Tag Archives: HEAT

HEAT – gathering statisitics that can enlighten us

I have begun an attempt to query HEAT for any useful statistics that could aid us in our mission.  Since HEAT has a unique way of structuring its data in its semi-relational model it has been challenging to pull helpful information.  One primary reason for this is that the important information we would want to know about (e.g. sites, problem/request details, etc…) are in free-text fields which cannot be queried easily.  Another obstacle is that there seem to be a variety of methods currently (historically) used to categorize Web Site specific events.  I spent a few hours this week getting to know the database structure and I should be able to provide some statistics (qualified) by early next week.  If anyone has suggestions on the type of information/stats we could pull please send them my way.  For now I will look for the obvious stats and we can drill into HEAT further as we discover more about HEAT’s dB and where the data is stored.

 

Update from Database Applications & Systems

Submitted by Chris Norris

Here are some of the projects and tasks that DAS staff members have been working on during the past month…

Mike Schuster
– Created a spec for Bookstore Upload / Course Listing Bookstore Links
– Researched problem Off Campus Study was having pushing Admissions applications
– Corrected problems with Bread Loaf, Language School, and Off Campus Study decisions processing reports, reports were broken due to System 9 upgrade
– Created SSB web package to allow residential systems coordinator to delete room draw preferences, reorder preferences, and activate/inactivate room draw applications
– Processed Fall 2008 course response form data
– Updated Feb’s MNET email addresses to “preferred”
– Fixed problem with LS & BLSE Financial Aid online web applications where bad data entry selection of dates in dropdown boxes would cause applications to get an Oracle error
– Modified custom p_assign_boxes database procedure to allow mail boxes to be assigned to students during winter term
– Worked with Liz Whitaker-Freitas and Marcy Smith to develop documents needed by Monterey staff when developing/requesting new reports

Liz Whitaker-Freitas
– Supporting Hyperion BI+ for functional & technical users
– Troubleshooting Admissions Decisions reports
– Coordinating roles to groups migration by Velaris

Ian McBride
– Added service to check GO addresses nightly
– Worked with Adam to develop web service for MiddTube
– Wrote WordPress plugin for MiddTube
– Developed Middlebury theme for WordPress
– Added a service to the Directory to automatically redirect to a user’s homepage
– Added a video icon to CMS home page news items with videos
– Developed home page for the New England Review site in WordPress
– Began investigation into Single Sign On applications
– Continued work with the Platform and Design/IA groups for the Web Makeover
– Finally launched News Portal at http://go.middlebury.edu/news!

Travis Stafford
– Created 7 new alumni event forms
– Tested WordPress CFORMS upgrade
– Upgraded all the WordPress blogs and cforms to the new version of CFORMS (13 blogs / +/- 50 forms)
– Completed porting over all the cat standard ecommunicate forms to CFORMS
– Minor changes the New England Review ecommerce form
– Troubleshot\Fixed issues with the CCAL Fundraising ecommerce form
– Added new functionality to the BLM application to show Counts by indicator flag for Banner-ListManager admins
– Added self service component to the BLM project for subscribing\unsubscribing to Newsletters and List Manager lists
– CFORMs support/training for various departments
– General support and HEAT tickets

Rob Pekor
– Rolled late graduates to Alumni
– Started developing and creating tables to hold Harris Online Directory data
– Started creating scripts to load initial data for Harris Online Directory
– Started very preliminary development of process to send updates to Harris
– Corrected problem with Phonathon SSB data selection page, page would error on multiple individual years selected, problem has been corrected and is now in production
– Created new function to retrieve a list of regions for a particular person
– Corrected problem in AIA relating to updating ask amounts, if an ask amount never existed before for a person, the SSB page would not update the value, problem has been corrected and is now in production
– Created list of people that currently have access to AIA
– Corrected issue with view for the Banner List Manager relating to the indicator for students

