Campus - Service Management Plan (May 2019)

  

Purpose of the document

The service management plan (SMP) is the single, formal and updated document outlining how Enterprise and the WatRooms service are to be managed, delivered and controlled.  It defines overall service governance and related management plans, procedures, timelines and the methods and accountabilities for service delivery, change management and decision making. 

The SMP also defines a roadmap for the development and change to the service ongoing, and as such is expected to be updated and changed to reflect the current and planned future states of the service.

Definition of the service

Scope of the service

Enterprise is a web-based application through which classrooms are booked. The application has two components:

  1. A restricted application used by the Registrar’s Scheduling Office to book approximately 130 centrally-managed classrooms for both courses and academic events and to schedule remaining course work into classrooms managed by various academic departments. The Bookings Office also uses this restricted application to book non-academic events. (Note that academic departments use various methods to schedule ad hoc bookings into their own rooms.)

  2. A view-only portal called WatRooms is used by academic and academic support staff to view room characteristics and availability

As of March 2019, Infosilem Enterprise/WatRooms has been deployed to meet the room scheduling needs of the RO Scheduling Office as well as the Bookings Office.  In the future, this service may be expanded more broadly across the University to support scheduling activities for rooms managed by various Academic and Academic Support units.

This SMP reflects the current Infosilem Enterprise/WatRooms application environments.  The SMP will need to be reviewed and updated should its user group be expanded beyond the RO Scheduling Office and Bookings Office. 

 

Roles and Responsibilities

There are a number of stakeholders who use the WatRooms scheduling service and/or the services with which it interfaces. They are noted in the chart below along with their responsibilities.

 

Stakeholder team

Responsibilities

Contact information

Registrars Scheduling Office

  • Book academic events

  • Use the service along with other services to create course and student schedules each term and exam schedules

  • Initiate changes to classroom assignments within the course schedule

  • Assess availability of RO-managed rooms for academic purposes and update Quest to reflect desired room bookings

  • Review utilization of the RO managed rooms

Charlene Schumm, Director, Scheduling & Examinations

 

Tanya Pompilio, Scheduling, Examination & Resource Specialist

 

Elysia Gallinaro, Scheduling Specialist, Process & Data Analyst

 

Bookings Office

  • Book space for non-academic events

 

Donna Schell, Bookings Office

Registrar’s Office, Information, Technology & Analytics

  • Maintain the service by addressing upgrades, enhancement requests, or completing functional impact assessments if related services or interface changes are occurring

  • Maintain access to the service (add new users, remove users who no longer require access)

  • Maintain interfaces with other systems, including Quest

 

David Bean, Director

 

Sheila Brubacher, Business Systems Analyst (Records)

 

Information Systems & Technology, Student Information Systems

  • Maintain the Enterprise / WatRooms service by working with the RO to address upgrade or enhancement requests or completing technical impact assessments if related services or interface changes are occurring

  • Maintain interfaces with other systems, including Quest

Daryl Dore, Director, Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

 

Alan Dye, Information Systems Specialist

 

Vivienne Ballantyne, Manager, Student Information Systems

 

Chris Voutsis, Information Specialist, Enterprise Resource Planning Systems group

 

Information Systems & Technology, Instructional Technologies & Media Services (ITMS)

  • Maintain a data base that provides information about the instructional and media technology available in rooms managed by the RO.

  • Provide updates (email/phone) to the RO Scheduling Office of all changes, especially those that are time sensitive changes to room attributes.

Andrea Chappell, Director, Instructional Technologies & Media Services

 

Marcel David, Manager, Presentation Services

 

Deputy Provost, Space Planning

  • Maintain a database that provides room attribute information that isn’t currently available in Archibus for rooms managed by the RO

  • Maintain Archibus room attribute information for rooms managed by the RO by liaising with Plant Operations and contacts in the Academic and Academic Support Units who are accountable for sharing updates to room attribute information.

  • Provide updates (email/phone) to the RO Scheduling Office of all changes, especially those that are time sensitive changes to room attributes.

Scott Nicoll, Manager Space Planning

 

Amy Bender, Space Planning and Classroom Management Specialist

Campus scheduling representatives and other support staff

  • Use the Infosilem Enterprise/WatRooms service to view room attributes and availability

Various contacts in Academic and Academic Support Units across campus

Plant Ops

  • Maintain the following room data in Archibus:

    • Room owner

    • Room number

    • Square footage

 

 

Governance

There is a Student Information Systems (SIS) steering committee that has oversight to review enhancement requests, project ideas, upgrades and critical patch updates for the various systems used to deliver services to students and determine the priority of the work.  As part of the student services delivery “infrastructure”, Infosilem Enterprise/WatRooms work will be reviewed, prioritized, approved, and scheduled within this existing governance model.

Should the Infosilem Enterprise/WatRoom service be expanded to other areas of campus, the governance process would need to be reviewed.

