EASI’s role in remote work rush

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Posted on by Katie Babcock

April 13, 2020

Katie Babcock

News

It’s been a challenging time for everyone at the University of Toronto to adjust to the realities of COVID-19 and working remotely. But since the beginning of March, Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration (EASI), along with the rest of Information Technology Services (ITS), has risen to the occasion, helping users to stay connected while working efficiently.

How did EASI make an impact?

AMS Availability AMS now opens 2 hours earlier with a start time of 5 a.m.

Enterprise Service Centre Average Incidents – 120% increase

Digital Workplace Average Incidents – 78% increase

SharePoint

  • Site creation – 96% increase
  • Total number of files = 4.7M – 24.6% increase
  • Daily number of files viewed or edited – 100% increase

OneDrive total number of files = 81.8M – 5.4% increase

Average daily # of Teams meetings – 864% increase

EASI Website

  • Shared Services O365 Pageviews – 1,517% increase
  • Shared Services O365 – OneDrive Pageviews – 1,209% increase
  • Shared Services O365 – Teams Pageviews – 3,354% increase

          

Other solutions to meet the challenges of remote work include:

  • A new staff and faculty absence declaration form on ServiceNow and associated dashboards/reports
  • New absence COVID19 wage types and payroll fast entry upload tools on HRIS for current circumstances
  • Expansion of the student absence declaration tool on ACORN and new ROSI Express reports for divisions and units
  • Adjustments to ACORN and ROSI to communicate changes to current exam schedules and on-line course delivery for summer timetables
  • Additional Digital Workplace remote desktop servers and software services for our clients
  • Integration of new email and ServiceNow accounts into the strategic communication site for the public
  • New service protocols and security procedures to ensure bulk email messages are delivered to students, faculty and staff
  • Transition of regular in-class Tableau training sessions to a new Teams online learning delivery format allowing for continued support of divisional analytics projects and teams
  • Rapid expansion of the online tuition deposit and support to divisions and graduate units to reduce the volume of mail-in cheques
  • Enhancements to ROSI, ACORN and Degree Explorer to extend availability of CR/NCR options in several divisions and extension of this feature for selected graduate and professional divisions
  • A new email banner, alerting users to emails received outside of the U of T to reduce phishing attacks
  • Many, many knowledge articles and input into the new EASI resource pages and the ITS preparedness site across all teams
  • Consultative advice from our BI/Technical teams as requested from COVID-19 data scientists, external to the university, in the use of cloud based technologies

EASI has also recently launched a new Connect + Learn series, featuring lunchtime learning sessions on U of T’s enterprise applications. Check back frequently to see what sessions are being offered.

Thanks to the EASI team and all of ITS for helping to get everyone set up and ready to work remotely!