Web Advisory Committee Minutes - August 16, 2017

3:00p.m., August 16, 2017. NH 3118

Attendance

Present:

Donald Duff-McCracken (Chair), Darren Bondy (Secretary), Michelle Douglas-Mills, Chris Francis, Tom Graham, Marlon Griffith, Danielle Jeanneault, Andrea Jennings, Joe Kwan, Andrew McAlorum, Amy Meredith, Isaac Morland, Liam Morland, Kevin Paxman, Trevor Ridgway, Michael Tjendra, Chao Yang

Regrets:

Herbert Balagtas, Anna Beard, Janice Cooke, Beth Cotter, Sarah Forgrave, Laurel Forbes, Tasha Glover, Troy Grandy, Alison Hitchens, Melissa Holst, Stephenie Koerne, Martin LeBlanc, Elizabeth Rogers, Melanie Scott, Susan Shifflett, Kayla Snyder, Lori Suess, Andrew Smith, Claire Taylor, Mirko Vucicevich, Heather Wey

Absent:

Marta Bailey, Jim Johnston, Carlos Saavedra, Andrea Sweet

Approval of the minutes of July meeting

The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted as distributed.

Business Arising

None.

Waterloo Content Management System (WCMS) updates

Technical update (Kevin Paxman)

  • Updates to the databases for pilots and production are complete.
  • Databases for other servers will be updated in the future.
  • WCMS 2.5.0 release expected to complete tonight. Release notes.
    • Some patches have been done: “all promo items” bug, “too many images in metatags causing pages not to load” issue, and “no text in site footer shows field info” bug
    • Investigating some additional reports
  • Hoping to have the ability to check and move French and Chinese sites in responsive theme early next week
  • Many from the WCMS team will be attending Drupal North in Ottawa, leaving Thursday of next week, and back Monday.
  • Focus points in our current sprint, other than Drupal 8, include accessibility improvements, Open Scholar, and Waterloo Stories.

Training update (Andrea Jennings)

Migrations and training – by the numbers

  • 696 sites live
    • 574 websites in responsive design
  • 52 in progress on pilots
  • WCMS training courses: 3,710 attendees

What’s happening with the WCMS?

  • WCMS migration to responsive cut-off date – August 31, 2017 – it’s here!
  • We can flip your live site to production?
    • Rather than copying it back to pilots and enabling the theme, we can enable it on your live site. Please ensure no site maintainers are working on the site at that time as edits would be lost.
  • We have 53 sites that haven’t submitted RTs to flip their sites after the ‘final reminder’ was sent to POCs on July 27.
  • There are also 7 French/Chinese language sites to flip
    • 60 total remain to flip to responsive

On Web Resources

All SEW courses offered throughout September and October – dates TBD!

Training

We have six spots open for the WCMS co-op student training (SEW099) on September 5 & 6 from 9am – 12pm in MC 1078. Register your co-op student!

Cancellation: 72 hours cancellation with no penalty - contact Elizabeth Scott

Drop-in lab

  • Drop-in lab will be closed Tuesdays in August and on August 31.

If you require special arrangements outside of the regular drop-in hours please contact Andrea, ajenning@uwaterloo.ca. Regularly scheduled WCMS Drop-in lab hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays - 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm in MC 2060.

Some Engineering web app uses (Marlon Griffith)

Marlon Griffith demonstrated 3 different applications that Engineering Computing has developed.

  • Temperature monitor: keeps track of temperatures in the server rooms using Raspberry Pi with digital sensors.
  • CSV beta extract: builds reports and creates a CSV file that the Registrar’s Office uses to identify who should be on the dean’s list.
  • Student Coordinator scheduling tool: displays times of week that person is available and allows you to click on and book a time slot; which then integrates with Exchange to book it in the calendars of all involved.

Other business

Mattermost

  • CTSC had a discussion regarding collaborative chat programs; members all agreed that Mattermost makes sense as a campus-wide solution.
  • The goal is to get most of the IT community on campus on one chat platform to be able to discuss openly.
  • IST will be purchasing the license; for those interested in having access to the campus instance of Mattermost, submit an RT.
  • Undergraduate and graduate students are covered under this license as well.
  • Is there an ability to communicate with external people using Mattermost?
    • Will need to check with Joanne McClintock.
  • Does some of the functionality cross over with Skype for Business?
    • Will be creating a statement of use document that explains intended use cases for Skype for Business and Mattermost.

Campus map updates

  • Be sure to check out the new updates to the Campus map; search feature and indoor mapping!

Meeting adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 3:57 p.m.