Completed Projects 2015

IT Action Plan Projects Completed in 2015

AirBears Abatement
bCourses
Berkeley Research Computing (BRC)
Cal Access

Cal Answers HR Retirement Dashboard
CalPlanning Managed Services
Citrix
UCPath BI Collaboration Group

Project Name & Sponsor	Value to Campus & Campus Beneficiaries	Milestones & Additional Info
AirBears Abatement Michael Green, Director, Telecommunications - IST	Retire old AirBears Wifi Service Entire Campus - reduce costs, improved security for wireless networking. Students, Faculty, Staff	Aug. 2015 - Project completed Learn more and setup AirBears2 as your preferred Wi-Fi. View all campus Wi-Fi options. Download and print a Wi-Fi comparison chart.
bCourses Jenn Stringer, Associate CIO, Academic Engagement	Improve the teaching and learning experience on campus by providing a modern learning management system for students and instructors. bCourses provides a rich platform for instructors to deliver digital course content to students along with a strong set of course interactive collaboration and assessment tools. This replaces our legacy system, bSpace. Students, Faculty	Deploy the Canvas Learning Management System. Transition users from legacy system, bSpace, and complete the campus-wide rollout of bCourses. 1,000 new course sites for spring semester 2014. Archival of bSpace system. On target for on-time completion. Currently 2,600 course sites for fall 2014 semester (20% above target). Oct. 31, 2014: Final day to create new bSpace projects Nov. 1, 2014: bCourses Project sites created upon request Through June 30, 2015: Full access to existing bSpace course and project sites continues June 30, 2015: bSpace retired and off-line and Content Archive Retrieval Service launched Learn more about bCourses
Berkeley Research Computing (BRC) David Greenbaum, Director, Research Information Technology	Launch the new Berkeley Research Computing (BRC) Program to support computationally intensive research and teaching. BRC will include four major service areas: 1) A new campus Institutional and Condo cluster for high performance computing (HPC). 2) Cloud-based HPC services. 3) Virtual workstations to support virtual research environments. 4) A community of consultants from across campus. Consultants will have a home in both their local domain (e.g., college, school, research group) and with the campus Research IT group. Students, Faculty	In FY14 we launched this new program in partnership with the Vice Chancellor for Research, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the College of Engineering, the D-Lab, and faculty Principal Investigators across campus. 1) Spring 2014 - Phase 1 Completed: Project Launch The campus' new Institutional/Condo cluster will be installed and condo contributions accepted. The HPC was launched in May 2014 (Savio Cluster) and Principal Investigators have been contributing hardware ($400K) and already doubled the size of the cluster. 2) July 2015: Formal launch of BRC cloud services completed In partnership with EECS, we will begin analysis and investigation into cloud-based HPC needs and approaches. Cloud computing for research is in definition phase /requirements gathering (looking to fill gaps in existing options). 3) Dec. 2015: Launch BRC Virtualization Workstation Service Determine and run first stage experiments (in progress). We will pilot virtual workstations in partnership with the D-Lab and I School. New pilots and services will be rolled out each quarter. 4) The consulting services are being built out beyond the collaboration with campus consultants that is already occurring. Visit the BRC Website
Cal Access Paul Rivers, Chief Information Security Officer	Help campus better comply with IT policies, streamline access approval processes and provide a one-stop-shop for access requests in the future. Staff, Campus	Jan. 2014 - Work with CSS-IT to define service delivery model for tier 1 support; define tier 2 support that Calnet team will provide. May 2014 - Work with PI Portfolio team to publicize this application and educate users. In progress - Analyze requirements and configure and deploy CalAccess for two to four apps. See Release Schedule
Cal Answers HR Retirement Dashboard Mark Chiang, Enterprise Data Warehouse Manager, IST-Enterprise Data	Enables workforce strategy planning by taking into account the retirement likelihood of staff. The visual analytics tool can facilitate succession planning and assess the mix of employees in units, with a focus on retirement. It can help users understand if the workforce is balanced in terms of age and experience, or if it skewed in favor of one or the other. HR and campus units can proactively perform analysis on risks associated with retiring staff.	August 2015 - Complete Informatica ETL and Cal Answers Report Development in the Development environment. The Analytics & Metrics team from Central HR worked with the CalAnswers IT team to provide a tool that can help managers anticipate their retirement attrition, and plan for it. Intuitive interface and compelling visualization provide managers a tool to understand their workforce and better plan resources. The dashboard can be accessed through CalAnswers by following these steps: Go to CalAnswers and use your CalNet authentication info to login. Choose the Dashboards pull-down menu from the top right bar, and select "Staff Retirement Metrics" from the "Campus Workforce Planning" folder. There you will also find the, equally useful, "HR Census" tool, which answers questions on our workforce including total count, age and ethnic profile. Contact the Cal Answers team
CalPlanning Managed Services Mark Chiang, Enterprise Data Warehouse Manager, IST-Enterprise Data	Transition CalPlanning infrastructure to a hosted environment in an effort to improve stability that the application relies on. Campus financial analysts would benefit from the transition of CalPlanning to a hosted data center. The TriCore vendor has the backend technical expertise in this specialized Hyperion Planning technology. The vendor would be able to recommend system and process improvements on top of a Linux instead of Windows platform that could lead to a better user experience with reduced downtimes related to Microsoft security patches.	July 2015 - Complete CalPlanning v11.1.2.4 upgrade and transition to the vendor's Data Center for the Development and QA environment. Aug. 2015 - Complete CalPlanning v11.1.2.4 upgrade and transition to the vendor's Data Center for the Production environment.
Citrix Dave Browne, Director, IST-Infrastructure Services Norm Cheng, PM	Virtualization will improve security and usability of enterprise applications, improving the user experience of these applications, providing: Consistent and easy-to-use experience across Mac and PC platforms. A simplified user experience which will eliminate the need to have a range of browsers and plugins installed on desktops and knowing the browser requirements for each application. Reduced browser security risk exposure for campus. Streamlined and more controllable campus computing environment. Future “one-stop” for widely-used enterprise administrative apps. Substantial benefits for all users to access the campus application services. Replacement for the current RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) as the most robust and secure solution. Faculty, Staff, Students, IST, CSS	Deploy the Citrix technology to address the browser and plug-in issues on campus for enterprise application services such as BAIRS, CalPlanning, Cal Answers, CalTime, EyeCare, CHERCH, and SumTotal (LMS). Virtualization of enterprise applications. April 2014 - Deliver CalTime and BAIRS virtualized. June 2015 - 100% of enterprise applications virtualized. Project will continue into FY15/16 and have already completed virtualization of CalAnswers, BAIRS, CalPlanning, PI Portfolio, and CalTime virtualization is planned. Apps in progress are: Stata/SPSS, SIS, Altura Phone Client, CHOIR/CMS Data-Set, Point & Click More about Citrix Services
UCPath BI Collaboration Group Mark Chiang, Enterprise Data Warehouse Manager, IST-Enterprise Data	Develop system-wide data models for all HR subject areas in collaboration with UCOP & UCLA to be leveraged by all 10 campuses. Gain efficiencies through a collaborative reporting design and development among all UC Locations. The collaborative design will produce a UC common data model and data definitions for the UCPath Data Warehouse. This will create a base for shared reporting among the UC Locations. It will provide cost savings to the Locations and provide relief to the remediation efforts caused by the move to HCM in the Cloud. UC-wide	April 2015 - Complete Job Person, Absence Management, Labor Ledger, Payroll data models. May 2015 - Complete Benefits data model. June 2015 - Complete Budget Ledger / Commitment Accounting / Job Profile Management data models and presentation of completed project at ITLC in UCSD.

