on the Service Management Team. Bernadette has a rich background in IT Services, with experience in management responsibilities in the Data Center, program management of process redesign efforts including Change Management, the establishment of ITOC, and project management.

In fact, as Bernadette is currently managing the Integrated Email and Calendar (IE&C) Project, part of our planning involves how we will transition this important effort to another PM. Once Bernadette completes the email production readiness tasks, the remaining development tasks for email and the whole calendar implementation will be taken over by Andrew Leman, assisted by new project manager Kelly Miller. We anticipate that Bernadette will be a full-time Service Manager by the end of February.

In addition, Matthew Ricks has assumed the role of Project Sponsor for the IE&C Project, and that means that John Freshwaters will transition off the project and become a full-time Business Partner.

- Nan McKenna
Service Management

Who changed the D in DDD?

Take a look at our organization chart and you'll notice that our name has changed from Documentation, Design, and Delivery to Documentation, Design, and Development.

Why? The avenues and technologies we use to convey information to the campus have changed over the last several years, and so have many of the related skills needed to do our job. Even in the first decade of the Web, most of our work involved writing and designing printed materials and mainframe-based online documents and interfaces. More recently, IT Services' documentation and other communications—and our group's time and effort—have shifted almost entirely to the Web. When this still meant we were "delivering" the fruits of our labor via static pages on the Web, it made sense to keep the word "delivery" in our name.

(For you organizational-history-trivia buffs, "Delivery" came from one of our ITSS groups-of-origin, "Product Design and Delivery" which focused on designing and rolling out new applications such as the first iterations of Webmail and StanfordWho.)

During the last three years, our group has become increasingly involved in the development and use of dynamic web-based systems for collaboration and for publishing service-related content. Examples include software.stanford.edu (the "software portal"), the database-driven IT Services online service catalog, the Stanford Web Forms Service, and various MediaWiki and Drupal sites. We figure, then, that it's time to acknowledge that we do more developing than delivering… so it's us… WE changed the D in DDD… "Documentation, Design, and Development."

- Christopher Kittle and Dave Ream
Documentation, Design, and Development

Rapid Response Extended to Families

Effective January 1, 2009, hospitals are required to have an early recognition and response system in place. IT Services worked with both Stanford Hospital and the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital to put these procedures in place—a relatively straightforward process, as the hospitals had already started using the Rapid Response Teams (RRT) internally over the past 18 months.

Now, the service is extended to enable family members to dial a pre-designated three-digit code (in this case, 232), that alerts the team to activate the RRT. (Formerly, patients had to wait for a hospital member to initiate the RRT on their behalf.) The need for code calls has been reduced since the initial implementation of RRT, and this latest decision is expected to continue to improve patient safety. Many kudos to Debbie Garcia, the operators, and the Order Management and Communication Services Maintenance staff who helped to put the new procedures in place!

- Jay Kohn
Strategic Liaison

Western Regional Pinnacle Users Conference

Last year Stanford University committed to host the Western Regional Pinnacle Users Conference this February. At present, we have 40 participants, giving us an opportunity to discuss the current state and future plans of the Pinnacle application. We are excited to have a dozen universities registered for the event, including USF, Brigham Young, Loyola Marymount, University of Arizona, University of Utah, University of British Columbia, University of New Mexico, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Davis, as well as participants from outside the academic space: Sony Pictures, Church of Latter Day Saints, and NSTec.

University of Utah, a Pinnacle v6 beta site, will talk about the challenges that they have with v6. PAETEC will facilitate hands-on training via Pinnacle instances on flash drives.

The day-and-a-half event will take place in our own Turing Hall on February 12 and 13. We see this as an excellent opportunity to learn more about what our peers are doing with Pinnacle, including their pain points and issues along with what functionality they have implemented that has improved their environments.

Read more about the event.

- Anne Pinkowski, Application Support
Christine Soldahl, Finance

University Policy Change: Vacation Accrual

This month the University announced a change to its vacation policies. In brief, Stanford has announced that, starting in 2010, the maximum amount of vacation time that a staff member can accrue will be reduced incrementally over a three-year period. The policy change is intended to help departments and units avoid having to set aside money from their budgets to cover large accruals of time off that aren't used. The Provost recently provided an explanation discussing how vacation accrual use can contribute to local budget unit savings.

For additional information about the planned changes, please refer to the January 14 edition of the Stanford Report.

- Nancy Ware
Strategic Planning

IPP Reminder

This is an early reminder and clarification about the upcoming due date for IPPs. Finalized IPPs will be due to your EDs no later than Thursday, April 30, 2009.

Please note that there is no midyear check-in (Phase 2) this year. The final evaluation phase (Phase 3), which consists of completing Sections 2 and 3 of the FY09 IPP form, should start no later than April 1 and end by April 30.

For additional information and guidance about using the new IPP form, please review the instructions included in the form. Please contact Dani Aivazian or Cheryl Miller with any questions.

- Dani Aivazian
Organizational Development

2008 Holiday Party a Success!

Thank you everyone for attending the IT Services Annual Holiday Party! Also, thanks to everyone who contributed to the Holiday Giving Tree program. With the help of 1,024 host companies like Stanford University IT Services, every low-income child on our wish list received a special gift from the Family Giving Tree, totaling 62,073 wishes!

During the party, folks had the opportunity to dedicate songs to one another and some of these dedications were pretty spirited. We thought it would be fun to share some of these.

Happy New Year!
Your 2008 Holiday Party Planning team: Suzanne S., Robin C, Heather F., Crystal A., Nancy G., Mellani M., Kim S., Lucrecia K.

- Suzanne Schiessler
Order Management

New Operating Rooms at LPCH—more thank you's to share!

I neglected to thank the members of Order Management, in particular Nancy Ansaldo and Christina Zuffinetti, in the article on the LPCH OR opening. They both put in countless hours to help the opening occur on time—thank you!

- Jay Kohn
Strategic Liaison, Medical Center

About its in bits

A regular summary of IT business, news about personnel, and pointers to other information of interest to IT Services staff. Coordinated, compiled, and published by the Communication Strategy and Standards Team. its in bits is published on the first and third Wednesday of the month.

Submissions are due by Noon on the Friday before the scheduled issue, to itsinbits-submissions@lists.stanford.edu for consideration. its in bits is distributed via email to its-all-staff@lists.stanford.edu and the subscription list itsinbits-subscribers@lists.stanford.edu People outside of IT Services can self-subscribe via mailman.

The next its in bits will be published on Wednesday, February 4, 2009.