EASI

Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration

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Redacting Personal Information in the Enterprise Service Centre

Date:  April 26, 2024
To: Student Information Systems Application Users
From:  Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration
Re:  Redacting Personal Information in the Enterprise Service Centre

 

Dear SIS Application users,

When submitting a ticket for assistance to the Enterprise Service Centre (ESC) for SIS applications such as ROSI, Degree Explorer and eMarks, please ensure you have redacted all personally identifiable information (e.g., names, addresses) in ESC textboxes, subject fields, screenshots, and attachments. Only a Person ID is required to assist with an issue.

For example, if you submit a screenshot of a technical issue you are experiencing in ROSI to the ESC, please redact the student’s name from that screenshot. There are helpful screen blur and masking applications we recommend that you utilize to hide personal data before making an ESC ticket submission.

Users of Batch Applicant Uploads: Similarly, please do not submit upload file attachments containing personally identifiable information in the ESC. Please review our updated file submission guidelines outlined on the SIS SharePoint site which describes a secure method of batch upload file submission outside of the ESC.

Thank you for your cooperation.

This email has been sent from a service account and does not accept replies. Please direct any follow up questions to the Enterprise Service Centre http://www.uoft.me/esc

Sincerely,
Student Information Systems

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Brief outage for ROSI, ACORN, and other student information systems, Thursday May 2

Date:  April 24, 2024
To:  ROSI Users; Registrar’s Offices
From:  Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration
Re:  Brief outage for ROSI, ACORN, and other student information systems, Thursday May 2

 

Dear ROSI users,

Please note, we need to perform brief but important maintenance to the ROSI database. To avoid conflicts with exams and the first week of classes, we have scheduled this for 10:00 to 10:15 a.m. on the morning of Thursday, May 2. The list of affected systems is below. We will post a notification for students on the ACORN landing page and social media.

We do appreciate that some instructors may need to submit grades that day. We are unable to contact all instructors and would ask departmental or divisional staff to pass on the information. To avoid having instructors being partially through work when the eMarks is taken offline at 10:00 a.m., we will be blocking fresh log ins to the system at 9:30. Instructors who have signed on before 9:30 will be able to continue their work until 10:00. No one will be able to log in to the system after 9:30 until after the maintenance is complete at 10:15.

The same arrangement will apply to the administrative interface for Degree Explorer.

Timetable Builder will remain available. Reporting staff will still be able to access the ROSI Replica database.

The following systems will be affected:

  • Accommodated Testing Services (Student and Admin)
  • ACORN
  • Course Information System
  • Degree Explorer (Student and Admin)
  • EASI Institutional File Transfer
  • eMarks
  • Online Administrative Student Information System (OASIS) – including Absence Declaration, and the Timetable Builder and Transfer Equivalencies database administrative screens
  • ROSI
  • ROSI Express
  • ROSI Files
  • Safety Abroad Student Registry
  • Varsity Blues Registration System
  • Web services/APIs

Thank you for your patience as we make these improvements.

This email has been sent from a service account and does not accept replies. Please direct any follow up questions to the Enterprise Service Centre http://www.uoft.me/esc

Sincerely,
Student Information Systems

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EASI Retirements: May 2024

Congratulations to Bob Dirstein, who will be retiring on May 31, 2024, after 13 years of dedicated service at U of T. Known for his unwavering dedication to improving U of T’s research systems, particularly the My Research (MR) platform, Bob has been instrumental in strengthening U of T’s position as a global research leader.

Beyond his professional endeavors, Bob’s presence will be greatly missed for the joy, laughter, and camaraderie he has brought to our workplace, including funny anecdotes, tales of cycling, and his journey into the world of square dancing.

As we bid farewell to Bob, we’ll fondly remember his commitment to excellence and his talent for fostering cohesive teams. Please join me in celebrating his remarkable career and wishing him a retirement filled with new adventures and continued happiness.

Swetlana Signarowski
Executive Director, EASI, University of Toronto

Bob Dirstein

Bob Dirstein, Project Manager/Analyst
Joined U of T: September 1995 – October 2001
Joined EASI: November 2017
Last day at EASI and Retirement: May 31, 2024

Describe your background and how you arrived at EASI
I had worked as a Grants Officer in University of Toronto Research Services in the 90s, where among other things I worked with Pamela Harris to build a system to automate the set-up of approximately 300 annual accounts for the SSHRC institutional grant.  (We just retired this system 3 years ago and folded its functionality into My Research Applications & Agreements – MRA.)

I then went to Toronto Metropolitan University (Ryerson) where I was Director of the Office of Research Services for a decade and after that I started my own company. One of my first clients was U of T, where I started working on the administrative research systems.  When the previous project manager, Patrick Boal, retired in 2017 I was asked if I would apply for the position. The rest is history.

What will you remember most about EASI?
My co-workers. They have been a wonderful group of people to work with and get to know. That and the scavenger hunts.

What were some of the key projects that you were most proud to work on?
I’ve really only worked on one massive project, the My Research (MR) system. For those of you not familiar with MR, it’s a system that handles all the administrative aspects of research, with the exception of Intellectual Property Management. It covers research proposal submission and internal review, non-funded agreements e.g., Material Transfer Agreements, Human and Animal Ethics protocol submission and review, research account set-up and expense review, and tracking of financial deliverables.

What will you remember most about U of T?
The friends that I’ve made here.

What do you plan to do in retirement?
Figure out what I want to be when I grow up. My only immediate goal involves cycling. I bought myself a nice carbon fibre road bike a couple of summers ago. Last summer I made a few trips to Niagara Falls with it. This summer’s goal is to make it there and back in the same day, about 350 km. Wish me luck!

