Information Services is a strategic asset for UMKC’s missions of teaching and learning, research, service and economic development. We continued to make progress toward our defined goals and this document details the progress we have made during the second half of 2021.
During the last six months of 2021, 25,000 legacy student, staff, faculty and resource accounts were removed from Microsoft 365 as part of a cleanup process. UMKC updated or moved hundreds of active directory objects as part of the move to one consolidated UM System domain. Going forward all new computers will be joined to the new domain.
During the last 6 months of 2021, IS Support Services saw a reduced number of requests compared to previous years, returning to pre-pandemic levels of requests. The total number of requests for this period was 11,447, which is a little higher compared to the 2018 pre-pandemic period. The most requested areas for support were related to Office 365 and Multi-Factor Authentication.
During this period IS reviewed all custom services for Academic Units across campus. Individual meetings with each Unit to review their current services and identify any new services or gaps in services will occur in the following period.
This ensures that IS can provide the services needed for each unit and that expectations on service levels are being met or exceeded.
IS continues to work with Administrative units to implement RIM and have a consistent process across campus units.
Cadence is the UMKC approved and recommended solution for texting. This gives any department texting capabilities to better communicate with students, faculty, or staff.
During the last period Support Services worked with Mongoose Research, maker of Cadence, and the project management team to support the onboarding of new groups into Cadence and provide general support.
In addition, a new website was created to provide general information and helpful links for more in-depth information.
Cherwell is the IT Service Management system used across UM System to allow Faculty, Staff, and Students to report service incidents and request new services. Over the past 6 months we have implemented a new method for reporting incidents and service requests by ingesting emails sent to the techsupportcenter@umkc.edu mailbox directly into Cherwell. This new method has been used to report over 1600 incidents and service requests.
Over the last 6 months we have begun transitioning the management of our mobile devices, such as iPads and iPhones, from VMware Workspace ONE UEM (prev. AirWatch) to Jamf Pro. This transition will allow us to consolidate the management of Apple products under one management solution and eliminate the need for a dedicated solution for managing mobile devices. We plan to have this transition completed by the end of FY23.
We continue to use RooLabs Online to provide Students with free remote access to lab software. This allows Students to access standard and specialized software that is normally available only on campus from anywhere and on most computing devices.
With the full re-opening of the student computer labs, we have leveraged RooLabs Online to enable after-hours remote access to the General Use and many departmental labs.
During August, the Remote Labs servers were migrated to the UM-AD domain and updated with the latest versions of their deployed software. This included 9 servers and nearly 100 software updates.
Performed regular website updates and maintenance, including the creation of a new email landing portal and updated FAQs.
Many reports were updated and created during this period, including leveraging PowerBI to provide data from within Cherwell.
Continue to use Microsoft’s SCCM as our primary asset management tool and our preferred method of software installation. Specifically, over the last 6 months we have used SCCM to upgrade over 3,500
computers to Windows 10 20H2 using a new self-service upgrade.
This new self-service upgrade 22 Information Services Accomplishments January - June 2021 process allowed Faculty and Staff to choose when the upgrade would run, minimizing disruptions to work, and increasing the adoption rate of the upgrade.
During this period, the SCCM environment was migrated to the UM-AD domain in preparation for faculty and staff computer migration. This migration required the setting up of new servers and moving 624 software packages and 5,471 clients.
Continue to leverage RooLabs Online to offer Adobe Creative Cloud to students who may not otherwise have access to this software.
Worked with Arts and Sciences to provision student licenses of Adobe software for their students that need it for curriculum.
Started working on the UM System renewal for Adobe Creative Cloud. Further negotiations will happen in the next period.
IS completed the installation of A/V equipment in 9 classroom/collaboration spaces, signage locations, and a new CBORD access and surveillance system along with the conversion of existing Lenel systems to CBORD in Flarsheim Hall before construction. This project was completed and closed during this review period.
UM system-wide Information Technology –Infrastructure and Architecture Committee has recommended evolving the network that is connecting UM System universities and the MORENet consortium to eliminate the existing custom UM network infrastructure in favor of a standard topology, lowering costs, simplifying management, and reducing the current barrier to performance. During this review period, MORENet brought up the 100 GIG links and completed campus cutovers for all campuses by 10/10/2021.
IS added signage displays to Baja Fresh and the pop-up location next to Chick-Fil-A in the student union at the request of Sodexo and David Babcock. 3 displays and a network jack were installed at Baja Fresh and 2 displays and a network jack were installed at the pop-up location before the start of the Fall 2021 semester. This project was completed and closed during this review period.
UMKC Information Services purchased the Cadence Mongoose texting solution for the UMKC campus. A PM was assigned to coordinate implementation, including onboarding initial user groups, and helping to establish policies and best practices. During this review period, onboarding was handed over to the Information Services Support Services team, and the project was closed.
The University of Missouri-System purchased Starfish Analytics for use by all system campuses. As described on the Starfish website: "Starfish Analytics is a cohesive suite of tools and services designed to transform campus-wide Student Success using data, analytics and intervention management. Starfish Analytics is fully integrated into the Starfish application, driving tactical action and enabling strategic planning views of student success." This project will work with cross-functional teams to implement Starfish Analytics at the UMKC campus. During this review period, the Information Access team worked with Starfish to start implementing the sustainable Information Services Accomplishments January – June 2021 33
architecture environment. The Governance and Functional teams began identifying the next steps, and the team met with UMSL counterparts to share knowledge.
This is a grant-funded project to completely renovate Bloch Heritage Hall. The IT/AV scope includes an upgrade of the network infrastructure of the building, IT closet builds, and ILE technology updates to the classroom and spaces in the building. During this review period, IS demoed telecom closets and networking equipment from the building, tracked the contractor's progress on the building renovation and designers began to coordinate A/V wants and needs with the client and put together a design. During the next review period, IS will look for A/V budget approval from the client, order A/V equipment, begin the initial infrastructure scope for cabling and continue to track GC progress.
Network Architecture is responsible for the installation and maintenance of departmental-level firewalls. These firewalls protect specialized hardware or data (HIPPA, PCI, etc.) in specific locations across the UMKC network. Activities include maintaining appliance firmware and security rules.
Equipment managed
o Cisco physical firewalls = 7
o Cisco virtual firewalls = 15
o Fortigate physical firewalls = 19
Database Server Design, Implementation and AdministrationProvided maintenance and support for software applications, websites and services including:
Provided software engineering and project management resources for the following projects:
Generated detailed reports for departments based on their evaluation scan data.
Exams Scanned:
College of Arts and Sciences - 51
Henry W. Bloch School of Management – 20
Law School – 12
Biological Sciences – 75
Total Exams Scanned: 158
IS Foundation Services (ISFS) provides secure, professionally managed data centers to meet the growing information technology (IT) needs of academic and administrative units at UMKC. ISFS serves as the primary system administrators for 400+ servers as well as providing assistance and technical support for campus IT Liaisons.
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