Project Name &
Sponsor

Value to Campus &
Campus Beneficiaries

Milestones & Additional Info

AirBears Abatement

Michael Green, Director, Telecommunications - IST

Retire old AirBears Wifi Service Entire Campus - reduce costs, improved security for wireless networking.

Students, Faculty, Staff

Aug. 2015 - Project completed

bCourses

Jenn Stringer, Associate CIO, Academic Engagement

Improve the teaching and learning experience on campus by providing a modern learning management system for students and instructors. bCourses provides a rich platform for instructors to deliver digital course content to students along with a strong set of course interactive collaboration and assessment tools. This replaces our legacy system, bSpace.

Students, Faculty

Deploy the Canvas Learning Management System.

Transition users from legacy system, bSpace, and complete the campus-wide rollout of bCourses.

1,000 new course sites for spring semester 2014. Archival of bSpace system.

On target for on-time completion. Currently 2,600 course sites for fall 2014 semester (20% above target).

Oct. 31, 2014: Final day to create new bSpace projects

Nov. 1, 2014: bCourses Project sites created upon request

Through June 30, 2015: Full access to existing bSpace course and project sites continues

June 30, 2015: bSpace retired and off-line and Content Archive Retrieval Service launched

Learn more about bCourses

Berkeley Research Computing (BRC)

David Greenbaum, Director, Research Information Technology

Launch the new Berkeley Research Computing (BRC) Program to support computationally intensive research and teaching. BRC will include four major service areas:

1) A new campus Institutional and Condo cluster for high performance computing (HPC).
2) Cloud-based HPC services.
3) Virtual workstations to support virtual research environments.
4) A community of consultants from across campus. Consultants will have a home in both their local domain (e.g., college, school, research group) and with the campus Research IT group.

Students, Faculty

In FY14 we launched this new program in partnership with the Vice Chancellor for Research, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the College of Engineering, the D-Lab, and faculty Principal Investigators across campus.

1) Spring 2014 - Phase 1 Completed: Project Launch
The campus' new Institutional/Condo cluster will be installed and condo contributions accepted. The HPC was launched in May 2014 (Savio Cluster) and Principal Investigators have been contributing hardware ($400K) and already doubled the size of the cluster.

2) July 2015: Formal launch of BRC cloud services completed
In partnership with EECS, we will begin analysis and investigation into cloud-based HPC needs and approaches. Cloud computing for research is in definition phase /requirements gathering (looking to fill gaps in existing options).