Management of the service

Process documentation

IST maintains documentation showing the overall architecture for the Infosilem Enterprise/WatRooms service.  This documentation shows the flow of data between the various systems involved in delivery of this service for the RO managed rooms.  This documentation will be updated by the Enterprise Architect in IST when a material change occurs to the service.  A material change would include expanding the service beyond the RO/Bookings Office or consolidating all the room attribute and technology information into one system such as Archibus.

The RO Scheduling Office is accountable for creating and maintaining end user documentation required by their team.  This documentation will be revised in the event of any system updates that result in a material change in usability from the end user’s perspective.  This documentation is stored by the RO Scheduling Office.

The RO determined that end user documentation for Infosilem Enterprise/WatRooms Portal wasn’t required because the system is very intuitive.  Basic instructions are provided to new users.  These instructions have proven to be sufficient.

Change requests

Change requests may originate from any of the stakeholder groups (see below) and must be submitted by RT or through email.  Changes are evaluated by representatives of the Registrars’ Scheduling Office and the business analyst from the RO Information, Technology & Analytics team in consultation with representatives from IST Student Information Systems.  Changes will typically be deferred until one of the two annually scheduled upgrades occur unless there is a compelling reason to implement the change sooner, as a one-off.

Types of changes may include but are not limited to:

Stakeholder team

Change request type

Registrars Scheduling Office

Configuration, enhancement request

Registrar’s Office, Information, Technology & Analytics

Configuration, enhancement request, upgrade, CPU installation

Information Systems & Technology, Student Information Systems

Upgrade, CPU installation, interface enhancement due to a change in a system to which the service interfaces, security access requests for staff

Information Systems & Technology, Instructional Technologies & Media Services

Enhancement to accommodate change to the ITMS dbase that provides technology information about rooms managed by the RO

Deputy Provost, Space Planning

Enhancement to accommodate change to the SPO dbase that provides room attribute information

Or

Enhancement to accommodate a change to Archibus that provides room attribute information

Maintenance and Release Management

Maintenance of the Enterprise / WatRooms service will be based on the vendor releases which are provided twice a year in February and August.  The University typically will only install the February release unless there is a feature in the August release that is desired.   Below is a chart summarizing the activities completed for implementing the annual release and who is accountable for each part of the process.

Release activity

RO BA

RO Scheduling Office

IST Developer

IST App Admin

SIS Team

Comments

Install

 

 

 

X

 

 

Evaluate

X

X

 

 

 

 

Modify/Enhance

 

 

X

 

X

Other integration partners may have enhancement work as well.

Test

X

X

 

 

X

Regression test with other SIS applications

Sign off

X

X

 

 

 

 

Deploy

X

 

X

X

 

RO’s role is to provide communications and/or training as required for users of the service.  In addition, they provide sign off that the system is ready for deployment.

Service Support

Hours of Operation

The Enterprise / WatRooms service is typically available 24X7.  Stakeholders in the RO and Campus will be made aware ahead of time if down time is required.

Support staff in IST are available during University office hours (8:30-4:30, Monday to Friday).

Infosilem (vendor) support is available from 8:00am-5:00pm, Monday to Friday.

Monitoring and Event Management

Another maintenance activity is the monitoring of the system.  The Application Admin team in IST is responsible for daily monitoring of the interfaces to ensure they run as expected and/or to trouble-shoot if necessary.  Additionally, the Application Admin team monitors the health of the application.  The Window’s team (IST) monitors the health of the virtual server(s) on which the service resides to ensure there is sufficient space.

The Registrar’s Office, Information, Technology & Analytics monitors the Quest interface to ensure it completes its daily update.  If there are issues with this interface, the Information Systems & Technology, Student Information Systems team is made aware so they can address the problem.

Service Support Model

In support of the service, the following responsibilities and escalation paths apply:

Support role

Responsibilities

Personnel

Tier 0 support

  • End users should endeavour to use existing online documentation to answer their questions and concerns, and contact the Scheduling Office if they need assistance.

  • The scheduling office will access Tier 1 support if they are unable to resolve the question / issue.

NA

Tier 1 support

  • Undertake an immediate effort to diagnose and resolve the issue and/or respond to the question

  • Categorize inquiry for reporting purposes

  • If the issue cannot be resolved or if you are unable to respond to the question, Tier 1 Support will engage the appropriate team in IST via and RT.

Registrar’s Office, Information, Technology & Analytics

Tier 2 support

  • Takes over inquiries which cannot be solved immediately with the means of Tier 1 Support.

  • Keeps users informed about their inquiries’ status at agreed intervals.

 

Information Systems & Technology, Student Information Systems

Tier 3 support (vendor)

  • Executes services requested by Tier 2 Support if required for solving an Incident.

