17 Aug 11 ITTS News Meeting – August 16, 2011

1. CMS Update (Louise)
   PLA has gone through the conversion process – Louise showed their new site (it’s not live at this point)
   uses the new left-hand navigation worked out by the divisions
   thank you to Steven Hoffman for all of his work getting their pages doneworking on getting Shibboleth running
   every division, round table, office, etc. is its own microsite within our Drupal installation (85+ sites right now), so Louise is setting up iMIS groups to control permissions for each onehope to get LLAMA, LITA, and the rest of the test sites converted soon for evaluation
   also hoping the PLA fixes will make the next test sites go fasterLouise is working on the Drupal “roles”  now, which will control the different sets of permissions that will be available across the microsites
   need to define the default settings for these (basic, intermediate, advanced)
   will start asking for feedback on a starter set later this weekquestion: will the current press release interface be part of the new site?
   answer: we’re implementing the existing workflow on the new site as part of the “press center”; making and publishing press releases will go back to being a website process, which American Libraries will then pull in
   press releases will publish to AL and your own site area
   PIO will control the press center
2. Shibboleth (Sherri)
   the Shibboleth server is installed and is communicating with the ActiveMatter server but it isn’t sending data yet
   we’re working to fix this last piece so that we can provide single sign-on across our sites, including the ecommerce server
   initial implementation will be for ecommerce and the website; later we’ll add ALA Connect
   question: for those who do customer service, how do we see what a non-member sees now?
   answer: you can keep two browsers open; just don’t log in to the website in one of them in order to see the public (anonymous) view
3. ALA Connect (Jenny)
   In addition to the “follow a group” and “file repository” features added a couple of months ago, we’ve added some other enhancements to the site.
   • A reminder that Connect Chat is back up, and it appears to be running smoothly. The interface barely changed, so your groups should be able to use it the same way they did before it was temporarily disabled.
   • We’ve added a tab on group rosters that shows “Followers.” This list shows you any non-group members who are “following” your group in order to receive email notifications whenever new public content is posted. For an example, see http://connect.ala.org/og/users/63987/followers. “Groups I’m following” now also appears on your profile and in your navigation dropdown menus for easy access.
   • There are new, expanded statistics for the Conference Scheduler at http://connect.ala.org/report/cs that let you view and download the numbers for a specific unit’s sessions. To get to this page, click on the “Connect statistics” link in the left-hand column on any page, go to the “CS” tab, and click on the “View session schedule adds/attendees by sponsor” link. Note that “attendee” statistics are self-reported, so they won’t be accurate until attendees begin using that feature regularly. Please also remember that only ALA staff accounts can see Connect statistics, although you can download unit reports to share with others.
   • Connect users can now set a personal URL for their profile. For example, you can find me at http://connect.ala.org/user/jenny . You can set your own personal URL by editing your profile and looking for the “My URL box.” We’ll formally announce this publicly next week, so now is a good time to go grab your name if you have a common one.
   • We added two enhancements to polls.
   • When creating a poll, you can check a box to make voting anonymous so that you get a total but no names in the results. Note that no one can see the results if you use this setting, including group admins or the poll’s creator.
   • You can check a box to have an email reminder to vote sent to all group members who haven’t voted 24 hours before the poll closes.
   • Staff liaisons and member chairs can no longer use the “add members” tab on Connect rosters that synchronize with iMIS to add a member to the roster since this should be done in iMIS only. However, removing that option means you won’t be able to add non-ALA members to a working group’s roster. If you need to add a non-member to a Connect roster that synchronizes with iMIS, please submit a Track-It request with the person’s Connect username and ITTS will add them in Connect.Note that you can still handle adding and removing users from community rosters yourself (groups that don’t synchronize with iMIS) if you’re an admin for the community.
   • When editing the properties for a group that synchronizes with iMIS, you’ll no longer be able to change the group’s status to something other than “closed.” You can’t have an “open” or “moderated” roster that synchronizes with iMIS — it has to be one or the other so that you don’t have to maintain the roster in two places. Note that you can still change the status of a community (groups that don’t synchronize with iMIS) yourself if you’re an admin for the community.
   • The “ALA Connect at Two Years” report, along with a summary of statistics from the 2011 Annual Conference Scheduler, are available on the ITTS News blog.
   • Watch for announcements of Connect refresher Q&A sessions for staff to be held in the Chicago Training Room starting in September. As always, locations outside of Chicago can request a special online Q&A session by contacting Jenny directly.