Continual
Improvement
OIT is always looking for ways to deliver services faster, better, or cheaper. Experimentation and innovation, consolidation and leverage, data-driven decision making, and engaging the campus in our governance all result in IT services and infrastructure which deliver better value to the campus.
Service Status Monitoring
Our new Pingdom service status monitoring system allows faculty and staff to see in real-time which services are running well, degraded, or down.
Pinnacle Billing System
OIT introduced the Pinnacle Billing System which gives campus departments convenient access to a range of reports on the services and charges they receive from OIT.
Service Portal
We introduced a new Service Portal where you can report problems, request new hardware, software, and services, track the state of your current issues, and find answers to IT problems in our knowledge base.
Mobile Access
Our telephone and network field technicians now carry mobile devices to provide faster and more accurate service and reduce paper use.
We now offer Siteimprove to the campus for assessing web site quality and accessibility.
After-Hours Coverage
We are making a number of changes to our after-hours procedures so that problems that occur outside of business hours are communicated and resolved quickly.
Online Service Request
You can make telephone and network requests using a start-to-finish online Service Request process.
We have deployed CashNet SmartPay, an integrated payment management technology to make it easier for students and parents to pay for tuition and expenses.
Github
We are using the Github cloud asset management system to store our applications, data, and documentation.
3- and 5-year Network Roadmaps
Our campus network is a key piece of infrastructure supporting the entire instructional, research, and administration activities of UCI. But it is complex, and as demands grow, a careful technical and budget plan for continuous upgrades is needed. OIT has now developed 3- and 5-year network roadmaps to meet this goal.
Accelerating Innovation
New ideas are always necessary in an environment as prone to change as information technology, and our Accelerating Innovation program helps curate good ideas from all over OIT and guide them toward better processes and new services.
Leadership Academy
We are also investing in our staff with an eye to better service, support, and communication with the community. All of our managers and team leaders are going through a Leadership Academy in cooperation with the Merage school, and we have an internal mentoring program to assist our newer staff in gaining technical and customer service skills quickly.
Customer Satisfaction Survey
We conducted our third Customer Satisfaction Survey and have chosen goals and projects for the coming year based on your feedback.
Pilots
We also launched a number of pilots and proofs of concept (ServiceNow applications framework, Apporto/VCL, Apple/Windows desktop parity, WEPA printing) which will result in new services in the future.
New Services
New services introduced this year include:
- database administration hosting services
- departmental desktop support services
- departmental firewall services
- website support and management
- Windows server system administration and virtual servers service management system (using ServiceNow) that creates a single system of record, automates manual tasks, standardizes processes, provides issue tracking and allows for collaboration and task management.
Campus Directory
The various campus directory systems (LDAP) have been consolidated into a single robust database.
Microsoft Teams
We have begun to use Microsoft Teams, a flexible communication, collaboration and file sharing system to improve internal communications and will introduce support for campus use soon.
Taskr
We have implemented taskr, a system for scheduling network-mediated automation tasks, to more consistently manage our larger code bases, including Kuali Financial System, Kuali Research, and Slate.