 

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Generating ROSI and ROSI Express Reports session on April 25 at 11 a.m.

Date: April 17, 2024
To: ROSI Users
From: Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration
Re: Generating ROSI and ROSI Express Reports session on April 25 at 11 a.m. 

 

Dear SIS users,

Please join us for a Connect+Learn session on Generating ROSI and ROSI Express Reports on Thursday, April 25 at 11 a.m.

This session will explore several methods that staff in academic units and Registrars’ Offices can use to generate class lists, reports, and downloads of ROSI information. The initial focus of this session will be on the new class list report which is generated from ROSI Express using Power BI. Attendees will be shown a basic feature set and how to navigate the refreshed interface. Current ROSI screens used for report generation and how to pick up the file output from ROSI Files will also be explained. Similarly, the downloads portion of this session will explain how to access file output and formatting files, including headers, for practical use.

Topics to be addressed:

  • New Class List reports in ROSI Express (Power BI)
  • Sending ROSI reports to ROSI Files (PDF and Excel formats)
  • Download basics (time permitting)

Note: Registration is not required for this event. Please use the Connect+Learn iCal attached in this email to add the event to your calendar. You can also access the meeting via the Teams Meeting Link.

Sincerely,
Student Information Systems

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ROSI Database Quarterly Maintenance – Friday, May 24

Date:  April 11, 2024
To:  ROSI Users; Registrar’s Offices
From:  Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration
Re:  ROSI Database Quarterly Maintenance – Friday, May 24

 

Dear ROSI users,

Please note that we will need to take ROSI and most associated student information systems offline on Friday, May 24 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. to perform quarterly maintenance on the database. We will return the systems to service sooner if the work is completed earlier than 9 p.m.

In addition, while ROSI-REPLICA on the Managed Instance (MI) will remain accessible during the maintenance, data will not be synced with ROSI starting at 5 p.m. It will be synced again at 9 p.m. when maintenance is complete. Other batch procedures will be suspended during the outage but will resume after the maintenance is completed.

The following systems will be affected:

  • Accommodated Testing Services (Student and Admin)
  • ACORN
  • Course Information System
  • Degree Explorer (Student and Admin)
  • EASI Institutional File Transfer
  • eMarks
  • Online Administrative Student Information System (OASIS) – including Absence Declaration, and the Timetable Builder and Transfer Equivalencies database administrative screens
  • ROSI
  • ROSI Express
  • ROSI Files
  • Safety Abroad Student Registry
  • Varsity Blues Registration System
  • Web services/APIs

Timetable Builder (Student) will remain available.

A notice will be posted on the ACORN launchpad and social media so that students are aware of the outage.

Thank you for your patience as we make these improvements.

This email has been sent from a service account and does not accept replies. Please direct any follow up questions to the Enterprise Service Centre http://www.uoft.me/esc

Sincerely,
Student Information Systems

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ROSI Invoice Screen (7AGH and 7AGG) Interface Update

Date: April 10, 2024
To: ROSI Users; Registrar’s Offices
From: Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration 
Re: ROSI Invoice Screen (7AGH and 7AGG) Interface Update

 

ROSI Users,

Some users have been experiencing a “Restart ROSI” error message when attempting to scroll through financial invoices on the 7AGH and 7AGG screens. Due to a security update with the technical infrastructure that supports ROSI, we have made a minor permanent modification to the user interface on screens 7AGH and 7AGG to prevent this error from reoccurring.

The scrolling action buttons (e.g., Down) have been removed, and the “Print” button has been renamed to “Display”. The “Display” button will act the same as the current “Print” button, which opens invoices as a PDF in a new browser tab. Invoices in this tab will continue to be scrollable and are also now searchable (e.g., using Ctrl + F to bring up a keyword search window).

Note: You will need to have pop ups enabled in your browser for ROSI to display this invoice screen.

Should you have any further inquiries or require assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to our team.

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Monthly SIS Training Resources & Support Session

Join us on the first Thursday of each month for an informative Connect+Learn session on SIS Training Resources & Support, tailored primarily for new ROSI users. The Student Information Systems (SIS) group manages enterprise student and curriculum applications, and processes for the University. 

SIS provides reporting tools, enhancement and production request forms, and support for the SIS applications. In the session, we will discuss:

  • Student Information Systems – What we do and how to get help
  • ROSI and OASIS Training Materials and Resources
  • What we support and what we don not (and where to go for those)
  • When to use ESC and how to write a ticket and use ESC appropriately

Resources

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Progress Update: SAP GUI 8.0 Patch 4 Upgrade

Date: April 10, 2024
To: Divisional IT Administrators (who have SAP GUI users that they manage)
From:  Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration
Re:  Progress Update: SAP GUI 8.0 Patch 4 Upgrade

 

Dear divisional IT administrators:

As you may be aware, U of T will be transitioning from the currently unsupported SAP GUI 7.6 (Patch 6) to SAP GUI 8.0 (Patch 4). This update offers performance improvements, and enhanced stability and security.

Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration (EASI) has been developing a deployment package and instructions for this upgrade. Initial pilot deployments with select users have highlighted opportunities for further refinement.

To ensure a smooth transition to the new version, we will be conducting additional testing and will refine the deployment package before announcing a broader rollout in early May. We will be encouraging all divisions to upgrade to SAP GUI 8.0 (Patch 4) by June 30, 2024.

Please note that this upgrade will minimally impact business processes and will be easy for users to adapt – once upgraded, users will see a simplified list of connection entries on the Logon Pad, and they will be able to connect to the AMS environment. There will be no changes to the theme.

We appreciate your patience and support as we continue to enhance our deployment process for the benefit of the University community.