Committee meeting - January 24, 2019

Carol Lu
Secretary to the Committee
January 24, 2019

Present:ÌýSteven Bourque (Chair), Trevor Bain, Robyn Landers, Bill Baer, Andrew McAlorum, MarkoÌýDumancic, Lawrence Folland, Adam Savage, Carol Lu (Secretary)

Guests: Matt HarfordÌý

Regrets:ÌýAndrea Chappell, Paul Miskovsky, Daryl Dore, Erick Engelke, Greg Smith, David Kibble, Jason Testart

Agenda

  1. Overview of IT advisory board (Matt Harford) [15 min.]
  2. Chair’s remarks [5 min.]
  3. Approval of the minutes of the meetings of ThursdayÌýJanuary 10, 2019Ìý[5 min.]
  4. Other Business [10 min.]
  5. Roundtable discussion – all [20 min.]
  6. Next CTSC Meeting [Will be held Thursday February 7, 2019 at 1:30 p.m., in EC2 1021.]

Overview of IT advisory board (ITAB)

Matt Harford attended the meeting to provide an overview of the IST advisory board.ÌýView the full presentation on the IT advisory board (PDF).

Comments & Discussion

  • How is the feedback received from the board prioritized for implementation?
    • Low or no cost suggestions can be implemented immediately
    • Feedback regarding services belonging to service owners outside of IST are passed on to the appropriate individual
    • Suggestions that would require a budget must be approved by the CIO
  • Could CTSC help studentsÌýdifferentiate IST as a department and understand the department's specific services?
    • ITAB could pass along feedback to different departments to share concerns among all IT groups on campus
  • What is the ITAB budget?Ìý
    • CIO has approved a budget for $100/month for food and drinks for participants
    • Students receive a letter of reference at the end of the term for their participationÌý
      • Students appreciate receiving this letter as something to include on their resume
  • How does the ITAB acquire participants?Ìý
    • The position is posted on LEADS, posters advertising the position are also posted at the IT service desks
    • ITAB received a satisfactory number of volunteers during its first term running
      • There has been a significant increase in volunteer applications in following terms
      • ITAB meeting attendance decreases during Spring term
    • The Math department runs a similar initiative, but currently struggles to obtain volunteers
      • AHS also has difficulty attracting volunteers for a similar initiative
  • ITAB is currently not a first page search result on Google
  • Posters are only put up for major planned outages or major IT changes
    • Posters are not created for unexpected maintenance
  • CTSC members are interested in obtaining 'How to set up wi-fi' poster assets to promote in respective member departments

Chair’s Remarks (Steven Bourque)

  • Currently working on updating the list of CTSC long-term agenda topics
    • CTSC members to vote on a list of discussion topics in the near future

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting

  • The previous meeting’s minutes were accepted as distributed.

Other Business

Nexus employee mapping (Trevor)

  • Looking for clarification in regards to the 'Changes to how employee access is provisioned - December 19' email
    • What action is required?Ìý

Comments & Discussion

  • Contact the IST help desk atÌýhelpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or contact WorkdayÌýregarding any issues

  • Check with respective department executive officer to confirm any changes that will be made

    Ìý

Vacation and absences on Workday (Robyn)

  • Sent in department's vacation and absence information but information is not reflected in Workday

    Ìý

Two-factor authentication inÌýWorkday (Robyn)

  • Looking for update on two-factor in Workday

Comments & Discussion

  • Two-factor authentication is currently only required for Workday administrators

    Ìý

Tecplot (Robyn)

  • Seeking faculty members who are currently using or would like to use Tecplot

    Ìý

Update on guest wi-fi (Steven)

  • Project was put on hold due to wireless upgrade
    • Guest wi-fi is still going to be implemented but the project is delayed
      Ìý

Looking for git.uwaterloo status update (Lawrence)

Comments & Discussion

  • Currently preparing for an upgrade but the work has not yet started
    Ìý


Nexus employee mappingÌý(Lawrence)

  • What tool should be used to create and manage Nexus groups?Ìý

Comments & Discussion

  • Contact the IST help desk atÌýhelpdesk@uwaterloo.caÌýto inquire about recommended tools
  • The library managers computers, users, and groups with an active directory
    • Uses tools to automatically update groups but can only be used for specific group subsets
      Ìý


Communications with Plant Ops (Adam)

  • Unexpected maintenance in the library resulted in temperature dropping to 7 degrees

Comments & Discussion

  • Can IST communications connect with Plant Ops?Ìý
  • Plant Ops should notify departments of larger outages
    Ìý


Clarification on Graduate student email accounts (Bill)

  • How should departments advise grad students with email issues?Ìý
    • Where do emails get directed to if a student has both an edu and a connect account?

Comments & Discussion

  • Mail redirects to the connect account
    • Emails should be set up to redirectÌýinstead of being forwarded
  • Mail routing is set up automatically for WatIAM
    • Emails sent specifically to a students edu account will not be redirected to their connect account


Desktop rollover programÌý(Bill)

  • Are there changes to the desktop rollover program given upcoming budget constraints?Ìý

Comments & Discussion

  • Budget will remain the same as last year
  • Program will be reviewed as it has not been reviewed in a number of years
  • Visit the IST Desktop rollover program site for more information regarding the program


Clarification on OneNote access with Microsoft Teams (Bill)

Comments & Discussion

  • The Microsoft Teams pilot was set up differently
    • OneNote in Teams is not part of the educational license
    • Initial pilot of Teams was not set up under the educational license
  • OneNote can still be accessed through the desktop or web applications, just not through Teams
    Ìý

Roundtable

Math (Robyn)

  • The department may be moving out of current server room into the IST server room in MC
    • Could potentially be a costly project with a big cost being cooling redundancy

CS (Lawrence)

  • The department has licensed Microsoft Imagine for Math teaching and research faculty members
    • License is faculty independent
    • Parties interested in using Microsoft ImagineÌýshould contact the CS department
  • SHARCNET is selling off the Orca cluster which consists of 400 machines
    • The CS department has interest in rebuilding it, looking for other interested parties
    • Looking to rebuild the cluster but not looking to relocate it
    • Arts is also interested in this project