its in bits: Volume 1, No. 3 | December 7, 2005

A Note From Bill...

As I look back over the year of 2005, I am grateful to all of you to see that it was a year filled with accomplishments and a more settled sense of direction for our organization. The daily delivery of essential services to campus, coupled with the broad array of projects completed and goals achieved, is impressive. IT Services leadership did its part by clearing hurdles to enable a much sharper focus on our basic mission of delivering these services.

In looking forward to the coming year, it became increasingly clear to me, and others, that we could improve both leadership and productivity by giving more executive-level attention to Shared Services. This is a huge group with a vast and varied number of critical services that are delivered every day to our clients.

We have, thus, decided to align the Shared Services area into two Executive Director areas. One area will concentrate on the delivery of computing services provided by the data center. The other area will focus on our communication and network services. Jay Kohn will lead the communication and network portion of our business. John Freshwaters will lead the computing services and data center portions of our work. John also brings additional technical bench strength to the ED team. Please join me in welcoming John to his new role, effective January 1, 2006.

I also want to update you on our financial situation for this year. As you know, the combined organizations of AS and IT Services faced a significant deficit of $4.5M when we started this fiscal year. I am pleased to confirm that the Provost has funded that deficit with one-time funds. This means we can each concentrate on accomplishing our day-to-day job responsibilities, as well as pursue our goals and initiatives, without concern about the budget situation for this year.

We are just beginning to work on our new budgets for FY07. We will be asking the Provost to turn the one-time funding he granted us this year into base funding beginning in FY07. I believe that as we deliver better and better services we make that case ever easier to build. The best way we can do this is by continuing our work to make IT Service a truly client-focused organization.

I know all of us are looking forward to some much needed vacation time during the coming Winter Closure period. Enjoy a safe and restful holiday season with your family and loved ones! I look forward to seeing you in 2006, as we continue our important work together.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Measuring Resolution Time Of Customer Requests

In our HelpSU application (Remedy Help Desk 5.5), we have the Remedy Service Level Agreement (SLA) module running and capturing data on how quickly we mark customer's HelpSU requests as "Resolved." From our 2005 ITSS Customer Satisfaction Survey, we know that "resolution speed" is a key indicator of satisfaction with IT Services.

We have set service goals of getting "Urgent" priority cases resolved within four business hours, and getting lesser priorities (High, Medium, Low) cases resolved within twelve business hours. Our initial performance targets have been set to get 75% of all Urgent cases resolved under that four hour limit, and to get 85% of non-Urgent cases resolved within the twelve hour target.

For the CRC groups in HelpSU, the service goals for CRC requests are getting "Urgent" priority cases resolved within eight business hours, and getting lesser priorities (High, Medium, Low) cases resolved within 24 business hours. Our initial performance targets have been set to get 75% of all Urgent cases resolved under that eight hour limit, and to get 85% of non-Urgent cases resolved within the 24 hour target.

We have been tracking our performance in IT Services groups for a year. Our average over the last year has been 55% of Urgent Cases resolved within our targets, and 81% of non-Urgent cases, so we would like to improve those numbers.

We'll be working to improve the time lag between resolution and actually updating the tickets in Remedy. We think that's a significant contributor to the poor resolution rate of our Urgent requests, which represent about 4% of all the requests handled. We will continue to measure Resolution Time on a weekly basis and provide you with feedback on what improvements are being made in this key area of customer satisfaction.

- Chris Lundin
Client Support; Help Desk Services

Winter Closure

Snow on Palm Drive Hopefully, your workgroup has been planning how it will handle the services it provides during Winter Closure. Still, it's not too early to think about some Winter Closure tasks related to your own office space. As the final days tick down, here are a few quick reminders:

Lock Up. As you leave, check one last time to confirm your windows and doors are locked. Don't leave valuables in your office. IT Services is looking in to having the Stanford Police provide extra patrol support while we are gone; even so, better safe than sorry.
Take laptops and other easily portable assets home with you. As an extra precaution, be sure to load your laptop with any key documents and/or project information.
Turn off lights and power down computers. This saves energy (one of the key reasons for the closure). This also safeguards your computer from any unsolicited holiday gifts from a hacker.
Take out your garbage. For most office spaces Thursday, December 15 will be the last garbage pickup for the year. You should take out any garbage you create on Friday, December 16, or it may still be there when you return in January.

Reminders:

Your Kronos entries for Winter Closure must be completed by this Friday, December 9.
Information about the ITSS plans for Winter Closure is available on the Winter Closure page.
Information about other University organizations' plans for Winter closure is also available.

Enjoy a restful and peaceful holiday season with your families and loved ones.

