OATdb Archive

2014 - 2015

IT Infrastructure And Support Services

Goal
Provide Quality Information Technology Resources
Infrastructure and Support Services will provide resources that meet resource type needs, be reliable and be available when and where needed by the University.

Objective
Provide Core Services To Campus Community
Infrastructure and Support Services will provide core services to include email, web, print and file services to campus that is reliable and available.

KPI
Core Services To Campus Community
Track email, main website, print and file services and target a 99.9% uptime.

Result
Track Core Services To Campus Community
Service Total Availability

Email 100%
Website 99.93%
Printing 99.99%
File Services 99.99%  

Objective
Provide Reliable Internet Connectivity To Campus
Infrastructure and Support Services  will provide internet services to campus that is reliable and available.

KPI
Internet Total Service Uptimes
Track the internet connectivity available to campus and target a 99.9% uptime

Result
Internet Service Uptime
The measured Internet service uptime for the period was determined to be 100%, thus exceeding the goal of 99.9%.

Objective
Provide Adequate Internet Bandwidth To Campus Community
Infrastructure and Support Services will monitor and provide adequate internet bandwidth to campus community so that core functions can be performed.

KPI
Track Internet Availability
Track the internet bandwidth uses to the campus community to determine campus bandwidth demands.    Bandwidth utilization is targeted under 75% of available bandwidth during peak hours of 8am to 9pm.  

Result
Track Internet Availability
The measured Internet availability for the period was determined to be 12%.  This is substantially lower than the maximum of 75%.  The primary reason for this lower utilization year over year, is due to the increase in the main Internet circuit to campus.  Last year, a new Internet circuit increased our bandwidth from 1G to 10G.  

Objective
Infrastructure And Support Services Will Provide Service Accessibility Satisfaction
ISS will track the manner and/or medium in which resources are delivered to students, faculty and staff.

KPI
Evaluate Satisfaction Of Clients With The Manner And/or Medium In Which Resources Are Delivered
Survey campus to evaluate if resources are delivered satisfactory by the Infrastructure and Support Services department.

Result
Satisfaction With Existing Services
In May of 2015, students living in the residence halls were surveyed as to their level of usage and satisfaction of the residence hall network.  ISS received 138 responses to the survey.  

Of the respondents, 75% said they regularly use the residence hall network.  Of those students who utilize the network, 26% connect via a wired port connection, while 74% connect to the network wirelessly.  

The satisfaction results of the students who utilize the network are as follows: 60% are very satisfied, or satisfied; 20 % neutral; 20% dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. 

Action
Survey Residence Hall Network Satisifaction
In Progress:
Due to the satisfaction level of the respondents to the residence hall network satisfaction survey, ISS has determined the need to change the way in which we deliver wireless network services to the the residence hall occupants.  Therefore, a cooperative initiative is underway to improve the wireless connectivity for students in the dorms.  The goal is to have this initiative completely implemented prior to the start of the Fall 2016 term.  Following the start, residence hall occupants will be surveyed again to determine if this initiative was successful.   

Objective
Project Delivery Satisfaction
Infrastructure and Support Services will provide satisfactory project delivery

KPI
Evaluate Satisfaction Of Client With Project Delivery
Survey clients with whom ISS provided Project based services in a satisfactory level and target a 95% or better satisfaction rating.


Result
Satisfaction With Existing Project Delivery
Based upon feedback from several client sources, it was determined that our timeliness in completing project deliverables is an area of opportunity.

Action
Satisfaction With Project Delivery
We are currently working on a new strategy which will enhance the execution phase of our project lifecycle.  It is believed that this strategy will allow us to have better insight to the action item list and identify the accountable parties for better project control.  

Goal
Provide Quality Service Delivery Experience In ISS
Infrastructure and Support Services will utilize the work order survey to measure the perception of services delivery by ISS.

Objective
Provide Service Delivery That Will Be Perceived To Have Kept The Client Informed
Infrastructure and Support Services will utilize the  work order surveys to evaluate the client's perceptions of how well Infrastructure and Support Services kept them informed of request status.

KPI
Client Perception Of The Level Of Communication Received
Work order survey will be delivered to the client upon completion of the request.  ISS will strive to receive a 95% or better satisfaction  rating on Communication received with service requests.

Result
Client Satisfaction Survey Results - Communication
The Department of ISS received a rating of 95% from the 287 responses received regarding the customer's perception of the level of communication received with service requests.  This achieved the target goal of 95%.

Objective
Provide Service Delivery That Is Timely And Efficient
Infrastructure and Support Services will utilize the work order survey to evaluate the client's perception of the duration to complete service requests.

KPI
Client Perception Of Time To Complete Service Request
A work order survey will be delivered to the client upon completion of the request.   ISS will target  to have a Client Perception to time to complete service request at 95% or better satisfaction rating.

Result
Client Satisfaction Survey Results - Timeliness
The Department of ISS received a rating of 94% from the 287 responses received regarding the customer's perception of time to complete the survey request.  Although this missed the goal of 95%, this number was up year-over-year from 88% to 94%.  

Action
Monitor And Improve Timeliness To Complete Service Requests
Our trouble ticketing system, Cherwell, currently has service level agreement breaches built in to the system.  We are in the process of developing a strategy to better manage these breaches so that if we do exceed the time for each incident, the manager will contact the customer and let them know the status of the service request and re-align expectations if needbe.  

