Information Technology’s Fall 2009 Newsletter is Available

Information Technology’s fall 2009 newsletter,“Technically Speaking”, is now available. It is the purpose of the newsletter to inform the campus of current and future Information Technology initiatives in an effort to promote effective communication. Blackboard, Banner, lifetime email accounts, new smart classrooms, and much more is available in this issue. Copies are in faculty and staff mailboxes today! Technically Speaking is also available online on the Information Technology website, or you can follow this link http://www.unco.edu/it/ITNewsletters/Fall2009.pdf.

New Upgrades Complete (ODS, EDW, and Evisions)

The Operation Datastore(ODS) and Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) were successfully upgraded over the weekend. The ODS/EDW system is now on version 8. This upgrade was a prerequisite for the Banner 8 upgrade planned in Feburary 2010. The Operational Data Store (ODS) is a short-term data storage, structured to facilitate easy operational reporting from Insight. Because report queries can exhaust a system's resources, the ODS exists apart from the Banner ERP database to help conserve the resources of the transactional system for daily operations.


Evisions Upgrade planned for 11/23/09 5am -7am. Evisions products(Intellecheck and FormFusion) are used with the University Banner software to provide document enhancement, distribution solutions, and enhancements to payment methods. The upgrade will allow for software to be delivered securely through a web client and will no longer require client installations. The new system has been tested in test environment by Information Technology and functional units on campus.

UNC's Operation Datastore (ODS) In the Process of Being Upgraded

Information Technology is upgrading the campus Operation Datastore(ODS). This system provides data to Insight and Webfocus reporting tools. IT will be upgrading to ODS 8 in preparation for the Banner 8 upgrade this spring. We have tested the new version of ODS against all of the Production Insight reports. Insight will be unavailable from 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, through 5 a.m. Monday, Nov. 23, while Information Technology upgrades the system that provides data to Insight and Webfocus reporting tools. IT can help test reports in development or make sure a mission-critical report is working on the new version. For more information, contact Bret Naber at bret.naber@unco.edu.

Maintenance Windows

Regular preventative maintenance on the UNC servers is conducted every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from 5-7am. During this period of time, access to various applications such as email, Banner, BearDrive, etc. may be disrupted. Maintenance does not typically occur on all systems on the same date and time; it may be possible to access certain applications during the regular preventative maintenance. However, if you cannot access a university system, please try back after the scheduled maintenance window (outside of 5-7am on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday). Hopefully, preventative maintenance times will not conflict with any major events. However, if it is imperative that you have access to a system during our regularly scheduled maintenance time period, please notify the Technical Support Center as soon as possible and they will try to work around your needs.

UNC SharePoint = A Web Based Collaboration Tool!

Microsoft SharePoint is a unique online collaboration tool that can be accessed from your web browser, without having to install anything to your computer. SharePoint was designed to make collaboration between members of a team (the member must be an employee of UNC) efficient, effective, and comprehensive. With SharePoint, people can have access to resources and knowledge shared by their entire team. The features within SharePoint include: a calendar, file sharing, task assignment, announcements, surveying, helpful links, RSS feeds, and posting messages to Microsoft Outlook.

The calendar is beneficial because it gives a snapshot of important events coming up (meetings, vacation, absences, and holidays). With the file sharing feature (this is similar to a swap drive) documents can easily be accessed by persons within the team, allowing many people to work a particular document. Tasks can be assigned through SharePoint. This makes it easy to delegate and keep track duty assignments for your team. Posting an announcement can be done on SharePoint in order to inform your team of important news. If you are interested in feedback from your team, you can use the survey feature. This feature allows you to collect helpful data on how to improve within your team. If there are helpful links to websites that are relevant to your tasks and duties that your team performs on a regular basis, they can easily be posted onto the SharePoint page for all to readily access. An RRS feed can be subscribed to so announcements that are sent to the SharePoint will also be sent to your Outlook email account.

SharePoint was designed to keep people in touch with co-workers in an effort to facilitate and improve collaborative efforts. To get Microsoft SharePoint for your team, please visit www.unco.edu/it/supportu.htm and search “SharePoint Creation”. Follow the link “SharePoint Site Creation Form”, fill out the form, and fax it to UNC’s Technical Support Center at (970)351-1354 and a representative will assist you. For more information on using SharePoint and its many features, please refer to this tutorial http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA102055631033.aspx.