its in bits

A Note From Bill…

The results of the 2009 Business Affairs Employee Survey are available, and among a number of items that pleases me is the outstanding participation rate of IT Services staff. Well over 90% of you completed the survey. That not only suggests that the finding will be representative of the entire organization, but also demonstrates a staff engagement in improving our organization that energizes me to continue to work toward our ongoing improvement.

I hope that my words and actions reflect that I consider the people in IT Services our most important resource and the primary factor in increasing client satisfaction. Now more than ever, our staff truly is our strength. As we continue to improve our staff, our development, and our team collaboration, we will move ever closer to our goal of being the best service organization at Stanford.

I believe that the success of our staff leads to the success of our clients. When we have great staff working together to do great things, we undoubtedly have delighted clients. We already see this every day as we deliver our best tools and services to the campus. Of course, the data from the Employee Survey is just one piece in determining where we need to improve; equally important are the conversations prompted by the data that leads to further discovery about what’s working and what would benefit from change.

I am pleased to report that the results for our organization have improved significantly since 2007. As heartening as this is, we need to continue to work hard to make IT Services an even better place to work. That is why I have asked the directors and managers to reach out to their work groups and take the time to talk about the findings from both quantitative and qualitative points of view. I look forward to continued feedback that I am certain can help us discover additional ways to improve.

Once we have had our initial conversations, we will know a lot more about how we can collectively work to continue to improve IT Services. We have already planned to have a discussion of the specific results of the survey, and of our first round of work group conversations at our autumn Town Hall.

As always, I thank each one of you for taking the time to provide your input!

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Update on Stanford Voice Messaging

On Thursday, August 27, the UM project team completed an upgrade to the Stanford Voice Messaging service, moving it to the latest version. The new release includes several improvements to the web portal, including some Stanford customizations.

Pending some additional testing from staff across IT Services, the team expects to launch the web portal to the campus later this month. This rollout will include the ability for staff (excluding the hospitals and the Medical School, who remain on the old Octel system at this time) to set up forwarding voice messages to email on their own, hopefully reducing the number of requests coming to the Help Desk for assistance. Additionally, staff can request via a HelpSU ticket a new feature: Find Me, Follow Me. This enables the system to try to find you at alternate phone numbers instead of just leaving a message.

These features are available to IT Services staff now. Try them out by going to myvoicemail.stanford.edu. The portal password is the same as your voicemail password.

Next, the project team turns its attention to the hospitals and the School of Medicine as they transition to the new system on November 15. A small set of trial users from LPCH, SHC, and SoM will begin assessing the system by the end of September. The hospitals plan to offer voicemail replacement only. The School of Medicine will adopt all of the features available to other university users.

- Ammy Hill
Campus Readiness

Software Licensing Releases New Web Store for Campus Clients

On September 1, Software Licensing released the primary phase 1 deliverable of its Automation Project: a new Software Licensing Web Store. Clients purchasing software through Software Licensing are now treated to a more modern e-commerce-like experience that automates several previously manually-performed processes and replaces some dated technology (i.e., Formage) with up-to-date and more-easily supported web tools.

As always, the campus clients' starting point for licensed software remains softwarelicensing.stanford.edu.

Overall, the Automation Project intends to automate the Software Licensing service processes for ordering, delivery, and billing of licensed software. Using off-campus and on-campus services and business systems, the project will introduce automation that eliminates, to whatever extent possible, manual processes, while providing a better online experience for clients. The release of the new web store provides improvements to several areas:

locating available products (i.e., shopping) is simplified through search tools and a new user interface;
ordering includes the common online "shopping cart" experience;
self-service access to personal software purchase history is readily available;
software delivery is primarily provided through electronic downloads; and
transactions are stored in an online database, allowing for output in a form that can improve the ease of billing.

Though an incredible amount of work went into the release of the web store, it is just an early step in what the project expects to accomplish. The next major step is to work with Procurement to integrate the new web store with iProcument/SmartMart so that Stanford faculty and staff can purchase their licensed software through the same entry point they use for most other purchases. Following that, the project will be working with Procurement and Administrative Systems to fully automate "billing" through electronic transfers of funds in Oracle.

Thanks to all the Software Licensing staff — Debbi Barley, Pat Box, Robin Cohen, Edith Marsiske, and Jane Tansuwan — as well as Tim Torgenrud, for their efforts in achieving this milestone.

- Jim Knox
Documentation, Training, and Licensing

Student Software Sales Move to Bookstore — Now Staff Get Great Discounts Too!