- The Winter Closure Team

Marketing Joins Documentation, Training, and Licensing

I recently decided to more closely align a couple of groups within Client Support. Starting in January, the Marketing group will join the Documentation, Training, and Licensing (DTL) unit. Teresa Janeway (TJ), along with one position, will be moving into DTL and will continue to provide service promotion and publicity support to IT Services; Carlos Zertuche and Christina Cox, the two other current Marketing staff members, will be taking on new roles in the Order Management workgroup in Shared Services.

Since its creation, the Marketing group has worked closely with DTL, especially the documentation group, leveraging its resources to provide much needed education and service publicity to our clients. This consolidation will make those efforts even more effective.

Please join me in taking this opportunity to thank the entire Marketing team for all of its efforts and support over the past couple of years, including those related to the organization's list of products and services, the quarterly client service reviews, the monthly client news flash, the IT/CWA Open House, and new student orientation event.

Jim Knox and TJ are working on the details of this change. If you have suggestions, I encourage you to contact either of them, or me.

- Jan Cicero
Client Support

The IT Services Web Site Restructure Project

Clients have let IT Services know via survey responses and individual comments that they would like to have a "one-stop-shopping" location on the Web where they can learn about, acquire, and access support resources for IT Services offerings. In addition, the organization has identified a need to migrate business process systems and internal process documentation to the Web.

These enhancements will be delivered in two phases. Phase 1 involves the creation of a new AFS web directory for IT Services (/afs/ir/dept/its/WWW/) and the migration of materials into that space. This migration gives IT Services a fresh opportunity to organize documents and web sites, consolidating what has been a confusing array of directories. It also provides an occasion to define a process for requesting directory space that will prevent "clutter" moving forward. Phase 1 also includes the release of two new "home" pages—one client-facing and one dedicated to our internal needs and procedures—and a new look and feel for all IT Services pages that more closely matches that of other University sites and our HelpSU and ITHelp tools.

The new IT Services directory and page/site designs are now close to completion, and the new home pages and accompanying site migrations/reformats are set to happen before the end of January.

Phase 2 of the project, which is scheduled for completion in Spring 2007, will involve an overarching inventory of content and an attempt to structure it to improve its consistency and maintainability. Along the way, new pages will be created for products and services with missing or incomplete documentation.

But the ultimate goal is a new, client-facing web presence for IT Services that will emphasize self-help features via a familiar-but-friendly interface. The site will incorporate database automation, integration with supporting business systems where possible, easy updating for maintainers, and the ability to publish service and product information in multiple formats for various purposes.

Major milestones in the project, including the announcement of a new directory-request process, will be announced here in its in bits over the coming few months. If you need to create or change a directory in IT Services space during this transition, please contact Dave Ream.

- Dave Ream
Client Support: Documentation, Design, and Delivery

Desktop Configuration Management Project Completes

The Desktop Configuration Management (DCM) project has moved to completion after many months of hard work by a large group of IT Services staff and others. It moves Stanford a good way along the planned path for providing standardized desktop management to the campus community. The project had two major deliverables.

The best practices document: The team developed a "best practice" standards for Windows and MacOS computers systems configuration, focusing especially on security concerns. These best practice documents were the subject of much research, discussion, and review and now encapsulate a very complete set on standards for Windows and Mac computers.

As you are aware, Stanford desktop computers contain data protected by Federal HIPAA and FERPA regulations, as well as significant intellectual property and individual research efforts. Prior to this effort, the University had no consistent guidelines on desktop security configuration.

A deployment/enforcement tool: The team needed to design, develop, and deploy a software tool which would apply and enforce the "best practice" configurations, as any standard which is not enforced or maintained quickly stops being a standard. Since Stanford has purchased a site-license for BigFix for patch management, it was decided to use BigFix to maintain the security-related DCM standards.

The DCM application (compiled for both Windows and Mac) reads from the DCM best practices configuration files, renders those items in the user interface, allows the user to select and deselect certain items, and automates the application of those items. Certain security items are required and those are installed automatically.

The DCM tool is being piloted in CRC departments during December and then will be deployed across all of the CRC contracts beginning in January and February. A Phase II of the DCM Project has been funded to cover the development of a localized, configurable version of DCM and that work will begin in January. The scope and policy decisions for Phase II will be addressed by that project team.

Congratulations to the DCM team for this significant achievement.

The Full Project Team: Jan Cicero (Project Sponsor), Steve Loving (Project Manager), Tony Silveira, Jim Brown, Meghadri Ghosh, Jay Stamps, Jason Cowart, Brad Lauster, Caren Kammeyer, Ross Wilper, Stacy Lee, Tom Ostroff, Michelle Collette, Will Mingle, Bruce Campbell, Tony Navarrete, and David Hoffman.

