Office of Information Services and Technology

Enterprise Services Team Update

One College Project

Over the past year, HACC leaders have been focused on planning for the One College organizational structure with particular attention to job descriptions, filling positions, and helping employees adapt to the new structure. Behind the scenes, a large-scale project is underway to implement the new structure in the Banner Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The project is broken into several sub-projects.

• Creation of a dedicated Banner TEST instance to allow this project to progress without impacting ongoing support of Banner.
• Redesign the Finance Chart of Accounts to reflect the new organizational structure. The new Chart of Accounts was loaded to the Banner Production database in late April 2020. As the organizational structure is fine-tuned, the new Chart of Accounts will be updated to reflect any changes.
• Redesign Accounts Receivable Detail Codes and Fee Assessment to ensure tuition and fees are assessed and attributed to the correct academic school rather than campus.
• Redesign the College Codes and Course Catalog to reflect the new academic school structure.
• Redesign custom reports, forms, processes, and system integrations to reflect the new structure. Analysis of custom objects related to the scope of the project was completed resulting in 271 unused custom objects being decommissioned leaving 132 remaining customizations to be updated.
• Redesign Finance Approval Queues to reflect the new approval hierarchy.
• Redesign Human Resources Position Numbers to align to the new structure and new Chart of Accounts.
• Create new reports, forms, processes, and integrations to support the new One College model.

Employees from the Enterprise Services department have been working closely with employees from the Offices of Academic Affairs, Finance, Human Resources and Student Affairs. With the support of Ellucian consultants and a project manager, the project team is diligently working to implement the changes. While the personnel reorganization becomes effective July 1, 2020, the resulting changes will be fully implemented in Banner and related systems effective July 1, 2021 for Fiscal Year 2022. Project work will continue post-Go Live to address enhancements, modifications, and new reporting needs once the new structure is fully in place. The project is expected to be completed by December 2021.

The project team has done an amazing job of working collaboratively on this project. A project of this size and scale is not an easy feat and it has been made significantly more complex by our remote work environment and ongoing personnel and structural changes. This project would not be possible without the generous support of the HACC Foundation. Additionally, Strategic Planning Funds were obtained for a subscription to Banner On Demand training to support the project team in leveraging baseline functionality. Any questions about this project may be addressed to Cindy Gavazzi, Director, Enterprise Services.

The IR team supports the collection, analysis, interpretation, communication, and reporting of the College's institutional and operational data

The Institutional Reporting (IR) team is part of the Enterprise Services department in the Office of Information Technology and Learning Experience. The IR team supports the collection, analysis, interpretation, communication, and reporting of the College's institutional and operational data. This includes ensuring internal stakeholders have access to high quality data for data informed operational and strategic decision making and external reports are submitted accurately and on schedule.

Kim Kelsey, assistant director, leads a team of two data analysts who support surveys, research, and reporting. Additionally, the team is leading several large-scale projects including enhancing the data warehouse, developing self-service dashboards, establishing data governance, and implementing SmartEvals, the new student course evaluation system.

A significant change as part of the One College reorganization is the alignment of operational reporting to the IR team. Previously, operational reporting via Argos was supported by the Enterprise Applications team and institutional reporting was supported by Institutional Research using Tableau and other tools. The new structure builds in a workflow between IR and Enterprise Analysis to ensure quality checkpoints throughout the process. Other changes will include streamlining the tools used for data reporting, enhancing technical skills to work across systems, and an increased focus on using data analytics to support the College’s leaders and decision makers.

Employees seeking data may first explore the Tableau dashboards or Argos reports to which they have access to determine if the data is readily available. Requests for new surveys, research, data extracts or reports, may submit a Request for Research. Watch for updates on myHACC as processes are streamlined for submitting requests.

Any questions about the Institutional Reporting department may be addressed to Kim Kelsey, Assistant Director, Institutional Reporting.

Information Technology (IT) Team Update

New Team Dedicated to Managing and Supporting Technology

The IT team is proud to announce the creation of a new team within our division. The Client Services team, led by Assistant Director, Naeem Yazdani, and his team of highly qualified IT professionals, is dedicated to managing and supporting technology at HACC using a host of efficient and effective technology services.

Client Services refers to the technology that facilitates the support of the technical services used by HACC employees. These services are vast and range from operating system updates and revisions, system patches and upkeep, application maintenance, deployment of specific application packages, as well as specialized tools utilized by desktops, laptops, and other devices. The client services team is also responsible for establishing and managing group policies that intelligently provide centralized management and configuration services for operating systems, applications, and users' settings for our Active Directory system of users. Client services also provides change management support and system software imaging in support of the campus environment as well.

Client Services works inclusively with our User Support Services team to ensure faculty and staff receive a comprehensive and blended approach toward information technology support. These two entities work together to provide technical phone support, desktop maintenance and support for personal computers (PC), basic operating system troubleshooting, minor network connectivity issues as well as basic application support. It is extremely important for the college to maintain excellent technical support services in order to succeed in meeting our business goals and objectives.

Learning Experience Team Update

HACC’s Learning Commons Supports Remote and Online Students

As part of HACC’s One College reorganization, the Learning Commons brings together the areas of Library Public Services (LPS), Testing, Tutoring, and User Support to serve students across all HACC Campuses and Virtual Learning through providing support for their academic endeavors. With the ongoing disruption to education caused by the global pandemic, the Learning Commons continues to emphasize its online presence and services to ensure that students taking both Virtual and Remote classes have access to the support they need to be successful in their coursework.

Elisa Cohen, Assistant Director of Testing, leads the Testing team in collaborative efforts with Linda Mininger, Christine Nowik, and Matthew Pragel to facilitate remote placement testing within HACC’s multiple measures initiative. Testing specialists continue to work on best practices to facilitate remote proctoring for high-stakes examinations.

Our Tutoring team, led by Assistant Director Cathy Rosenkrans, have successfully transitioned our on-campus tutoring program to remote delivery using Zoom, and made them available for both Remote and Virtual students. Current offerings cover seven different areas (including Biology, Math, and Writing, among others), and a pilot collaboration session designed to prepare Nursing students for the critical TEAS test. Tutoring collaborates with Virtual Learning to augment these offerings with SmartThinking, providing 24/7 access to tutoring support for HACC students.

The User Support staff, led by Assistant Director Josy Hess, continue to offer excellent technology assistance for students and employees, both directly through our HACC technicians and in conjunction with our 24/7 HelpDesk provider. Additionally, these technicians routinely participate in the distribution of technology available to students through the Emergency Technology and Internet Access Loan program, and are piloting “drop in” Zoom support sessions to improve remote access to technology assistance even further.

The Assistant Director of Library Public Services (LPS), Louise Hyder-Darlington, heads up a dedicated team that is evaluating various processes and applications that can meet the various needs of our Learning Commons locations, both online and on campus when we return. LPS staff also lead HACC’s Emergency Technology and Internet Access Loan program, creating and organizing intake requests, distribution timelines, records, and returns. This program, funded with support from the HACC Foundation, allows students to request items like computers, webcams, and pre-paid internet hotspots to ensure that they have access to the tools they need to participate effectively in remote learning.

The Learning Commons team continues to work on other ongoing projects as well, such as creating an online location to bring our services together to improve visibility and access, and developing and deploying technology training opportunities for students to assist them with using some of the core technologies that support teaching and learning at HACC. The team will be reaching out for other faculty, staff, and students to collaborate with them on some of these projects in the future, so if you are interested in participating, watch your email for opportunities!