Survey

Have you attended a sports event on campus this year?

Yes
No

Results from last issue's survey question: Have you planned your vacation for Winter Closure?

There were 40 responses. 24 said "yes" and 16 said "no."

Staff Profile

Molly Reynick

Molly Reynick came to Stanford in 2002. She works for the Finance and Administration group.


How would you describe your current job responsibilities?

I am responsible for internal financial reporting as well as reporting IT Services' financial results to the CFO’s office. I am heavily involved in the annual budget process. I also work on special projects for the finance group and provide ad hoc analyses.

Which aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?

I enjoy developing processes and tools to create efficiencies. I also enjoy taking large, complex data sets and turning the information into something concise and meaningful—a report or analysis that helps people make informed decisions.

What did you do before you came to Stanford?

Not too long before I came to Stanford, I was an undergraduate at UC Davis. After a brief stint at a litigation consulting firm in San Francisco, I worked as a Special Projects Coordinator in the accounting department at a local architectural firm. When I first came to Stanford in 2002, I worked as an analyst in the Dean’s Office in the School of Humanities & Sciences and then managed the finances for the University’s Office of Human Resources.

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

When I’m not at work, I love playing with my 21 month-old son and preparing for the arrival of his baby brother, who is due February 20th. Our favorite things to do together include trips to the park, coloring, reading Dr. Seuss, and kicking a ball around in the backyard.

What is your favorite movie, book, song?

The only books I read these days are textbooks. I’m finishing up my last semester as a graduate student and will receive my MBA in December. Once in a long while my husband and I sneak out to see a movie. We recently saw Little Miss Sunshine, which I really enjoyed.

Staff Happenings

The Integration and User Experience team, made up of Brad Lauster, Tim Torgenrud, and Jean Lucker, has joined the Application Support and Database Administration group led by Bryan Wear. While we'll miss them as part of the Project Management Office, their skills and the work they do is a better fit with their new group. Not much else has changed; they'll continue to do the same kinds of work. Jean and Tim can be found in the same offices. Brad will be moving to the other side of Polya with the rest of the team in the near future.

- Joyce Dickerson
  Client Support; Project Management Office

- Bryan Wear
Shared Application Services; Application Support & Database Administration

Comings and Goings

The following people have joined Information Technology Services. Welcome!

  • Victor Chavez (Maria Maravilla)

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

  • Joe Vasquez (Sam Steinhardt)
  • Matthew Stofko (Karen Zack)

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

Tech Briefings / Tech Express

Tech Briefings: Webmail

The Webmail system has been upgraded. Learn about the performance improvements that have been put in place, the server-side filtering that makes it work with your IMAP folders, and the interface changes (e.g., the address book uses the Stanford Directory), and learn a little about the "mobilemail" feature.

Turing Auditorium
Friday, November 17
2:00 to 3:30 p.m.
Tim Torgenrud, presenting

Check the Tech Briefings home page for specials and last-minute additions.

Tech Express: Open Source Software

The official title for this Tech Express is, "Using Open Source Software and Other Freebies (a.k.a., Alternatives to MS Office and Sound, Video, and Graphic Manipulation software)."

Do you wish you had office applications at home? Is your department running out of funds because you're spending too much on licensing fees for tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Illustrator, and Photoshop? Mark Branom will demonstrate Open Source and other free alternatives. Topics will include OpenOffice.org, Audacity, Picasa, Google Spreadsheets, Google Page Creator, and Writely.

Thursday, November 16
12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Turing Auditorium
Mark Branom, presenting

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

Technology Training Courses

Upcoming Tech Training classes of interest to IT Services staff.

  • Thursday, Nov. 16, Excel Level 2 (ITS-1122), 9 to 4, $275
  • Friday, Nov. 17, Web Design Level 1: The Basics (ITS-2501), 1 to 4:30, $150
  • Monday, Nov. 27, Excel Level 3 (ITS-1125), 9 to 4, $275
  • Wednesday, Nov. 29, Word Level 3 (ITS-0923), 9 to 4, $275
  • Thursday, Nov. 30, SQL Basics (ITS-2521), 9 to 4, $275

Sign up at http://axess.stanford.edu.

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

- Leni Silberman
Client Support; Technology Training Services

IT Employment Opportunities

There were seven new job postings for IT Services this week.

