ACO Meeting Minutes February 8, 2018

Minutes of the Arts Computing Department meeting held on February 8th, 2018

Present:  S. Hartung, K. McGowan, R. Park, H. Balagtas, S. Speers, N. Bromley, S. Paterson, J. Schildroth, G. Parks, T. Marshall-Taylor

Co-ops:   A. Sanchez, L. Ma, S. Luckhurst

Regrets:  W. Lewis, M. Byerley, C. Wallace, B. Baer (on secondment)

Attendees:

  • Sherry
    • Working with Keith to gather data for March / April budget talks.
    • There are 23 staff computers eligible for 2018 rollover. Over half need to be confirmed due to retirements and staff changes. I hope to start ordering computers in the next couple of days to get the rollover process underway.
    • In the process of setting up a pilot program to train department administrators to set up their Winter 2018 course evaluations. Have trained Stacy in Anthropology and she is providing valuable information for setting up the process and documentation. I currently have School of Accounting and Finance, and Drama and Speech Communication also on board. Likely will ask a few more smaller departments to participate.
  • Keith
    • CTSC Report
      • IST NetApp storage space is offering increments of 5Tb for $750 per year. If Faculty needs extra space for research, this can be offered to them.
      • EC5 have an unused server room would be renovated if there was interest or a need for another server room. Half has already gone to grad space.
      • There has been no commitment yet to SquirrelMail. Working on alternatives for users who still have accounts (i.e. alumni, retirees).
      • VPN replacement will be from Cisco (April timeframe).
      • Paul Miskovsky, Science Computing, gave a report on the eValuate bug. Sherry received only one question after resending results. It appears that it was handled as well as could be.
      • IST now has an online guideline document for secure data exchange including cloud storage. Refer to this document for further information.
    • New CrashPlan server replacement has been ordered.
    • Replacement print server built (artsprint).
    • Meeting with Lawrence Folland and his staff in CS about exploring common admin processes, such as onboarding, space management and grad student data.
    • Training for WatIAM admins is taking place. Priority is to train current users.  Co-ops to be trained as part of the IST training at the beginning of each term.
  • Lee
    • Offering upgrades for Take Homes and Laptops to Windows 10 to faculty/staff still on windows 7. So far two interested, but one to be done at end of term.
    • Training on February 14th with Rick Eastep for 3-Minute Thesis at 3:00. Will be at the 3-Minute Thesis event on Feb 16th helping out.
  • Samuel
    • Finished updating CALMS for French Studies. Updating Spanish Department at 12:30PM.
    • Awaiting response from Drama and Speech Communications regarding re-visit on take home.
    • Set up laptop for Andrew Faulkner as a week loaner. Will retrieve on Monday.
    • Plan to begin updating CALMS for Economics, History, and/or English next.
    • Riemer Faber PC renewal date through Rollover? Sherry will email info.
  • Angelica
    • Making ACO web page updates requested by Scott and Will. Also fixing broken links.
    • In process of editing all nine newsletters. Hope to have all edits completed in two weeks.
    • Following up on RT ticket #755413: Update Rollover Take Home Policy. Take home machines to be returned to ACO Help Desk to update CALMS and handle surplus correctly.
  • Herbert
    • Testing QR code scanner for CALMS. Looking at using android tablets or cell phones to do the scanning, but acts different on different models, and bar codes hard to scan. Looking at how to process information. Jameson suggested using a bluetooth scanner.  
    • Dean of Arts OFAS is now live.
  • Sean
    • Dean's Honours List reports updated for Donna.
    • Juli-Ann in Dean's Office away for 2 months. Rebecca hired temporarily.
    • SQL Server 2016 installed on safanalytics, access give to Colin and Kiv.
    • Updated evaluation reports after evaluate.uwaterloo.ca duplicate responses removed.
    • Chrome, Dropbox, Powerpoint, Thunderbird, Skype for Business and Word updated for Macs via Munki
    • Artsprint server created on IST production VMware, running Server 2016. Will be used for new print server / Papercut MF.
    • Setup new Excel Macro for Xing to breakdown Budget items by OrgUnit keeping the new Unit4 Excel report formatting intact.
    • Nonrival server for packalen back to Windows 2016 from Linux after packalen purchased a license.
  • Nevil
    • IST is moving MBAM and encryption strengths from current 128 XTS-AES 256 bit. Imaging may need to be changed for the encryption level. Option to manually change through control panel. Shows non-compliant at 128. Nexus managed machines encrypted automatically. Key is stored safely and requires a four level security to access. Receiving reports from MBAM server. Already four pages to filter, but additional machines will make it more difficult to find.
    • Thank you to the consistent Vanguard testers. Will be moving to Jameson’s new Vanguard web page soon. Will receive a reminder in the morning of testing needed. If you need assistance, let Nevil know.
    • Windows Advanced Update Group. Have received minimal uptake from available deployment. Most deadline updated, rest of production starting Feb 12 with deadline Feb 26. ACTION: To send out a reminder.
  • Scott
    • Working on moving St. Paul's from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Peter likes that the updates are overnight and they are done when they come in in the morning. Still doing the new machines for them.
    • Co-op interviews completed and to receive matches March 5th.
    • Working on Psych Hayes Macro Process.
    • ACO web page updates with Angelica (Software-Request Form/queue) making information more prominent to find out how to request. These requests go into the ACO-Software RT queue. This is not the same as requests for software licenses Sherry purchases.
  • Jameson
    • Working on getting SSL Certificate for NXSARTSWS implemented properly in IIS.
    • Have a demo of Xibo digital signage running with one layout. Admin UI is not easy to use and creating layouts are complex and not intuitive. Looking into an alternative method.
    • Doing some more work on Vanguard site to get it ready for use.
    • Noticed an issue with Antimalware Service Executable every Monday where it eats up 5GB+ of RAM and 100% disk usage. Looks to be related to Windows Defender scanning itself and getting into a memory leak. Going to be testing an Antimalware policy through SCCM to add exclusions for msmpeng.exe and Windows defender to see if the issue happens again.
  • Greg
    • Now a member of PDAG. PDAG is looking for more faculty presentations.
    • Giving a talk on Server 2016 licensing on March 23, 2018.
    • Beginning to work on PaperCut test deployment with IST and Retail Services.
  • Todd
    • Renison ELI placement test completed in ML 109. Largest use of laptops (15) in use at one time without any issues.
    • Two ML 109 laptops showing N: drive connection problems where they are not connecting. Eduroam certificate updated and may have caused the issue. To be investigated further.
  • Will
    • Identified ACO web pages that still mentioned nexusmail/mywaterloo and had Angelica update them.
    • SPSS license grace period expired end of January. IBM has been updating their systems and changed the process to get offline licenses required for SWORDC. Primary support person in IST was unexpectedly away and we had a gap in backup coverage where nobody had access to create these. Found alternate method for short-term and backup personnel now have access.
    • IST is reorganizing SharePoint sites in preparation for the move to 2016. Edgar Vieira will be reaching out to site owners.
    • WatIAM 2.0 training will be included in future beginning-of-term service desk co-op training.

Additional Discussion:

  • We have been using the new meeting format for some time now. Keith asked if there were any issues with it.
    • Action items to be identified so we can re-visit in the next meeting to discuss the solution arrived at for resolution.
    • Agenda items to be posted by Wednesday morning before each meeting to ensure everyone has a chance to view them for discussion in meeting.