Goal
Provide Quality Professional Development Opportunities For Staff
Provide time and funding for staff to attend professional development through training and/or conferences.


Objective
Provide Professional Development Opportunities To Infrastructure And Support Services Staff
Infrastructure and Support Services will allocate funding and time for staff to participate in professional development activities, which will enhance staff value to students, faculty, staff and alumni.

KPI
Provide Professional Development
100% of ISS staff will satisfy the SHSU Human Resources Staff Professional  Development requirement, which includes 8 hours for staff and 12 hours for managers.  


Result
Provide Professional Development
The Department of ISS achieved a 67.74% completion toward the goal of 100% of all staff members attending 8 hours of training and managers attending 12 hours of training.  

KPI
Provide Opportunity For High Quality Professional Development That Enhances Value
ISS will provide high quality professional development that will enhance staff value to students, faculty, staff, and alumni.    90% of all Professional Development that is attended will target operational improvement related to ISS functions.


Result
Results Of Professional Development That Enhanced Value
All staff members are required to attend some level of training throughout the year.  Managers verify that every training opportunity attended provides value to the employee which in turn provides value to the customer.  Although, not all employees met the minimum number of training hours, every employee did attend professional development training.  Due to the improvement in almost every metric for service delivery and availability, it is evident that the training opportunities enhanced value to the employee and the campus community, thus exceeding the goal of 90% of training targeting operational improvement related to ISS functions.  

Action
Provide Professional Development
Although there are many training opportunities available, both within our University system, and through third-party offerings, our staff and managers did not meet the minimum requirement of 8 hours for staff members and 12 hours for managers.  Therefore, for FY16, this objective will become a requirment in every ISS employees performance appraisal.  Manager's will bear the responsibility for executing this initiative.  

Goal
Analyze Opportunities To Increase Campus Efficiency
Infrastructure and Support Services will continuously analyze processes to increase campus efficiency in one or more of the following areas:  costs, operations, and communications.

Objective
Evaluate Processes To Increase Campus Efficiency
ISS will evaluate at least one process within the ISS area to increase campus efficiency.

KPI
Evaluation Of Server Monitoring
ISS will work to implement tools to monitor the data center activity to be able to proactively respond to alerts that could cause interruption of services to campus.   The team will capture the current process and evaluate how to optimize processes for operations and communications.

Result
Evaluation Of Server Monitoring
The Systems team continuously adds new systems to the SCOM monitoring system and fine tunes thresholds for alerting, and even configures services to auto-restart instantly upon failure.  Much headway was made on the linux testing, and a Microsoft engineer will be onsite the week of 9/14/2015 to evaluate our configuration and assist in deploying to more Linux servers and other non-Windows Operating Systems.


KPI
Evaluation Of New Software Implementation Process
ISS and CS have jointly made some changes to the software deployment process.  We jointly drafted and implemented a workflow within our Cherwell system so that teams would be assigned tasks when work needs to be completed.   This process in the past has taken up to 180 days to complete all tasks.  With these improvements we have reduced the time to deploy software to approximately 90 days,  depending on the size and difficulty of the packaging needed for the software.  Workflow between internal and external areas has improved and the fall 2014 semester denotes the first time that all software requested for fall 2014 was deployed before the semester started.

On the external side, communication with clients regarding software request deadlines has been improved as well.  Direct communication with the deans and department chairs prior to deadlines has been sent regularly over the last year.  Department meetings have been established to talk about the software needs of each academic department.


Result
Evaluation Of New Software Implementation Process
ISS and CS have jointly made some changes to the software deployment process again to both PC and Mac environments.  We jointly edited and implemented a workflow within our Cherwell system so that teams would be assigned tasks when work needs to be completed.   This process in the past has taken up to 180 days to complete all tasks.  With these improvements we have reduced the time to deploy software to approximately 60 days,  depending on the size and difficulty of the packaging needed for the software.  Workflow between internal and external areas has improved even more with these latest edits.

On the external side, communication with clients regarding software request deadlines has been improved as well.  Direct communication with the deans and department chairs prior to deadlines has been sent regularly over the last year.  Department meetings have been established to talk about the software needs of each academic department. We have also started running big software packages thru the Project management lifecycle so that nothing gets missed.



Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement As evidenced by our year-over-year improvements in almost every service delivery and service availability metric, our previous year's plan was executed effectively.  Each element from the previous year was evaluated and implemented per the plan.  FY15 proved to be a very effective year of continual improvement for the Department of ISS.

Plan for continuous improvement Project Planning and Execution - Although the Department of ISS has done an admirable job at managing the high number of projects it is responsible for, our timeliness and execution is an area of opportunity for the department.  We will continue to target a 95% client satisfaction rating with our project clients.  

Professional Development - The Department of ISS has a substatial opportunity to improve its ability to verify that each staff member and manager attend an appropriate number of training sessions which will enhance the employee's ability to better serve the customer.  The department has a sizeable budget for professional development and this is of paramount importance that every staff member and manager focus on professional development.  We will continue to target 100% of completion for the goal of 8 hours for staff and 12 hours for managers.  It is the department's desire to exceed this number for each group.  

Service Request Timeliness - Although we achieved substantial year-over-year improvement of this metric (from 88% to 94%), we did not achieve this target.  Through better communication and better customer expectation setting, we will continue to target 95% customer satisfaction for service ticket timeliness.