Req.#22839: Departmental Network Engineer, 100% FTE, continuing position, 4P3, Alvin Chew, hiring manager.

Position duties include project and maintenance support for networks and services including off-hours emergency repairs. Plan, purchase, install, and activate equipment required to expand and/or refresh ResNet, N2J, N2S, MMR, Stanford West, and 802.11 wireless.

Req.#22847: Manager UNIX Systems and Applications, 100% FTE, continuing position, 1M4, John Freshwaters, hiring manager.

The UNIX team manager is responsible for the support of production systems in terms of deployment, operation, maintenance, performance, change management, standards, and monitoring.

Specific responsibilities include providing operational leadership across all supported platforms, building a culture of operational excellence, and participating in the leadership team.

Req.#22902: Sr. Database Administrator, 100% FTE, continuing position, 4P4, Bryan Wear, hiring manager.

Operations duties include support of Oracle DBMS on RedHat Linux and Solaris, as well as MySQL on Linux. Install, configure, and support of Oracle relational database management (RDBMS) including Oracle/RAC and related software, understanding of application use of DB, basic UNIX system administration skills, and effective oral and written communication skills.

Req.#22958: Manager, IT Services Technology Training, 100% FTE, continuing position, 4P3, Jim Knox, hiring manager.

The manager is responsible for the analyzing, designing, planning, developing, implementing, and oversight of technical training. The technology training manager oversees a group of five staff members and recruits technical experts to deliver a variety of training opportunities (classroom training, tutorials, computer-based training) and documentation alternatives (paper, online, web-based) for faculty and staff.

Req.#22963: Order Management Lead, 100% FTE, continuing position, 4P3, Jay Kohn, hiring manager.

The lead will have responsibility for managing the workload of the order processing staff, performing staff management for the order processing staff, and managing client interactions for escalations as well as interacting with the leads for the Service Desk and Billing Service.

Req.#22989: Telephone Operator, 100% FTE, fixed-term position, Carolyn Kane, hiring manager.

The Telecom Attendant functions as the voice of Stanford, answering the main phone lines for the University, Stanford Hospital and Clinics, and the Lucille Salter Packard Children's Hospital. The Attendant performs critical call functions, including general information, directory, answer and transfer, paging, after-hours on-call contacts, and code call coordination.

Req.#23038: Process Consultant, 100% FTE, continuing position, 4P3, Karen Cox/Jay Kohn, hiring managers.

The individual in this position will be responsible for creating and managing reporting within the Order Processing group. The individual must demonstrate a complete knowledge of order processing systems and workflow through the entire IT Services organization, as well as an in-depth understanding of the Pinnacle system. S/he will be responsible for Reportmart Brio and Crystal Reports reporting in support of Order Processing.

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

“Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

News

A Note from Bill...

I don't have an article this week. I do want to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving holiday with your families.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Externally Funded Initiatives

Our list of FY07 Initiatives includes a subset that will require external funds to enable completion. Initiatives that have completed detailed reviews of their project scope, plan, and budget and have received funding approval to proceed include:

You can review the project charter materials by clicking on the project name above; all documents are in MS Word format.

We have three additional initiatives that have received funding concept approval. The final charter materials are being completed so official funding decisions can be made for:

  • Configuration Management; Discovery Phase
  • Centrally-Managed Shared Storage
  • Guest Accounts; Discovery Phase

Our current target is to complete the open review sessions for those projects prior to the start of winter break. We will keep you posted as the decisions are finalized.

We also have three initiatives related to Data Center needs that will require external funding to proceed. Given the size and scope, these activities are being tracked through a different process. Some cases will require Board of Trustee approval to proceed. We are coordinating with a variety of University offices on the next steps. At this time, we expect to begin the funding process in January of 2007. The Data Center initiatives are:

  • Forsythe and Sweet Hall Mitigation
  • North Campus Data Center
  • New Primary Data Center

- Nancy Ware on behalf of the Portfolio Management Team
(Bill Clebsch, Jan Cicero, Jay Kohn, John Freshwaters, Sam Steinhardt, Bruce Vincent, Joyce Dickerson, Nancy Ware)

Data Center Services Migration

We are in the process of transferring some of our Administrative Systems (AS) and Stanford University Libraries (SUL) Data Center services to the client, based on their request to take ownership of these responsibilities. AS and SUL have decided to take over the responsibilities for UNIX and Linux system administration and the Sybase database administration and handle these within their own organizations.

