Staff Profile

Vicki Hallett


Vicki Hallett started working at Stanford in 1974.


How would you describe your current job responsibilities?

I currently manage the ordering and billing Service Desk for IT Services. The group is responsible for assisting Department Contacts with their ordering and billing needs, reviewing all incoming service orders to be sure they are "well formed," and training customers on the best use of the OrderIT web site.

We also complete a host of service requests including changing billing accounts and subscriber names, changing user name displays on the phone sets, creating iPass accounts, assigning PBN long distance codes, and setting up Cable TV analog services for students. In a day, the Service Desk receives from 100–250 web orders, 50–65 calls, and 10–35 HelpSU tickets, which keeps us very busy.

Which aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?

One of my job responsibilities is training new IT Department Contacts on effectively using the OrderIT web site for ordering our services and for viewing their department's monthly billing statement. I get the opportunity to meet clients in person and build relationships. That helps me to better serve them by gaining an understanding of their business needs. I love the energy I get from interacting with clients and the sharing of knowledge that can make their jobs easier.

What did you do before you came to Stanford?

Before coming to Stanford 34 years ago, I worked for a small Title Insurance company in downtown San Jose, running their Customer Service front desk. When I first came to Stanford, I worked in the Office of Development coding address changes for alumni. This doesn't sound like a very important job but it was, and is, in the University's efforts to solicit financial support. I joined the Data Center in 1977 and have held about 14 different positions: Help Desk, Accounting, Student Services, Service Consultant, Trainer, Supervisor, Manager, and Application Support Business Analyst, to name a few. I have always worked in a customer support role.

What do you like to do when you're not at work?

My two children are grown, so most of my leisure time is spent playing golf, golf, and more golf. Fortunately, that's my husband's favorite leisure activity too.

What is your favorite movie, book, song?

I do not have a favorite movie or book. However, I do like romantic comedy movies and romance novels. My favorite music is Country.

Tips From Your Admin

Did you know that...

...your Admin Team needs a detailed receipt for business meal reimbursement. Complete guidelines are available in the Admin Guide (PDF).

Staff Happenings

Remember Jo-Ann Cuevas? She's baaaaack! Jo-Ann returned to IT Services on Monday as a Campus Readiness Specialist, working with Ammy Hill in the Documentation, Design, and Delivery/Campus Readiness group. Her first assignment will be to create a User Guide for the new Remedy 7 application.

Jo-Ann has a varied background in teaching, documentation, communication, help desk support, and data reporting. She recently served as a Business Analyst for the Medical School's Human Resources Group, in Menlo Park.

Jo-Ann has been with Stanford University for 20 years and is happy to be back on campus and back with many of her former colleagues.

- Christopher Kittle
Documentation, Design, & Delivery

Comings and Goings

The following people have joined Information Technology Services. Welcome.

Norman Kawaguchi (Karen Zack)

The following people have left IT Services. Please see their manager if you have open issues.

Heather Ramamurthy (Joyce Dickerson)

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, March 7: Photoshop and Fireworks

When Adobe purchased Macromedia, many thought the Fireworks product would be eliminated, since both Photoshop and Fireworks are image editors. What's the difference between the two applications? When should I use Photoshop? When should I use Fireworks? In Friday's session, Mark Branom will answer these questions as he demonstrates these two programs.

Friday, March 14: Software at Stanford

Technical people need to know how to find the software tools they need for their work at Stanford. This presentation, provided jointly by the IT Help Desk, Software Licensing, Procurement, and the Campus Bookstore will demystify the various sources of software on campus.

Check the Tech Briefings home page for future sessions and to subscribe to the mailing list.

 

Technology Training Courses

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

Upcoming Tech Training classes of interest to IT Services staff:

Database Design and CPR, Tue, Mar 11, 9:00–12:00, $125

InDesign Level 2, Wed, Mar 12, 9:00–4:00, $325

Excel 2007 Level 2, Thu, Mar 13, 9:00–4:00, $325

Word 2007 Level 3, Mon, Mar 17, 9:00–4:00, $325

OpenOffice.org: A Free Alternative to Microsoft Office, Mon, Mar 17, 1:00–4:30, $195

TechPort Open Lab, Wed, Mar 19, 9:00–12:00, Free

PHP Workshop, Wed, Mar 19 and Thu, Mar 20, 9:00–4:00, $525

OrderIT Site Training, Wed, Mar 19, 1:00–4:30, Free

Web Design Level 3: Cascading Style Sheets, Thu, Mar 20, 1:00–4:30, $195

Sign up at http://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

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

- Michelangelo Buonarroti

News

A Note From Bill...

I sincerely appreciate that so many of you came to last week's Town Hall. Joe Stagner did an excellent job of sharing the impressive efforts that Stanford is making towards sustainability. Yesterday's groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Y2E2 building further reinforce the University's commitment toward leading improvements in the areas of energy and the environment. We're thrilled to know that IT plays an important role in those plans, particularly collaborating with faculty leaders regarding new research computing facilities and helping the campus reduce the energy of desktop computers.