Enterprise

Point of Contact with IST

Representatives from the Registrar’s Office, Information, Technology & Analytics team will liaise with IST to jointly ensure the service meets the needs of the RO and other end users.

Point of Contact with Vendor

Both the Information Systems & Technology, Student Information Systems and the Registrar’s Office, Information, Technology & Analytics have responsibility for liaising with the vendor.  IST will access the vendor to help trouble-shoot technical issues as required and will partner with the RO technical team to explore questions about enhancement requests and/or new functionality.   The vendor contact information is: support@infosilem.com / 1 866 420 5585.  Normally no other groups will contact the vendor.

Key performance indicators

Key performance indicator

Planned measurement

Frequency

Responsible

Availability

System availability

Annually

Daryl Dore, Director Enterprise Planning Systems

TBD

TBD

TBD

Charlene Schumm, Director, Scheduling & Examinations

Dependencies

The Enterprise /WatRooms service is dependent on the data provided by interfaces with Quest, the ITMS dbase, Archibus, and an application updated by the Space Planning Office.  How the data for each of these applications is maintained is noted below.

Quest

The various scenarios that would impact the Quest interface and, as a result, the information in Enterprise / WatRooms and how these situations would be handled are noted below.

Scenario

How the scenario would be addressed

Quest upgrade or CPU patch required (2 times per year)

  1. IST Student Information Team and RO Information, Technology and Analytics teams would assess the impact on WatRooms. 

  2. If there is an impact, it would be addressed as necessary.

Timetabler upgrade or patch

Enterprise / WatRoom update

New / inactive building update (Note: usually there would be a lot of lead time given about this type of change)

  1. Archibus would be updated by Space Planning Office.

  2. The next day a notification would be sent to the RO indicating the change

  3. The RO Scheduling Office would assess the impact on existing academic bookings, and make room booking adjustments, as appropriate.

  4. The RO Information, Technology and Analytics team would add or remove the room from Quest.

Enterprise / WatRooms identifies a requirement for additional Quest data

  1. The request would be deferred if possible and completed as part of a Quest upgrade.

Quest configuration change requested

  1. IST Student Information Team and RO Information, Technology and Analytics teams would assess the impact of the proposed changed to Quest on Enterprise/WatRooms.

  2. If there was an impact, the teams would try to avoid the completing the change, if possible until the annual Enterprise/WatRoom upgrade (Feb).

RO needs to stop the Quest interface from running

  1. The RO Information, Technology and Analytics team would create an RT to make the request.

  2. The SIS team will then submit a request to their App Admin for completion.

Issue identified with Quest data

  1. RO Scheduling Office would advise RO Information, Technology and Analytics team.

  2. If not resolved, RO Information, Technology and Analytics team would open an RT for the IST Student Information Team.

 

Space Planning Office (SPO) – Room Attribute data

The various scenarios that would impact the Archibus and SPO app interface are noted below as well as how WatRooms would be impacted:

Scenario

How the scenario would be addressed

Updates to room attribute information in Archibus

  1. Plant Ops updates room number and square footage information to Archibus

  2. SPO forwards a spreadsheet to the room’s department owner to collect additional room attribute information

  3. If room attribute changes are made for a classroom or lab, the SPO contacts the RO Scheduling Office to make them aware

  4. SPO updates Archibus

  5. The daily interface updates to Enterprise/WatRooms will create a notification for the RO Scheduling office of the change.

Room attribute updates (E.g. black board replaced with a white board)

 

(Note: change could be Plant Ops or RO initiated)

  1. Once per term, the SPO visually inspects RO managed rooms and makes updates through an “app” 

  2. The app interfaces with Enterprise/WatRooms daily.  If there is a change to the room attribute information, the RO Scheduling office will receive a report via email notifying them of the change so they can take appropriate action (E.g. reschedule courses in Quest if required)

Planned significant issue with a room (E.g. renovations)

 

  1. SPO/Plant Ops advises RO Scheduling Office via phone/email

  2. RO Scheduling Office may notify ITMS so they are aware.

Unplanned minor issue with a room (E.g. professor reports missing or broken equipment)

  1. Ad hoc notification will be provided to the RO Scheduling Office or ITMS, depending on the reported issue.

  2. RO Scheduling Office will assess the issue and adjust room bookings, if required.

Unplanned major issue with a room (E.g. flood)

  1. Plant Ops contacts RO Scheduling Office to advise.  The RO Scheduling Office informs non-academic bookings

  2. RO Scheduling Office takes the room off-line (in Enterprise/WatRooms and Quest) and reschedules as required

 

Instructional Technology & Media Support – Room attribute data

The various scenarios that would impact the ITMS interface are noted below as well as how WatRooms would be impacted for each:

Scenario

How the scenario would be addressed

Technology and Media attribute updates (Ad hoc, minor changes such as broken equipment)

  1. Issue is reported to ITMS or the RO Scheduling Office by email or phone (Note: if RO only one notified, RO will advise ITMS)

  2. The ITMS teams notifies (by phone or email) the RO when they are made aware of the issue.  RO Scheduling Office will make room adjustments, if appropriate.