As of November 1st, SUL is actively handling their own services in these areas. AS is planning to cut over in early January. Project Managers, Account Managers and Finance have been busy working out the specific details including new ways to bill for our services. This new process involves software license sharing agreements and other tasks that will be split from standard billing rates due to the split in responsibilities. Systems Administrators have also been working to tease apart the shared infrastructure and decades of common practices.

So far, the transition has been smooth. We continue to work with both organizations to meet their ongoing needs and understand where IT Services can continue to help them further the mission of the University.

- Suzanne Schiessler
Client Support; Project Management Office

RightAnswers

“How do I make a pivot table in Excel?”

“How much does a sponsored SUNetID cost?”

If you’ve ever asked, or had clients ask, questions like these, help is on the way. Always looking for tools to leverage our knowledge and provide better help to clients, IT Services recently bought the RightAnswers Knowledge suite, a set of applications and services that will provide the basis for a self-help knowledge base to be used across campus. We plan to integrate this into our existing support tools, HelpSU, and Remedy. This knowledge base has “Ask Jeeves” search functionality that will initially be used by IT Services consultants, and then rolled-out to local IT support staff and eventually, campus end-users as well. This will provide quick and consistent methods to help our clients and give them more ways to help themselves.

RightAnswers (RA) already comes with pre-packaged question/answer “solutions”—over 120,000 of them on many common applications and operating systems. These include MS Office applications, Symantec, Treo, Spybot, Palm, XP, OS X, Red Hat Linux, and others. Solutions fall into one of three categories: Error, Problem, or How To. We are also adding our own customized content (e.g., VPN, SUNet ID’s). Initially, we’ll do this by providing material to RightAnswers, which they’ll turn around into brief, well-formatted solutions that are easy to browse and read. We also have the ability to author and publish our own solutions, and we’ll be doing this as well on an ongoing basis.

This tool will eventually replace the Self Help Computing page and become the new portal that will be used to search for information. If a search does not find specific information, it will be possible to create a HelpSU ticket with the problem already entered. RA provides reports to drive the content needs showing most-used solutions, topics where clients didn’t find the answer they needed, whether they created a HelpSU ticket, and many more.

During the coming weeks, the team will work to get the system onsite and integrated with Remedy, web authentication, and other configuration points. In January, internal IT Services folks will begin to use the tool, looking for solutions, and identifying areas for more content. At the same time, the team will be meeting with other groups (AS, Hospitals, H&S, and more) to get their specific content identified and added into the system.

Internal piloting of the system will continue from January through April until we are confident that the Knowledge Base has enough content to return the "Right Answer."

For additional information about RightAnswers, see their web site at: http://www.rightanswers.com/. We will have an internal project web site set up soon with more information.

If you have ideas about content for the knowledge base, contact Tom Goodrich. Other project team members include Jan Cicero, Project Sponsor; Chris Lundin, Product Manager; Tom Goodrich, Business Owner and Content Manager; and Suzanne Schiessler, Project Manager. Additional team members include: Steve McLenegan, Christopher Kittle, Dave Ream, Brad Lauster, Anne Pinkowsky, and Ammy Hill.

- Suzanne Schiessler
Client Support; Project Management Office

Closing FY06 Initiatives

At the October Town Hall, Bill reviewed the status of our FY06 initiatives. The At-A-Glance view of our status is available. You can see that we completed a large portion of these initiatives during FY06; those are noted as "DONE" in the date column. In some cases, projects extended into the initial quarter of FY07 to complete final testing, documentation, and/or other transition-to-production activities. The data column identifies these in the revised month-year notes.

Questions regarding these activities can be referred to the Initiative Sponsor or to your Director or Executive Director.

- Nancy Ware
Planning and Communication

Halloween Riddle

What do you get when you cross a biker, a nun, and a priest? Members of the IT Services groups!

See it for yourself: check out the pictures from the Halloween gathering. And for those of you who missed the Rocky Horror Picture Show, just check with our own Ammy Hill, a Rocky Horror Super Star!

- The Halloween Committee

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 new subscription list itsinbits-subscribers@lists.stanford.edu. People outside of IT Services can self-subscribe via majordomo.

The next its in bits will be published on Wednesday, December 6, 2006