Information Technology News Archive

1996 - 2017

In Brief December 2014

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latest news

  • As planned, online legacy financial systems are being retired.  Access will no longer be available after December 30, 2014.
  • Representatives from Microsoft are scheduled to visit the campus on Wednesday, March 11th and will be conducting a hands-on training lab for Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform. This event is open to the campus community.
  • During the campus holiday closure, December 24 – January 1, the OIT Help Desk (824-2222) will remain available for urgent support issues, but with limited staffing and potentially longer resolution times.

Kuali Financial System

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kuali
In July of 2014, after years of planning, development, and testing, UCI moved to the Kuali Financial System (KFS).  KFS allows us to better manage UCI’s substantial finances.

Elements that have been implemented include:

  • General Ledger
  • Chart of Accounts
  • Financial Processing
  • Purchasing / Accounts Payable
  • Contracts and Grants
  • Capital Asset Management
  • Travel and Event Management
  • Electronic document workflow
  • Decision Support data warehouse and reporting
  • Kuali Security Access Management System
  • Sciquest online procurement catalog and ordering system

The launch of KFS allowed us to retire several business systems (FS, PAL, EQS, PBS, PayQuest, etc.) that were 20-30 years old. While they have served us long and well, they were no longer capable of meeting campus needs nor could they be maintained.  With the exception of PPS, we are now independent of the IBM mainframe at UCOP.

KFS comprises 1.4 million lines of programming, of which 220,000 lines were written to adapt it to UCI’s needs.  The system required developing interfaces to 40 other campus systems.

This was a major team effort, involving subject matter experts from the Accounting Office, Budget Office, Procurement Office, and UCIMC, modification developers, configuration managers, interface developers, business analysts, database administrators, testers, data converters, unit adoption leads, access control leads, security specialists, data modelers, report writers, system administrators, trainers, training material developers, vendors, banks and agencies.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are notoriously difficult to implement, and KFS represents a great success and a hallmark collaboration for UCI.

 

New Service Platform

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servicenowOIT’s mission is to provide information technology leadership, services, and innovative solutions to promote the research, education and community service goals of the University.  To fulfill that mission, we also have to solve your IT problems and fix IT services which are not working properly.

OIT recently deployed a new service platform – a software system to help us more reliably log, assign, follow, and resolve IT problems, and better communicate progress with you.  This software is built upon ServiceNow, an industry standard IT Service Management platform.  We are calling our implementation OIT Service Desk to reflect the teams within OIT who answer questions, resolve incidents, fulfill requests, and develop new tools and services.

Nothing needs to change in how you ask for help.  You may still call or send email to OIT.  However, you will see – or may already be seeing – email messages with a new layout, and you can use those messages to follow your issue or communicate with us.  OIT Service Desk email messages will notify you when a request has been created, when new information is available (or needed from you) and when your issue is resolved.

In addition to getting email from the system, allowing you to follow the progress of your request, OIT Service Desk provides a web interface where you can review your tickets, or even make new requests and report problems.

This is a multi-faceted system.  We have begun by implementing support for requests for help, or reporting services which aren’t working properly.  Over time, more features of the system will be configured and deployed so that IT Service Management at UCI will become more integrated and fluid, making it easier for you to get the IT services and support you need.

In Brief September 2014

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New OIT Web Site

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Last month, OIT introduced a new web site, full of features intended to make it easier for UCI faculty, staff, and students to find the information and services they need. Here is a brief tour of some of those features.

A version of this article with screenshots can be found on the OIT web site.

Services

If you’re looking for information on a particular service, you can browse the services section of the menu bar, or access the services directly from the alphabetical list on the home page. They are organized by category.

Audience Landing Pages

One of the most significant changes is our new Audience Menu at the top of the website.  We have created audience landing pages to make it easier to find OIT services that relevant to various campus audiences. Each link goes to a page with a collection of links relevant to that group (undergraduates, faculty, staff, researchers, etc.)

Homepage Sidebar

Other areas of note are arranged on the right edge of the home page.  Service alerts will advise you when there are issues with a major campus service. There is a convenient set of links with logins to various email, calendar, and file storage services, as well as a collection of links for common needs. There is also a sidebar with links to various forms of assistance.

Website Feedback

Finally, if you have suggestions for improvement to the site (either corrections or additions to a page, or new pages that would be useful to you) there is a feedback gadget on the right side of every page.