If you've ever had an office near Software Licensing, you undoubtedly noticed that it gets a lot of student traffic. For the most part, that was a result of its Microsoft and Adobe sales. In the past seven years, Software Licensing has sold more than 5,400 pieces of software to over 3,000 students, saving those students close to half a million dollars!

In August, Software Licensing transitioned these sales to the Stanford Bookstore. Using the same Stanford license, the Bookstore is selling the same MS and Adobe products to students at the same discounted prices that were available from Software Licensing. What's more, faculty and staff can now purchase these products for personal use at the same discounted prices previously offered only to students through Software Licensing. Congratulations to Software Licensing, Procurement, and the Stanford Bookstore on this win/win transition!

- Jim Knox
Documentation, Training, and Licensing

Evaluation Equipment POs

So you are working with a vendor, deciding whether or not to buy a piece of equipment, when they suggest loaning you the asset, or sending it to you for evaluation purposes, or as a demo. You think, "Wow, this is great! I can try this out and see if I really want it before I spend money from my hard-earned equipment budget!" So you tell the vendor to go ahead and send you the equipment. And the next thing you hear is that Sally Davis at Forsythe or Christine Wynkoop at Pine has refused the shipment.

Why? Because no Stanford purchase order was associated with the shipment. All equipment that comes into the University must do so through the purchasing system, including donated, loaned, and evaluation equipment. The purchasing system creates an accounting record at the University level that the equipment has arrived. It also provides the full documentation, including value, needed by Risk Management if anything should happen to the equipment.

When you request equipment (with a Capital purchase cost over $5,000, or Non-Capital purchase cost under $5,000) on loan or for demo that has no initial cost from a supplier, a requisition must be created in iProcurement. Have your admin enter the PO for you. It will be Standard Capital Equipment for the full dollar value.

Full documentation is needed for Risk Management and for the anticipated decision to retain the equipment, including justification and Department Property Administrator (DPA) screening. Be sure to attach the following: a purchase justification (for the full value); a sole-source supplier justification item quote; and loan agreement trade-in Tag Number, if applicable. It will be routed first to the DPA and then to the PTA approvers, based on full purchase price. Next, the central office buyer will create the PO detailing the terms of the loan, generally for $0 value as commitment, including the supplier agreement.

Contact the DPA to coordinate the HelpSU request to re-issue the PO for agreed-upon value. Justification and Screening will already be validated. The DPA then enters Receiving in iProcurement, and the supplier provides the invoice for payment.

If a PO has not been created, the DPA will refuse delivery of the equipment and if the equipment is damaged or lost, the Risk Management Department will not pay the owner's claim. And, the Procurement Department won't be able to negotiate the best price if the department decides to keep the evaluation equipment.

So please, when creating a requisition for evaluation equipment, ask your Admin to work closely with Sally Davis or Christine Wynkoop. Thanks!

- Sally Davis
Data Center Facilities

Stanford IM — Secure Chat Service

Stanford IM is an instant messaging service requested by departments from across campus, and implemented by IT Services. The service gives staff and faculty a way to communicate about University business quickly and securely. Open to anyone with a full-service SUNet ID, Stanford IM is also available to students.

A Jabber server with Kerberos authentication and SSL encryption is in full production. Two instant messaging clients are supported: Adium for Mac users and Pidgin for Windows and Linux users.

A Stanford Instant Messaging service site has been created. The site includes a description of the service as well as links to instructions for downloading and configuring the supported clients. A Stanford Answers FAQ is also available.

The first round of testing was released to all of IT Services on August 24. Help Desk Levels 1 and 2 and the CRC received and completed detailed test plans, and fewer than ten help tickets were logged during the initial testing period. Stakeholders began the next round of testing on August 31.

Rollout to campus is scheduled for September 11. A Tech Briefing that day will launch the new service to campus.

- Jo-Ann Cuevas-Pagliaro
Campus Readiness

Pandemic Exercise Rescheduled to September 16

Based upon feedback from some of our key clients, the date of the IT Services pandemic exercise has been rescheduled to Wednesday, September 16 (it was previously scheduled for Wednesday, September 2). This exercise is an important part of testing our readiness to continue operations in the event of a pandemic, such as H1N1. We need to carry out this exercise before the Autumn Quarter begins, as we'll be sharing our experiences and learning with other units throughout the university.

Please review Chris Lundin's article in the August 19 issue of its in bits for key elements of the September 16th exercise.

- Matthew Ricks
Computing Services