3) Dec. 2015: Launch BRC Virtualization Workstation Service
Determine and run first stage experiments (in progress). We will pilot virtual workstations in partnership with the D-Lab and I School. New pilots and services will be rolled out each quarter.

4) The consulting services are being built out beyond the collaboration with campus consultants that is already occurring.

Visit the BRC Website

Cal Access

Paul Rivers, Chief Information Security Officer

Help campus better comply with IT policies, streamline access approval processes and provide a one-stop-shop for access requests in the future.

Staff, Campus

Jan. 2014 - Work with CSS-IT to define service delivery model for tier 1 support; define tier 2 support that Calnet team will provide.

May 2014 - Work with PI Portfolio team to publicize this application and educate users.

In progress - Analyze requirements and configure and deploy CalAccess for two to four apps.

See Release Schedule

Cal Answers HR Retirement Dashboard

Mark Chiang, Enterprise Data Warehouse Manager, IST-Enterprise Data

Enables workforce strategy planning by taking into account the retirement likelihood of staff. The visual analytics tool can facilitate succession planning and assess the mix of employees in units, with a focus on retirement. It can help users understand if the workforce is balanced in terms of age and experience, or if it skewed in favor of one or the other.

HR and campus units can proactively perform analysis on risks associated with retiring staff.

August 2015 - Complete Informatica ETL and Cal Answers Report Development in the Development environment.

The Analytics & Metrics team from Central HR worked with the CalAnswers IT team to provide a tool that can help managers anticipate their retirement attrition, and plan for it. Intuitive interface and compelling visualization provide managers a tool to understand their workforce and better plan resources.

The dashboard can be accessed through CalAnswers by following these steps:

Go to CalAnswers and use your CalNet authentication info to login.
Choose the Dashboards pull-down menu from the top right bar, and select "Staff Retirement Metrics" from the "Campus Workforce Planning" folder.

There you will also find the, equally useful, "HR Census" tool, which answers questions on our workforce including total count, age and ethnic profile.

Contact the Cal Answers team

CalPlanning Managed Services

Mark Chiang, Enterprise Data Warehouse Manager, IST-Enterprise Data

Transition CalPlanning infrastructure to a hosted environment in an effort to improve stability that the application relies on.

Campus financial analysts would benefit from the transition of CalPlanning to a hosted data center. The TriCore vendor has the backend technical expertise in this specialized Hyperion Planning technology. The vendor would be able to recommend system and process improvements on top of a Linux instead of Windows platform that could lead to a better user experience with reduced downtimes related to Microsoft security patches.

July 2015 - Complete CalPlanning v11.1.2.4 upgrade and transition to the vendor's Data Center for the Development and QA environment.

Aug. 2015 - Complete CalPlanning v11.1.2.4 upgrade and transition to the vendor's Data Center for the Production environment.

Citrix

Dave Browne, Director, IST-Infrastructure Services
Norm Cheng, PM

Virtualization will improve security and usability of enterprise applications, improving the user experience of these applications, providing:

Consistent and easy-to-use experience across Mac and PC platforms.
A simplified user experience which will eliminate the need to have a range of browsers and plugins installed on desktops and knowing the browser requirements for each application.
Reduced browser security risk exposure for campus.
Streamlined and more controllable campus computing environment.
Future “one-stop” for widely-used enterprise administrative apps.
Substantial benefits for all users to access the campus application services.
Replacement for the current RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) as the most robust and secure solution.

Faculty, Staff, Students, IST, CSS

Deploy the Citrix technology to address the browser and plug-in issues on campus for enterprise application services such as BAIRS, CalPlanning, Cal Answers, CalTime, EyeCare, CHERCH, and SumTotal (LMS).

Virtualization of enterprise applications.

April 2014 - Deliver CalTime and BAIRS virtualized.
June 2015 - 100% of enterprise applications virtualized.

Project will continue into FY15/16 and have already completed virtualization of CalAnswers, BAIRS, CalPlanning, PI Portfolio, and CalTime virtualization is planned.

Apps in progress are: Stata/SPSS, SIS, Altura Phone Client, CHOIR/CMS Data-Set, Point & Click

More about Citrix Services

UCPath BI Collaboration Group

Mark Chiang, Enterprise Data Warehouse Manager, IST-Enterprise Data

Develop system-wide data models for all HR subject areas in collaboration with UCOP & UCLA to be leveraged by all 10 campuses. Gain efficiencies through a collaborative reporting design and development among all UC Locations. The collaborative design will produce a UC common data model and data definitions for the UCPath Data Warehouse. This will create a base for shared reporting among the UC Locations. It will provide cost savings to the Locations and provide relief to the remediation efforts caused by the move to HCM in the Cloud.

UC-wide

April 2015 - Complete Job Person, Absence Management, Labor Ledger, Payroll data models.

May 2015 - Complete Benefits data model.

June 2015 - Complete Budget Ledger / Commitment Accounting / Job Profile Management data models and presentation of completed project at ITLC in UCSD.