- Have now effectively wound down involvement in anything new - email inbox getting noticeably smaller this week and fewer new emails to pass on.
- 1-2-1s with colleagues. Updates included recruitment for 2 Grade 6 posts in progress. F&G coming in for an intro meeting with new Director this week. Interface work with CRIS making progress as well as elements of RFID project (finance new payment gateway). Agresso integration for projects and costings looks relatively easy to Finance). Some issues with how we are going to identify Wolverhampton researchers and pull them into an appropriate AD group (may have to wait for Wolverhampton Academic process to complete).
- Met up with Estates and agreed short term plan (to clearing) and medium term plan (to September) regarding server rooms. Will write up before departure.
- A useful handover session with new Director - probably one more to go before we have completed the key things that I had hoped to cover. We have already covered people, quick wins, diary dates and process areas.
- We held a further scrum meeting. Notes were circulated:
- Thanks to the Support Team for the successful weekend telephony upgrade with Logicalis support. All telephony components now within support versioning ahead of Clearing.
- Visited Walsall to meet team as well as run a Shadow IT workshop with FHEW. Also visited large lecture theatre WN004 of the new AV installation including projector, panopto, desk/podium and related equipment. Great team effort with suppliers GV Multimedia and Estates colleagues.
- Meeting held with Estates to discuss short and medium term action plan for the key server rooms.
- Pull together MIC rota through to end August (ie in the run up to Clearing and Results Weekend).
- Offers were being made for the second line IT Support analyst post after recent interviews.
- The Apps Anywhere certification training had gone well with a number of staff passing - resits for those who didn't arranged for 6th August.
- Our offer to join as Project Manager on the Timetabling Project has been accepted.
- The auditors had visited to run through our GDPR activities and action plan - the DAS plan had been "split" to be taken forward as two new Directorates.
- There had been some unintended consequences of the WebServ3 shutdown - called a meeting and written follow-up document on service interruption. ServiceDesk had been briefed on handling any further incidents raised. Noted in particular that WOLF is effectively no longer a supported service - still need to deal with remaining legacy WOLF activity (e.g. group files space).
- EMA - meeting later in the day - noted as enabling work but not currently in the scope of the Digital Campus programme.
- Web site review also being followed up after external review - we have a copy of document electronically.
- Some issues with T4 system performance and the way it is behaving 'behind the scenes'.
- Finance requested to carry forward two work orders 'E codes' into next financial year.
- Attended the final Agresso Project Board - in this form. Current Chair is stepping down and keen to close down the group and any outstanding actions. There was a go/no-go decision for the HR Service Improvement Project ref the new annual leave system in Agresso.
- Our new IT Director started at the University this week - we were able to get together on a number of occasions including a tour of MI Building server room and a couple of handover sessions. I have produced some materials, and from this week we agreed that any new requests coming to me, would be forwarded as part of our handover.
- The air conditioning systems remained operational and temperatures stable at 23-24 degrees all week despite the heatwave continuing. Over the weekend the temporary backup units were turned back on for further resilience.
- Held further 1-2-1s with team members this week including a morning at Telford campus.
- Offer made and accepted for one of the BA posts.
- We held a final scrum meeting. Notes were circulated:
- Update provided on MI air conditioning status and next steps. Estates are progressing short term and medium term actions - we await updates.
- Photos of air con screening on roof/balcony circulated
- Hold The Date - July 11th after work - for potential departure event(s) we have 8 staff leaving including MARS before end July.
- Received resignation last week from a second line support team member.
- Nominations have gone into HR/OD for the Future Leaders programme
- Feedback from GDPR Working Group meeting - various actions on Egress in progress. Noted that the system integration query is also a strand on the IT Action Plan and fits with Enterprise Architecture approach. Discussion on USB and external hard drive encryption.
- New process for reporting breaches requires test and sign off this week ahead of all staff comms
- Noted SOABE/Springfield update and meeting on AV/IT program - Salford exemplar (virtual Chernobyl?)
- Involvement requested in e-portfolio project.
- Shadow IT workshop took place with FOSS. We have one more Faculty to go (Arts).
- Held a meeting to brief the team on Modern.Gov implementation and provided paper and electronic copies of all supplier documentation relating to the set-up and training stages.
- Attended the SUMO event with the rest of the DAS team - very enjoyable and useful session as well as a relaxed and informal way to meet others in the team.
Good News
- No P1s
- We survived the hot weather with no interruption of service.
- Major issues this week with air conditioning units in MI building precipitated by the unusually prolonged and hot weather in excess of 30 degrees. A unit failed on Monday and then a second unit on Tuesday overnight (20:30 temperature alert at 35 degrees ambient). We had engineers called out of hours and IT staff attended on-site until after midnight. Although a temporary fix was applied failures continued and we were running on one unit with hired units brought in for the second half of the week. I sent daily updates as Major Incident Contact. By Friday morning, OVC alerted to the serious nature of the situation. We left for the weekend with all three units working by 18:00 and Ino further temperature alerts since then. We led on a business continuity exercise for services which might have to be switched off and scenario planning for a closed MI room. Estates have taken on the day-to-day management of air conditioning options including short term (hire of extra capacity and fix of current issues) as well as new incremental capacity for MI and MX as soon as practicable. MX air con only had only alarm failure this week but those units are now beyond expected service life.
- In other news.....
- Attended Digital Strategy Committee along
- Held further 1-2-1s with team members this week
- Proposed nominations for the Future Leaders activity.
- interviews held for 2 Business Analyst posts.
- Met later in week with Planning to deal with isystem upgrades and process for identifying new features and timelines etc (both Business Objects and Tableau)
- We held a scrum meeting dominated by updates on air con, and also a second IT Leadership Team meeting.
- Met with Head of Computer Science to deal with requests - believe that we found a way forward for dealing with requests.
- Attended GDPR working Group. Internal Audit for GDPR now under way.
Good News
- We survived the hot weather with no interruption of service.