Chris Norris
Staffing
– Participated in telephone interview for open DBA position
Projects
– Reviewed Phoenix BIA reports and summary
– Worked on spec for remote DR web presence
– Participated in CA fundraising strategy meeting
– Refined Banner-ListManager project spec with DAS staff
– Completed work with CA and Communications on Organic Garden giving form
– Met with DOC and PS staff regarding new ER web presence
– Met with technical/functional staff regarding eCommerce options for “pay-for-print”
– Met with Communications staff to plan for upcoming Newsletter projects
– Met with Career Services staff to plan for upcoming Newsletter projects
– Participated in various Web Makeover team meetings
– Met with HR staff regarding Web Makeover requirements
– Met with PHC staff regarding Web Makeover requirements
– Met with PS staff regarding Web Makeover requirements
Systems Administration
– Ongoing monitoring and problem resolution of online services
– Resolved service outages for Banner and Hyperion
– Resolved server config issue for GoogleEarth version of campusmap
– Updated TouchNet server config to support additional web servers
– Upgraded SubmissionManager web application for BLWC
– Configured new GO rewrite rules
– Ongoing tuning of GSA to improve search results
– Renewals of College-owned domain names
– Met with SNS staff regarding HSF config options
Help & Support
– Provided support to CFA staff for artsmail Newsletter IA
– Provided support to HR staff for middleader Newsletter buttons
– Reviewed President’s Holiday Card for pre-sending issues for Communications
– Updated Middlebury’s United Way web presence (campaign stats)
– Updated AbroadView.org web presence (footer)
– Provided various support for CMS editing, HEAT tix, and ad-hoc help calls
Vendor Related Activities
– Participated in Sun-Guard/SCT Banner DBA weekly status calls
– Participated in Velaris Hyperion SysAdmin weekly status calls
– Continued contract re-negotiation with Hyperion SysAdmin vendor (Velaris)
– Worked with DavisProjectsforPeace.org external web vendor to grant direct database access
– eCommerce call with alumni online community vendor (Harris) to define IMA requirements
– Coordinated redirect request from MIIS staff with www.MIIS.edu web vendor (NeptuneWeb)

Update from Database Applications & Systems

Submitted by Chris Norris

Here are some of the projects and tasks that DAS staff members have been working on during the past month…

Mike Schuster
– Ran the SYPAEMH process in production to apply Emergency holds for 394 students
– Modified off campus study, field of study database triggers and package to correctly build the first away term for students with multiple curriculum
– Modified SYPCSCC process for applying class codes to prevent it from including winter credits when calculating current credits and also to only copy specific attributes to future terms
– Worked with Jai Shankar to modify the TSRCBIL FormFusion template to print ‘Do Not Remit’ in a few places on student bills when their total is 0 or a negative amount
– Rewrote the LS Apps by Prior College report
– Diagnosed and fixed a problem where custom database procedures were sending email with a timestamp off by 5 hours.
– Modifications to LS & BLSE Financial Aid online web applications
– Expanded the answer box for the college currently attending question on the LS and BLSE Financial Aid applications
– Added error handling in save supplement procedure to check for nonnumeric characters entered as answers to questions looking for numeric answers
– Added text to top of ls_application and blse_application to tell applicant not to use the enter button.  Changed text for “Save” buttons to “Submit” buttons
– Added text to explanations/special circumstances instructions: “Please limit to 300 characters.”
– Added error handling in save_application procedure to alert user if they didn’t enter a ‘.’ or ‘@’ in their email address
– Created a spec for the MIIS web application.
– Modified Faculty Advisee list SSB form to allow users to email all advisees or selected advisees
– Online Room Draw 2009 modifications
– Several modifications to room draw space maintenance SSB form for residential systems coordinator
– Several modifications to room draw SSB forms for student submitted applications
– Planning conversations with Jeff Rehbach, MBS Books, and Bob Jansen about creating a process to upload course information to the Online Bookstore vendor and modifying the course listing pages to include links to the bookstore software

Rob Pekor
– Put final touches on the Phone-a-thon data interface for College Advancement
– Added keyword descriptor to output filename of the segment data produced
– Enhanced and modified Oracle procedures behind a Hyperion Mailing  report
– Corrected issues with the Volunteer web application (Agents-in-Action) for Annual Giving, problems centered around the field length of the home phone number
– Assisted in fixing problem with online donor roll.
– Created multiple data files for various populations (segments) specified by Annual Giving.
– Analyzing and starting to build specifications for the data feed for the Harris online community project
– Put final touches on the Banner/List-Manager (Broadcast Email tool) integration model with Travis
– This required new function to delineate language school and Bread Load of staff, faculty and students
– Set up volunteer data/assignments for Annual Giving
– Enhanced the Agents-In-Action application to allow input of new ask amounts and assignments
– Created new Oracle package/procedures to allow sending files via FTP from database procedures

