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Administrative Support

New Student Health and Counseling System

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Student Health

In February, UCOP mandated that all UCs move student health operations to a common EMR (Electronic Medical Records) system.  UCI was using a system call “Medicat” for the Student Health Center and a product called “Titanium” for the Counseling Center.  The new system UCOP selected was “Point and Click” (PnC).

UCI was one of four campuses that were not currently using PnC.  The time line set by the Regents and UCOP was aggressive.  They wanted the conversion completed by August.

Combining both independent programs into one caused several issues with privacy and security.  Technical staff had to learn PnC in a hurry.  New virtual hardware was prepared and site visits and evaluations of the UCI environment were conducted.   A huge amount of collaboration was needed with the vendor.  A lot of the research and testing took place after hours and on weekends so that it did not disrupt normal business operations of the centers.

With support and assistance from staff and leadership within Student Health and the Counseling Center, the challenge to make this high-visibility conversion was met.  On August 14th the Counseling Center was migrated to the new system successfully.  Technical issues with the Medicat database caused delays for migrating the Student Health Center, but it finally took place on September 10th.  During this conversion process OIT staff continued to provide a high level of service to the other departments within Wellness, Health and Counseling Services as well as supporting the existing EMR system.

PnC is now in production at the Student Health Center and the Counseling Center.

UC Recruit: a UC Working Smarter Initiative

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Data Center

Working Smarter, the UC initiative that envisions ten distinct campuses using one efficient administrative framework, has designated UC Recruit as one of its signature projects. UC Recruit provides for secure online academic hiring that supports the commonality of Academic Personnel business practices across the UC system.

Originally developed at UCI in 2006, Recruit automates and streamlines much of the academic recruiting process.  From job posting, applying, reference gathering, reviewing by the search committee, selecting a hired candidate and, finally, archiving all materials in accordance with University policies and legal considerations, the system also aids campus equal opportunity employment efforts and annual Affirmative Action reporting requirements. At UCI alone, over 33,000 applicants have used Recruit with over 191,000 documents and reference letters uploaded into the system, saving paper and time for increasingly over-assigned staff and faculty committees juggling multiple priorities.

In 2011, UCI’s AP Recruit system (re-branded UC Recruit) was adopted for system-wide deployment at all ten UC campuses, eliminating redundancy and further reducing costs.  Along with its home campus, those that are running UC Recruit include San Diego (2009), Berkeley (2012), Davis (2012), Santa Cruz (2012), and San Francisco (2012). The remaining 4 campuses (Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, and Santa Barbara) are slated to be in production by the end of Summer 2013.

For more information about UC Recruit, please email recruit@uci.edu or visit UC Recruit site at http://sites.uci.edu/ucrecruit/about-recruit/ .

OIT Data Center

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Data Center

During October, OIT, Facilities Management, and Design and Construction Services will complete the process of expanding the OIT Data Center facility in Engineering Gateway.  When it is done, it will consolidate systems from the Law Building Data Center (LBDC), and save the campus energy and money.  It will also allow the space formerly occupied by the LBDC to be used to meet the needs of the Law School.

This process will require two interruptions to services.  The first, on October 6, will include:

  • A&BS websites including EH&S, Police, Facilities Management and others
  • Zotmail
  • Campus data warehouse
  • The HR Jobs site and other HR Web Applications  (QuickReq, FastClass etc.)
  • Campus Time Reporting System
  • The SNAP portal and services available through it
  • Campus cashiering, billing and credit card systems, including the Student Billing System, and DEFT for disbursement
  • PayQuest, PALweb, Equipment Management (EQS), and Permanent Budget (PBS)
  • All Graduate Division Applications
  • All Office of Research and ULAR Applications
  • FacServ Facilities ERP applications (work orders and billing), Facilities Tririga system, Facilities iPool, Fleet and Tiscor systems
  • All Kuali applications
  • Campus imaging and document storage applications (including Rapid Return, EROS, Exfiles)
  • Cascade Content Management System
  • OIT confluence wiki
  • SAMS and “Administrative” LDAP

The second interruption will take place the weekend of October 20-21 and (in addition to the services listed above) will include:

  • University Advancement systems (including Advance) and file server
  • A&BS file server
  • All Design & Construction systems
  • All Parking & Transportation systems including MyCommute, Permit Registration System; main Parking website and associated services
  • Access to the UC Learning Center (www.uclc.uci.edu)

Services hosted in Engineering Gateway and other facilities will continue to operate as normal – this includes the campus network and telephone system, email services, EEE, Academic Personnel systems, and research compute clusters.

A New Calendar Service for UCI

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Oracle Calendar has provided event, meeting, and resource management services to the UCI community for twelve years.   Since Oracle has announced the end of support for this product, OIT conducted a review of alternatives resulting in a decision to offer calendaring services through Microsoft Exchange.

One of the key reasons for selecting Exchange Calendar is compatibility with Microsoft’s Exchange email platform which is already in wide use at UCI.  Cost effectiveness and support for mobile computing (tablets and smart phones) were also major considerations.  The project plan is to use Exchange initially for calendaring only.  The use of Exchange for email will be implemented in a later phase of the project.

Oracle Calendar users have already been issued accounts for the purposes of training and familiarity.  Exchange Calendar will replace Oracle Calendar on August 6.  The Oracle Calendar server will remain available for review purposes for about a month before being permanently retired.

Up-to-date information on the Calendar Project can be found at the OIT Exchange web site.

UCI Google Now Offers Google Drive

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Google Drive

Google Drive

OIT has enabled the Google Drive service as part of UCI Google Apps.

Google Drive is an optional extension to Google Docs.  Google Docs allows on-line (“cloud”) creation, storage, sharing, and collaborative editing of documents through your web browser. Google Drive adds the ability for files and folders on your computer to be backed up “in the cloud,” shared with others, and synchronized/copied on other computers and devices you own.

Here are some of the changes you will experience if you choose to enable Google Drive:

New View

Google Drive now presents your collections as folders, and offers a new “grid” view where your documents appear as thumbprints.  You can use your account settings to return to the classic Google Docs view when needed.

More Document Types

Google Drive allows direct display of a wider range of file types, including video, Adobe Photoshop, and many others.

Better Search

Google Drive allows more flexible searches of the content of your documents, including finding text in PDF files.

File History

Google Drive saves all versions of an edited document for up to 30 days, and allows you to designate any version to be kept permanently

Google Drive App

If you wish, you can download and install a Google Drive app onto any supported computer or smart phone.  This will allow you to conveniently access the files in your Google Drive account, with a synchronized view from any computer or device.  The PC app, for example, creates a virtual folder allowing Windows Explorer functionality, including drag-and-drop, for your Google Drive files.

Google Drive offers 5Gb of free file storage.  Native Google Docs documents (created and stored in the cloud) do not count as part of this limit, which applies only to files from your computer which you backup and share via Google Drive.

At present, Google Drive supports PC, Mac, and Android devices, with support for iPhone and iPad coming soon.

If you want to try Google Drive, you can follow the prompts from your UCI Google Docs page, or call the OIT Help Desk for assistance.