I'd like to continue our Town Hall discussion about the direction of our organization—where we need to go and how we can work together to get there. As I mentioned, our Strategic Plan remains solid in the eyes of the University and our clients. When we look down the three-year roadmap, our goals are very much on target. Our clients just want those solutions sooner rather than later.

When I listen to our clients and reflect on their IT strategic plans, it is clear they want to leverage, not compete with, what IT Services is doing. Clients look to us for leadership. Their primary request is that we deliver needed infrastructure improvements more quickly. The University message is much the same: Stanford is funding our projects more quickly than we anticipated and is looking for accelerated progress.

It's exciting to be a critical part of Stanford's mission going forward, but it increases the necessary focus on how best to meet these needs quickly. Right now we are concentrating on the following:

Service Portfolio: We are conducting an in-depth portfolio analysis of our systems and services. We need to concentrate on services that meet client needs, scale well for central IT, and move us forward strategically. To do that we are determining which services to keep, which require investment and improvement, and which to eliminate because they are not delivering strategic value.

Organizational Alignment: We are looking at our structure and asking how we can streamline our processes and become more efficient. I believe that both our computing and our communication organizations must become more technically focused. We must create an environment that fosters technical innovation. At the same time, we need to streamline our business and customer interfaces to make service delivery more efficient for both our clients and ourselves.

Reduce Overhead: We continue to explore ways to reduce the overhead that has accumulated over time. Not only does this allow us to be more agile and responsive, it also means we can deliver our services at a lower cost.  To achieve this we will need to focus our reductions on nonessential activities. 

Times of change can be unsettling, but also quite fresh and exciting. I believe we are poised to partner with our clients in a much more meaningful way, and to deliver true IT excellence across the University. We have an immense opportunity to help leverage both the academic and research mission of Stanford, as well as to support its staff. Our goal is to be nothing less than the best IT organization in all of higher education; a valued partner that our clients always seek to involve as they take on new challenges.

I know the directors and managers are engaging their folks in open conversations about how we achieve these goals. We will be making Service Portfolio decisions and retuning the portfolio over the next year or two. We need to make the organizational and overhead decisions much more quickly. We will do that as a two-step process: the first step at the end of March, the second step at the end of May.

I encourage you to continue to give your feedback and ideas to your managers, directors, and also to me. Discussions with workgroups, organizations, and cross-functional teams have already produced a wealth of ideas and contributed some significant additions to our plan. I know that together we will become a far more important part of Stanford's exciting future.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

iPhone for Business

When first released last summer, Apple iPhones were available only under an "Individual Liability Plan." Business plans were not available. In December, we partnered with AT&T and Apple to launch a pilot program at Stanford to test the viability of offering an iPhone through a "Corporate Liability" program. A team of experts met with AT&T and Apple to formulate the process.

Team members were Ian Gillern, Nicole Crouere, and Juan Sebastian from AT&T; Sylvia Herrera, Wyn Davies, and Jason Edinger from Apple; Jason Cowart, Suzanne Schiessler, Nancy Gutgsell, Christine Soldahl, Kevin Stephens, Lori Wisneski, Brian Wankel, Ty Baler, and Brian Spyksma from Stanford.

We created a pilot web site that added to the content from the existing iPhone web site (thanks to Jason Cowart and Christopher Kittle). We then invited a selected group of IT Services Directors and Managers to try out the program. Over the holiday break, we tested the iPhones and were impressed with the usability and functionality of the device.

In January, we opened the pilot to users across campus. As we were preparing for their orders, AT&T and Apple decided that our original pilot group had demonstrated everything that they needed to know about the program and they decided to offer it to everyone—all corporate users across the U.S.

We've had an unprecedented number of iPhone orders; currently one third of our cell phone order requests are for the iPhone. We believe we'll continue to see departments adding iPhones to their mobile options. Please review the iPhone at Stanford web site and talk to your manager if you think the iPhone is a good solution for you.

- Suzanne Schiessler
Order Management

Converged Communications

It's been a long-time plan to bring our voice and data groups together toward a more converged communications model, both technically and organizationally. Toward that end and effective Tuesday, March 4, Christine Moe and her staff—the Communication Systems Engineers and the Communications Systems Maintenance groups—will report to Networking.

A new management position to head the group will be posted and Jimmy Hale will serve as Acting Manager for the group. Christine is looking forward to getting back to a staff role and providing support for Jimmy in his role as Acting Manager. We are all looking forward to the great work this converged group will continue to provide to our clients.

- Jay Kohn
Shared Communication Services

Form Builder Update

As Stanford departments and organizations continue to increase and enhance their online presence, they've frequently turned to the Web to collect information from their clients. Simple online subscription forms and surveys, for example, have become commonplace on many web sites. For years, IT Services has provided Formage, a tool that allows you to build these simple forms.