Travis Stafford
– Banner/List-Manager Integration project
– Defined types and sub-types
– Defined admin model
– Web Forms
– Supported existing Web Forms
– Ongoing migration of new requests to WPcformsII for BLSE, ACE, RCFIA, HR
– Resolved numerous HEAT tickets and provided support for end-users of online services

Liz Whitaker-Freitas
– Hyperion System 9 Upgrade/Migration
– Resolved several post-migration issues
– Responded to unplanned services outages
– Worked with LIS Staff to develop lab images for new HS9 plugin
– Assisted functional/technical leads with publishing, scheduling and provisioning in new environment
– Researched and resolved connectivity issues with existing queries
– Resolved Oracle Client install issues
– Researched causes of failed jobs
– Tested and deployed Patch/SP
– Cleaned up some custom Roles/Groups
– Worked with Velaris on plan for log archiving
– Resolved report issues (Admissions Data Processing Reports, College Advancement Mailing Reports)
– Other Hyperion
– Trained Tech Lead on how to use derived queries and dashboards
– Trained LS on how to publish and maintain ad-hoc reports
– Processed Hyperion security requests
– Resolved Hyperion HEAT tickets
– Prepared list of services currently being performed by Velaris or Midd staff with recommendations for ongoing support
– Ongoing work for the Lockdown project to change reports using saturn or saturn_midd embedded credentials
– FileMakerPro
– Changed views for Athletics FMP application, troubleshooting issues, change nightly schedules to import view data

Ian McBride (was on CTO for a significant portion of this time)
– Participated in the Web Makeover team meetings and work on the Web Redo project
– Installed a test instance of Drupal CMS for this project
– Finalized the soon-to-be-live new News site for Communications
– Moved all non-CMS web applications off the primary CMS server
– Ongoing work to build out site templates for the New England Review in WordPress
– Developed a web service for system monitoring and backup contacts
– Continued work on a web service API for MiddTube

Chris Norris
– Monitoring and Troubleshooting for Online Services
– Identified and resolved Hyperion issues related to SP1 update
– Researched issue related to Banner INB and IE crashes
– Resolved TouchNet Payment Gateway outages and related issues
– Identified and resolved issues related to recent www –> web forms/services migration
– Monitored Online Course Registration (10 days) and resolved related web issues
– Training and Support for End-Users of Online Services
– Conducted a ListManager-Basics workshop for College Advancement staff
– Conducted a ListManager-Advanced workshop for heavy-use broadcast emailers
– Provided ongoing support for CMS editing, resolved HEAT tickets, answered support calls
– Project Specs / Work Definitions
– Refined Banner List Manager Integration project spec with Travis and Rob
– Helped initiate development of Harris Online Community project spec for Communications
– Completed DAS workgroup SWOT analysis for LIS restructuring efforts
– Revised DAS workgroup goals and objectives for upcoming year
– Ongoing Maintenance & Support
– Processed new GO requests
– Updated Middlebury’s United Way web presence
– Coordinated changes to Monterey’s Online Giving Form
– Reviewed Project Phoenix BIA reports, ongoing planning and specification for remote DR web presence
– Tuned GSA Search to improve keyword matching in search results
– New Projects & Tasks
– Configured SubmissionManager web application for Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference
– Participated in the Web Makeover team meetings and worked on related assigned tasks
– Worked with Advancement and Communications on microphilanthropy test for Organic Garden
– Worked with LIS Budget Administrator to help identify areas for cost reductions
– Worked with LIS Licensing to clarify Hyperion software licensing details
– Worked with LIS Policy Advisor to clarify PCI-compliance status
– Worked with Dean of the College and Directory of Public Safety on new Emergency web site specification
– Vendor Related Activities
– Participated in Sun-Guard/SCT Banner DBA weekly status calls
– Participated in Velaris Hyperion SysAdmin weekly status calls
– Initiated contract re-negotiation with Hyperion SysAdmin vendor (Velaris)
– Transitioned DavisUWCScholars.org and DavisProjectsforPeace.org site management duties to external vendor