EASI

Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration

News

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EASI’s role in remote work rush

Illustration of hands using laptop with icons floating around

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!

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AMS now available starting at 5 a.m.

Recognizing the recent demand for flexible work hours, U of T’s Administrative Management Systems (AMS) are now available two hours earlier starting at 5 a.m.

See all system availability and stay up to date on upcoming planned outages.

This initiative is part of Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration’s (EASI) continuing efforts to improve AMS availability, including increasing system availability to 90 per cent up time in June 2019.

In the future, EASI will continue to improve processes to provide more streamlined and convenient services for a better user experience.

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Update to Microsoft Teams document behaviour

To best support the Microsoft 365 Education customers worldwide and accommodate new growth and demand during these unprecedented times, Microsoft is making a temporary adjustment to Office document behavior within Microsoft Teams for students and teachers.

How does this affect me?
For students and teachers working with Office documents in Microsoft Teams, we are beginning to roll out a temporary change where there will be an additional step in order to edit a document. This is a change from current behavior that allows users to go straight to edit mode when clicking on a document in the “Files” tab of a channel, a conversation, or from inside an assignment.

In all cases, upon clicking on the document, users will first see the document in view mode – they will be able to see the document content, but not make changes.

In order to edit the document, users need to click on the options in the top right of the white bar above the document content and select “Open in Browser” or (for users with Office for Windows installed on their device) “Open in Desktop App”. This will open the document in Office in a separate window from Teams and allow the user to make changes.

What do I need to do to prepare for this change?

No action is necessary, this change will happen automatically. We recommend notifying users proactively if possible, so that they continue to understand how to edit their Word documents in Microsoft Teams without interruption.

Microsoft making temporary adjustments to select non-essential capabilities. We do not expect these changes to have significant impact on the end users experience but wanted to make you aware.

Additional changes to Teams

  • How often Microsoft checks for presence
  • The interval in which we show when the other party is typing
  • Video resolution

 

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Using ROSI Remotely

This session will be an occasion for ROSI users to share their experiences and insights from using ROSI remotely. In this session we will cover:

  • What you need to be able to connect to ROSI
  • How to connect to ROSI from home when using your work computer, or when using a remote desktop service
  • How to manage confidential information in your browser while using ROSI
  • FAQs and known issues to connect to ROSI

Resources

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SharePoint for Site Admins

Are you a new SharePoint site owner or administrator?
In this session we will introduce you to the basics of site administration:

  • Finding settings
  • Permission basics
  • Creating libraries and lists
  • And more…

This session will feature a brief 15-minute presentation followed by a question and answer discussion so bring your questions.

Resources

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Major update to OneNote, SharePoint and Stream

As a part of Microsoft’s commitment to customers and cloud services continuity during these unprecedented times, Microsoft is making temporary adjustments to select capabilities within Microsoft 365.

Microsoft has previously shared changes to Microsoft Teams, such as how often it checks for presence, the interval in which it shows when the other party is typing, and reduced video resolution.

Here are a few other temporary changes you can expect.

OneNote:

  • Download size and sync frequency of file attachments has been changed.

SharePoint:

  • Microsoft is rescheduling specific backend operations to regional evening and weekend business hours. Impacted capabilities include migration, DLP and delays in file management after uploading a new file, video or image.
  • Reduced video resolution for playback videos.

Stream:

  • People timeline has been disabled for newly uploaded videos. Pre-existing videos will not be impacted.
  • Meeting recording video resolution adjusted to 720p

Microsoft will continue to monitor our Microsoft 365 services on an ongoing basis.

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SharePoint for End Users

So your group has decided to work in SharePoint—now what?
In this session, intended for end users of SharePoint, we will cover:

  • Following your site
  • Working with files online and on the desktop
  • Sharing and sending links
  • And more…

This session will feature a brief 15-minute presentation followed by a question and answer discussion. We look forward to seeing you there!

Resources