Other members of the Windows and Mac Best Practices teams were: Tom Cramer, Jay Heyman, John Klemm, Ed Nuqui, Greg Smith, Matt Stofko, Bruce Vincent, Anthony Hom, Darren Patterson, and William Wong. DCM tool testers were Jason Cowart, Jane Norris, Chris Rose, Adam Seishas, Kusum Kumar, Lori Wisneski, and Tom Goodrich.

- Chris Lundin
Client Support; Help Desk Services

HelpSU Form Will Do More After Winter Break

Under the covers, we've been tidying up the HelpSU form over the course of the last quarter and with the new year, we'll be unwrapping an enhancement as well.

You have probably noticed DDD's work on bringing the HelpSU form in line with the larger Stanford online look and feel. The "PCAT" (Problem CATegory) method for presetting the Service and Summary fields is now available to folks wanting to target their client's help submissions. Several feature improvements and bug fixes released over the last month should make using the form more efficient and make routing of the tickets in Remedy more accurate.

The updated form is available for viewing.

After the Winter Closure, new presetting capabilities will be introduced. Folks pointing their users to HelpSU will be able to pre-set many of the general fields on the form, including pre-seeding the problem text window with information. This should further improve ticket routing and should help consultants get to the crux of issues with more troubleshooting information up front.

- Tim Torgenrud
Client Support; Program Management

Dean of Research Projects Updated

Over the past few months two important projects were successfully completed; both stressed improving the security of restricted data.

Conflict of Interest (COI) is a major first phase in the improvement of the COI application. The project's goal was to move this important application from IT Service's hardware onto dedicated hardware and adding needed firewall protection. Stanford faculty are required to use this application, at least once each year, to record information about outside work they may be doing in addition to their work on campus. Phase II of this project will be in the summer of 2006. COI will add a web server layer to complete the full three tier application.

Since September, the Unix, Database, Firewall, and Project Management teams have been working on a project for eProtocol (also known as HATS) to make firewall improvements and create a test environment identical to the production environment. They have also been bolstering the existing production application layer to provide added capacity and some level of redundancy. A special thanks to Kathleen Garcia, the new eProtocol technologist, for working with the teams and supporting "doing the right" thing wherever possible in the deployment.

Together, a total of ten new servers were deployed, complete with firewall protection. To do this, intense coordination was needed between all of the participant groups. Special thanks go out to the Account Manager, Phil Reese, the Unix/Linux group, the Firewall group, and the DBA team.

- Caren Kammeyer
Client Support; Program Management

No More Traffic

Earlier this fall, Business Affairs conducted a survey of its employees in response to the Provost's request to deliver a 10% reduction of peak commute traffic. 76% of Business Affairs responded, including 249 employees from IT Services.

Under the General Use Permit, Stanford must not exceed the 2001 baseline for peak hour commute trips—those between 7:45 and 9 a.m. as well as those between 4:30 and 6 p.m.��If the University does exceed that baseline, it is obligated to spend millions of dollars in mitigation fees modifying local intersections. The spring 2004 count showed that Stanford was under the evening limit by only 14 trips, so the University has increased efforts to encourage alternative transportation: trains, buses, carpools, vanpools, and bicycles.

So how does IT Services stack up? Across the University, 63% of employees drive to work alone. In Business Affairs overall, this number is 70%; for IT Services, it is 64%. The number of commute trips during peak hours for all of Business Affairs is 3.8/person/week (out of a potential 10). IT Services came in just under this number at 3.0/person/week.

Even with our great record, we�declared that we could do better! Additional changes that you and your managers made�bring in an extra 8% reduction in peak hour commutes for IT Services.�The rest of Business Affairs did their part and in the end,�Business Affairs can document that we have indeed achieved the desired�10% reduction in peak commute traffic.

Thank you, to everyone, for your�patience filling out the survey and for�making changes to your commute in order to�help the University.

- Joyce Dickerson
Client Support; Program Management

ID Card Office Changes

Effective January 4, 2006, the ID Card office will change its reporting structure from IT Services to Student Financials. This change provides a one-stop shop for paying tuition, paying for lost or affiliate ID cards, and obtaining an ID card.

Student Financials will handle the daily operation of taking and distributing IDs for students, faculty, staff, and courtesy cards. IT Services will continue to provide system support and handle batch processing for card distribution. With the renovation of Old Union just days away, the ID Card office, along with Student Financials, will be relocating to the Harold & Maude modulars on Serra Street next to Encina Hall.