The years have not been good to Formage and as web technologies have changed, support for this dated application has been quite problematic. Simultaneously, the needs of the Stanford community have become more complex, while the expectation for ease-of-use continues to grow. This has resulted in many departments and organizations looking elsewhere, to companies like SurveyMonkey and Wufoo, for a form-building tool.

Enter the Web-based Form Builder project. This project aims to create a user-friendly, web-based application that integrates with Stanford's infrastructure, provide a replacement to Formage, and act as an alternative to tools from outside vendors.

The Web-based Form Builder will allow you to create forms—contact forms, short surveys and polls, teacher evaluation forms—without having to code HTML, Javascript, server-side scripts, or SQL commands. Special pre-formatted fields—including Stanford-specific fields—will be available so that creating forms will be as easy and as quick as possible. Data collected through the forms can then be emailed to the form owner and/or stored in a MySQL database.

The new tool will be available to the entire campus community and the code will be developed under an open source license. To find out more, give feedback, or contribute to the project, please visit the project Wiki.

- Marco Wise
Documentation, Design, & Delivery

Security and Safety

A vehicle theft and a few burglaries in and around the Forsythe Parking Structure serve to remind us that the security and safety of our IT Services environment are everyone's responsibility.

If anything strikes you as insecure or unsafe, please move to a safe location and notify a manager or administrator. If a person or situation appears to be immediately threatening to life or safety, dial 911 from a cell phone and move to a safe location, or go to the nearest blue Emergency Phone Tower and activate it. Push the red button on the front center panel of the Phone Tower and the phone will direct dial the 911 Emergency Dispatch Center, which is staffed 24-hours-a-day. Pushing the red button will also activate a blue strobe light on top that should alert others, including responding deputies, to your location.

Walk around your building and areas you frequent to familiarize yourself with the nearest blue Emergency Phone Tower.

When leaving your building after hours, try to do so with a colleague. If you are leaving your building alone after hours, remain alert with at least one hand unencumbered, car keys out and ready to use. Stanford Public Safety advises carrying a noise-making device for emergency use.

Suzanne Schiessler will be setting up a meeting with the Stanford Sheriff's department to discuss security and safety issues in and around our work environment. Please contact Suzanne for the place and time. In addition, Stanford Public Safety has informed us that they will monitor our parking structure more closely during the day and evening.

Safety and security information from the Stanford University Department of Public Safety is available online.

- Tom Prussing
Technical Facilities

PMT Goes Online

Ever wonder how a project is doing and didn't know where to look? Want to see a full list of the projects the Project Management Office (PMO) is tracking, but didn't know where to find it?

These reports can now be found on Docushare.

If you forget that URL, just go to the Projects tab on the IT Services home page and click on the report you want in the left column.

- Joyce Dickerson
Project Management Office

Attending CAMP

Last month Mike Olive (AS), David Donnelly (AS), Digant Kasundra (IT Services), and I attended an Educause/Internet2 CAMP (Campus Architecture and Middleware Planning) meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. The topic of this meeting was Bridging Security and Identity Management. Representatives from over 75 colleges and universities around the country participated in the discussions.

Session topics ranged from the challenges of defining and managing functional roles in the business and academic worlds within and across institutions, to different ways to reach a level of assurance that the electronic identity and roles being presented to an application or service truly match a particular person. Between sessions, informal discussions ranged from virtualization to new NSF grant initiatives to thoughts on the IT Leadership program some schools participate in.

Participating in these meetings gives us a chance to learn from our peers and to influence best practices across the entire security and identity management field. As we work with clients who will be depending on centrally-held identity data, information from this meeting and others like it will help us make more informed decisions about how we offer our services.

If you would like more information about this meeting, presentations are being made available online.

- Heather Flanagan
Windows Systems

Organizational Change

Apparently, a significant number IT Services staff have misunderstood the recent discussions regarding Organizational Change. It has come to the attention of senior management that an overwhelming amount of change is happening in the form of staff additions, or more precisely, additions to the families of staff.

While these additions typically provide joy and fulfillment for those directly involved, they can also prove to be a distraction, and for a significant number of years, not actually do any work here.

Clusters of these additions have been reported on the second floor of Polya Hall, and in Forsythe Hall, but other instances likely exist. While root-cause analysis did not yield a specific source, several theories have been put forward, including re-run fatigue caused by the television writers strike and insufficient employee workload leading to an abundance of “free time.”

Senior management is committed to addressing this serious issue and it has been elevated to an action item on the IT Services Leader's retreat scheduled for Friday, March 7. While several available prevention measures are well understood by the leadership team, they will determine those most appropriate for the department, and will be presenting them soon. Look for the Sundial invitation to the mandatory training sessions in Turing over the next few weeks.

In the interim, please remember to submit a Change Management Request and wait for proper approval before proceeding with any new development activities or go-live planning.

- Anonymous

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, March 19, 2008.