IT Services currently have approximately 80 projects underway and in the New Year the Projects and Demand SharePoint site will be made accessible to the whole service. This site will include the project tracker for BSC projects and other useful project information. Additionally, we will provide regular updates on new and completed projects through this IT News Blog.
Some of our new projects are:
Mobile Device Management – GOOD
The Mobile Device Management project will replace GOOD, which is due to expire in December 2016. It will provide staff members with simple and secure access to University email, calendars, task lists and contacts residing within the University email systems on a range of smart phones and tablets (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile). It is due to be delivered by March 2017.
HR Service Now
HR Service Now is part of a larger transformational piece of work within HR and is urgently required as the current system cannot manage the high volume of incoming calls. This project will enhance operational effectiveness, customer experience and performance reporting and will impact all members of staff who have queries for HR and applicants within the application process. This project will be delivered early next year but the exact dates are yet to be confirmed.
Module Evaluation
This project will review the way forward for our current module evaluation system. It has been initiated due to the performance, usability and reporting issues that the current on premise Evasys system has experienced over the last 4 years. This project will run alongside a wider review of the purpose and benefits of module evaluation starting with an options appraisal and procurement project to evaluate the best product to meet our needs. The solution chosen must enable seamless integration with Canvas, meet the requirements of TEF, and support the student voice via continuous two-way engagement.
UoB Welcome App
This is a project to build on the University’s Welcome Timetable website which was developed to in 2011 which allows students to view a list of events they could attend during the Welcome period. Over time this facility has become used more than expected, difficult to manage on the scale it has evolved to, not as functional on a mobile, and has some performance issues. This project will look at creating a web app and mobile app to replace the current functionality and to explore the features which add the most value to the student experience based on feedback from students via market research and from the Customer Experience work ongoing in IT Services. The initial options appraisal will produce a clearer set of requirements to be delivered in a UoB welcome mobile app aiming for implementation in June.
EPOS
This project is for the procurement and implementation of a new EPOS solution for Catering and Hospitality operations across campus. This will bring significant benefits to the delivery of Catering Operations at the University and enable significant development of catering services available to Staff, Students and Customers. This will entail the successful implementation of this system at all outlets including campus-wide catering, conference park/hotel, remote campuses, student accommodation areas, and other departments such as Barber Institute, Lapworth Museum as well as the migration of all relevant data and functionality. This is required as the current software is unreliable, out of date, and will not meet the requirements of the new hotel. The procurement phase of this project is now starting and aiming for implementation in August 2017.
Easy Brochure Builder
Easy brochure builder is a hosted commercial service that produces personalised/ scoped prospectuses/ brochures for prospective PG students and which will collect personal data from the prospective students. This is a project that has already been started by the business, and IT Services is now becoming involved to lead on release management and the service implementation process during February.
Recently Closed Projects
Expanded development of personalised web page ‘YourPage’
This project has been successfully delivered as planned for External Relations who are happy with the work and see it as a success. This was developed in agile way and therefore the benefits from first releases are already visible. This added a ‘likely to interview’ category so Medicine can be included in the Offer calculator, added International Baccalaureate Qualifications and BTEC Qualifications to the Offer Calculator, and means that users can see related courses they may be suitable for.