- Teresa Janeway
Client Support; Marketing Services

Annual Off-Campus Equipment Verification

It is time again for each manager and his/her group to verify and update the IT Services Off-Campus Equipment Verification spreadsheet. Christine Wynkoop will be emailing a spreadsheet to each manager along with instructions.

We have revised and simplified the instructions that we sent out last year. Hopefully, this will be easier to understand but remember, if you have questions just contact Christine (3-1542). The deadline for this update is January 13, 2006, at which time all managers will email the completed spreadsheet back to Christine.

In advance, we would like to thank you for your participation in updating a key article of our biennial physical asset inventory.

- Sally Davis
Property Administration

Change Management Project: Current Status

The initial and primary focus of the Change Management project has been on developing and implementing a strengthened Change Management process. A secondary focus has been the evaluation, selection, and implementation of a new vendor package (InfraEnterprise from Infra Corporation) to manage the process. We are now in the implementation phase of the project.

The creation of the new Change Management process was a collaborative effort involving a working group consisting of representatives from each of the technical groups from IT Services and Administrative Systems. The final draft has been reviewed by the Change Management steering committee, which consists of leaders from both organizations. There is a link to the resulting "Process Document" at the end of this article.

Infra has implemented a number of customizations to their product to meet our needs. Over the past couple of months, we have worked with them to refine their releases. The latest release was received on schedule last month, and it corrected the majority of the priority one issues we had identified. We are still in the midst of regression testing, but so far the results look good.

We are planning to start a pilot (parallel run) with one group (Shared Application Systems) on or about 12/12. Before we do that, we are working with Infra to fix the remaining priority one issues (one of which is particularly important) as well as several key usability issues the working group identified. Infra has committed to doing this and delivering a new release in time for the pilot.

We have established a high level timeline with the intent to deliver a system of the best quality possible. At this point it looks like this:

We are regression testing the 11/28 release and signs so far are good.
We are targeting 12/12 to launch a pilot with the SAS team (we're scheduling training for them now).
Infra has committed to delivering several bug fixes and usability fixes in time for the pilot.
We are expecting more bug fixes and usability enhancements, and will be doing further testing, through January and February (we will be working with Infra over the next few of weeks to identify the timeline for these updates).
We will be conducting training sessions for those of you entering changes and for those of you who approve them.
We're targeting a full go-live by mid-March.

For additional information on the Change Management project, contact the project team. Information is available on the project web page and the Process Document (Word) is also available.

- Bill Heiser
Client Support; Program Management Office

Holiday Party

Please RSVP for you and your guest by the end of the day, today, Wednesday, December 7th to: itss-rsvps@lists.stanford.edu

If you are planning on attending the ITSS Holiday Party, please consider bringing one unwrapped child/teenager gift with you to the Faculty Club for our Toys for Kids Drive donation bag, which will be located near the patio entrance. Last year's Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties Toy Drive success was due, in part, to your generosity! Charitable organizations that benefit from the Toys for Kids Drive include:

YWCA Rape Crisis Center
El Camino Hospital
Lucille Packard Children's Hospital
Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen
Haven Family House
Cesar Chavez Elementary School
Menlo Park Police Teddy Bear Program

Their greatest need is toys for teenagers, and they like gift certificates best (Best Buy, Tower Records, and Target are favorites). But they need anything! If you will not be able to attend the holiday party, but would still like to donate, please drop off your gift at Caren Kammeyer's office in 262 Polya Hall.

What: ITSS Holiday Party
When: Wednesday, December 14th from 5 to 8-ish
Where: Stanford Faculty Club

A cocktail reception with jazz and hors d'oeuvres will be held from 5 to 6:30 p.m., followed by dinner, and the evening will conclude with John Klemm's presentation of the year in ITSS. You won't want to miss this one!

RSVP: A must! A Sundial invitation was sent, but we must have an RSVP to itss-rsvps@lists.stanford.edu to hold a place at the table for you and your guest.

See you there!

- Teresa Janeway and Tricia Richter
Holiday Planning Elves

Financial Hostage: Joyce Dickerson and the Disappearing Decimal

Our Program Office colleague Joyce Dickerson recently had a sobering experience with an online bill payment of her $50.00 Sprint cell phone bill. While quickly typing in the amount to pay, Joyce hit a 0 instead of the decimal point, changing 50.00 to 50000, resulting in a $50,000 payment from her bank account. Frugal as Joyce might be, that "way overdrew her account," started racking up huge daily overdraft fees, and caused her a ton of grief.

It took her eight weeks to prove to Sprint's satisfaction that they should refund her the money, and another eight weeks to get them to refund some of the overdraft charges she incurred. Full details (including Joyce's appearance on Action5 News).

- Chris Lundin
Client Support; Help Desk Services