  3. The ITMS team updates their dbase, if applicable (Note: Minor changes/short term issues such as changing a light bulb, do not get updated in the dbase, just major or longer-term issues.)

  4. The ITMS dbase interfaces with WatRooms daily.  If there is a change to the room attribute information, the RO Scheduling office will receive an email report so they can take appropriate action (E.g. reschedule courses in Quest if required). 

Important note – there is an ongoing expectation that email and phone updates will also be provided when there is urgency to address a change.

Technology and Media attribute updates (Planned major changes such as installation of new equipment)

  1. The ITMS team advises RO Scheduling Office via phone/email

  2. RO Scheduling Office ensures updates are completed as appropriate to Quest to reflect the upcoming change. (Note: To ensure these changes don’t interfere with classroom schedules, notification of this type of update should occur one term in advance of the work being scheduled.)

Contracts

The Infosilem contract is maintained by the Contract Management team in IST.  The key contact for contract information is Sandy Laughlin.  The contract is renewed annually and runs from May 1 to April 30 each year.  The IST approval contact is Daryl Dore. 

Risks/Observations

The main areas of risk for this service are the quality of the room attribute data and the reliance on immediate notification by phone or email if a localized failure will require rescheduling classes. 

Room attribute data in the current configuration is provided via interfaces from three different data sources (Archibus, ITMS dbase, SPO app).  The interfaces are used to provide a daily compare of the room attribute data in Enterprise/WatRooms.  When the data has changed, a summary report of any change is provided the RO Scheduling Office staff so they can take whatever action may be required. 

The issues with the current state are that the interface source data isn’t maintained regularly.  For example, a short-term emerging issue (E.g. a projector needs repair) may not be entered in the system.  In this type of situation, an update will be provided to the RO by phone or email.  The players involved in the Enterprise/WatRooms service are aware of this risk and comfortable that the right people are being notified when changes occur.  If this service is expanded to a broader group on campus, this practice may no longer suffice as it will be more complex to determine who to notify when a short-term emerging issue occurs. 

Opportunities to enhance the quality and timeliness of the data in Enterprise/WatRooms include:

  1. Consolidating all room attribute in one system such as Archibus (Note: Archibus would need to be enhanced to support the capture of all room attribute information currently housed in three systems).  This approach reduces the points of failure and provides one “go to” system for all room information.

  2. Build in processes to ensure room attribute information is kept up-to-date in the system.  (E.g. update the systems with both short term issues and longer term so it is a single source of the truth rather than rely on person-to-person notifications.)

  3. Enhance the integrations to be run more frequently vs. daily.

Service Reviews

This SMP should be reviewed and updated, as required annually or if/when any of the following changes occur:

  • Additional user groups beyond the RO Scheduling Office/Bookings Office are added to the Service

  • The data sources (interfaces) are changed (E.g. additional room attribute data is collected in Archibus thereby eliminating the need to interface with the ITMS dbase and/or the data collected by the Space Planning Office. 

Service Roadmap

Ideally the Enterprise/WatRooms service will be expanded throughout campus.  See Appendix C for an architectural diagram that reflects the roadmap.  In the meanwhile, the Enterprise/WatRoom service will be incorporated in the Student Information System road map.    

Document version control

Document version

Date of Change

Description

Change made by

1.0

May 9, 2019

Draft SMP

W. Hague

2.0

May 16, 2019

Updated SMP based on feedback from A. Dye and S. Brubacher

W. Hague

3.0

May 28, 2019

Updated to include current and future state architecture

W. Hague

4.0

August 16, 2019

Final updates based on feedback from Mary Lynn Benninger, Charlene Schumm, and Tanya Pompilio

W. Hague

Appendix A: Service ownership roles

 

Role

Responsibilities

Person/Team

Service Owner

  • Accountable for delivery of service within agreed service levels.

Charlene Schumm, Director, Scheduling & Examinations

 

Service Manager

  • Manage all requests, issues and incidents related to the service.

  • Ensure that standards and guidelines are followed, including accounting standards and practices and external legal requirements.

  • Ensure that services and infrastructure are able to deliver the agreed capacity and performance targets in a cost effective and timely manner

  • Identify and plan for resources required to deliver the service

  • Plan for short, medium- and long-term business requirements

  • Identify, assess, and control risks.

  • Grants authorized users the right to use a service, while preventing access to non-authorized users.

David Bean, Director, Registrar’s Office, Information, Technology & Analytics

Appendix B: Current and Future Architecture

 

Current state (as of May 2019):

 

Future state (proposed) as of May 2019: