Academic Support Computer Rep General Meeting

Thursday October 21, 2010

10:00 am - 11:30 am, NH 3001

Minutes

Agenda

• Introduction of our Lenovo account executive (Amar Leis)
• Exchange Calendar Update (Will Lewis)
• Desktop Rollover Update (Phil Knipe)
• Web Content Management System Update (Heather Wey)
• Roaming Profiles (Manfred Grisebach)
• Moving from SharePoint Services to SharePoint Foundation (Stephen Markan)
• Windows 7 and Office 2010 Updates (Bob Hicks)

Minutes:

A good turnout for the meeting, with 43 people atttending.

It is important to keep the computing support rep contact sheet up-to-date. A request from someone in an academic support department not listed in the contact sheet will not be acted upon. There were not updates made to the sheet at the meeting.

Introduction of our Lenovo Account Executive

Amar Leis is our Lenovo account executive. If you have a question about Lenovo products or are unhappy about a Lenovo product/service, please contact Amar at 416-828-2727, or via email at amarleis@lenovo.com. Amar introduced Glenn Riselay, who is our contact at Metafore. Glenn can be reached at 519-573-7358, and via email at griselay@metafore.ca. Glenn helps out with things like delivery issues. Both Amar and Glenn would like to hear from you if you have any concerns regarding your experience using Lenovo products.

Exchange Calendar Update (Will Lewis)

Users of Bookit — the “shared calendaring system” used across the university — are being reminded that the Oracle Calendar product which runs Bookit has been discontinued. Says a memo from information systems and technology: “Earlier this year a project team investigated the suitability of Exchange Calendar as a replacement for Bookit, and it was decided that Bookit will be replaced by Exchange Calendar. Bookit data including meetings, tasks and attachments will be transferred into Exchange on the weekend of December 10-12. Please continue using Bookit until Friday, December 10. On Monday, December 13, Exchange will be the official system. Exchange can be accessed via the Outlook Web App or by a desktop client such as Outlook. In preparation, IST is upgrading to a new version of Exchange which provides a much improved web interface, and now supports Firefox on all platforms and Safari on the Mac. Training for Exchange Calendar will be offered. Some information in Bookit will not be transferred: namely permission settings, groups, and university holidays. Please take note of your current resources (rooms and equipment) in Bookit and start thinking about who should have access to book them and to accept or decline meetings on behalf of the resource. It will also be helpful to take a list of your current groups from Bookit so that you can re-create them in Exchange. On a related topic, BES licenses will now be paid for those who are on the corporate plan. BES will enhance the calendaring experience for those with BlackBerrys.

Destop Rollover (Phil Knipe)

The 400 Lenovo M90 computers and monitors that were used for IOI 2010 are now being deployed as part of the rollover program. FTE staff with a Dell GX620 in departments that is eligible for rollover will be receiving a new Lenovo M90 computer and monitors in the next few months. The computing support rep in the departments scheduled to get a new Lenovo have been provided with a Windows 7 machine to test their special purpose applications. Once that has been done, departments will receive the remaining computers with either Windows XP or Windows 7. These computers will come with Office 2007. Phil Knipe is now coordinating the desktop rollover program. Rob Yawney looks after imaging rollover computers. Rob setup an M90 computer and montor in the meeting room for those that have not yet seen the new model. Phil talked about setting up two monitors. There is a cable used for this that comes in the box, and Phil asked that people not lose this cable. Displaced computers can go to other non-FTE staff in your department, surplussed or sent home. Machines sent home need to be re-imaged, and machines sent to surplus need to be wiped. IST does both of these functions.

Web Content Management System Update (Heather Wey)

Heather's slides.

Roaming Profiles (Manfred Grisebach)

Manfred's summary of roaming profiles can be found at http://windows.uwaterloo.ca/ADS/Roaming_Profiles_in_Academic_Support.htm. There is more investigation and discussion to do about roaming profiles.

Moving from SharePoint Services to SharePoint Foundation (Stephen Markan)

A migration of the Waterloo SharePoint server from the current Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) version to the latest SharePoint Foundation 2010 version is about to happen. . Stephen talked about the need to remove templates that cannot be migrated. The majority of SharePoint sites have been cleaned of these templates. We aware there may still be some sites with possible template issues. We will assist in restoring access to the data on any problem sites.” A full backup of WSS will happen on November 2nd, and that evening some eight templates will be deleted. All SharePoint site admins are asked to review their sites and report any problems after the templates are removed (please send details of the problem to request@ ist.uwaterloo.ca). Our expectation is there will be some minimal problems with layout and formatting, but that all data will remain available. On November 8 the SharePoint Team will review how the WSS sites have been impacted by the template removal and set a date for the switching from the old WSS server to the new SharePoint Foundation 2010.

Windows 7 and Office 2010 Updates (Bob Hicks)

The following two sites contain a summary of Windows 7 and Office 2010 issues:

• Windows 7 Issues
• Office 2010 Issues

Office 2010 will be deployed in the Winter 2010 term.

Other Information

Phil Knipe is taking over coordination of computing support for academic support departments. Phil Knipe and Bob Hicks will work closely on this support as well as desktop rollover coordination during the next few months.