Room scheduling at Waterloo
Launching Infosilem Enterprise
We are excited to announce the March 4, 2019 launch of Infosilem Enterprise (IE), a new system to support scheduling of rooms owned by the Registrar's Office (RO) at the University.
This project was a joint effort with the RO Scheduling Office and many groups within IST including:
- Quest Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP),
- Instructional Technologies and Media Services (ITMS),
- Portfolio Management Group (PMG),
- and the Portal team.
Additional support was provided by Plant Ops and the Space Planning Office.
Enhancing the room booking process
Prior to the launch of IE, the RO Scheduling Office used Ad Astra to schedule rooms for academic purposes (e.g. courses, exams), and for non-academic events. The information the RO required to schedule rooms was provided in an ad hoc fashion via emails or phone calls and maintained by the RO in an Excel spreadsheet.
With Infosilem Enterprise, room bookings will be based on a daily load and real-time feed of Quest data, up-to-date room data provided through interfaces from Archibus (the system used by Plant Ops and the Space Planning Office to maintain room attribute data), and a database of the technology available in rooms (maintained by ITMS).
New Cyber Awareness website
IST created a Cyber Awareness website with the information and resources you need to protect yourself form cyber security threats.
Visit the site to find valuable information on:
- Current threats
- Phishing prevention
- Passwords and data security
- Training and development, including access to the Security Awareness Training videos on LEARN
- Resources to print and post in your area
Being cyber aware is everyone's responsibility.
Lynda.com by the numbers
The start of the new year saw 1,308 new users accessing Lynda.com, for a total of 10,380.
Most watched videos
Top courses relate to work within Adobe Creative Suite with a focus on creating and editing videos:
- The Audition Interface
- Using the crop tool
- Reducing noise
- Making basic edits
- Using the shape tools
Did you know? University of Waterloo employees and students have free, 24/7 access to web based training from Lynda.com.
Upgrades to campus Wi-Fi provide greater access and reliability across campus
Since January 2019, IST has completed four major upgrades that have enhanced the delivery and availability of wireless service across campus.
- Re-architecting of the wireless routing equipment to include more powerful hardware.
- The wireless core has been expanded from two redundant chassis to three additional pairs of more powerful routers. Each pair is responsible for routing a subset of the wireless network and provides 20 Gbps of downstream capacity to wireless access point controllers, with room for expansion.
- Access point controllers replaced with more powerful hardware.
- Three pairs of these controllers have been replaced and one additional pair has been added. The upgraded controllers share the load of supporting the 5,700 access points currently deployed across campus.
- Wireless management platform shifted to a software solution.
- Moving from hardware appliances to a software solution allowed IST to upgrade to more recent code, enabling new lines of access points.
- Legacy access points replaced.
- Approximately 100 legacy APs have been replaced with newer, more powerful models.
Network and Service Alerts
IST is excited to announce the recent launch of the updated Network and Service Alerts tool. Now integrated with the IST WCMS website, the tool offers site visitors an easy way of discovering the status and uptime history of many of our IT systems and services.
Not all services captured in the above screen shot.
Visitors can quickly determine the status of a service using the visual indicators beside each listing, or use the Service Dashboard to:
- View an alphabetized service listing (and select one for specific alert and uptime data).
- View a table of past and upcoming alerts.
- Filter alerts by date, service, or group.
- Report a problem, contact the IST Service Desk, and view all service uptimes.
To explore the Network and Service Alerts tool, please visit the IST website and click on 'Network and Service Alerts' under the Services menu in the left-hand sidebar.
