05 Jun 15 ITTS News Meeting – May 20, 2015
- Responsive Design for ala.org (Louise)
The most recent version of the prototype for the new ala.org responsive design is available online.This project is for a responsive theme redesign that will be applied to all ala.org microsites, thus affecting all division and round table sites. While divisions will continue to have their own branding and color schemes, they too will be converted to the responsive, accessible theme as part of this project, and will also have various homepage layout options. The responsive theme resizes to the device in use, and will ensure that our pages are not downgraded in search results for being mobile-unfriendly.
The prototype design work was developed by the Homepage/Responsive Theme Redesign Task Force of the Web Management Group; the latter has reviewed the Midwinter usability tests and provided feedback that was incorporated into this most recent version. The prototype was implemented by Sean Bires of ITTS using Axure, and was designed using the Google Material Design guidelines. The graphic details of the prototype are not necessarily the finals; nor are the menu item dropdowns complete. This is a testing formative prototype subject to change, not a final version. If you share the links to the prototype with others, please ensure that they are aware of these caveats.
We intend to further test the most recent version of the prototype at Annual. Visit it on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device. It should resize to your device’s screen. You can also resize it to review the mobile look on your desktop by making your browser window narrow. Due to limitations of the prototyping software, the slide carousel does not respond to gestural swiping. Use the arrows, instead. Click (or tap) on menus and utility icons to see your options.
The content pane options on the homepage are mostly intended to use feeds to update, although the I am ALA member success story feature may be manually updated.
Here’s a page level mockup without working menus, as they are time consuming to create.
One thing we’re looking at is the Masonry module, which would allow drag and drop options for site owners to use when positioning blocks and pods of content. At this time, we’re not sure yet how what’s in the “Featured Content” block will be decided. We’re also in the process of doing a website inventory to determine what will go in the “Related Sites” menu.
Once the design is approved, we’ll issue an RFP to implement it. The target date for implementation is before the end of the current fiscal year (August 31st) with a rolling implementation down to division and microsites.
Please review and share any questions or concerns with me directly (lgruenberg@ala.org) by the end of next week and copy the web-management-group@lists.ala.org.
Homepage/Responsive Redesign Task Force: Jan Carmichael, Rebecca Gerber, Louise Gruenberg, Jen Habley, Dan Kaplan
Web Management Group: Adam Eisgrau, Louise Gruenberg, Steven Hofmann, Ron Jankowski, Mary Mackay, Mari Merola, Sherri Vanyek
Question: Will the search engine remain the same?
Louise: Yes, we’ll still use Solr for search, but we’re going to work with a consultant to improve how it retrieves results. - Ecommerce Update (Sherri)
We signed a contract with a Drupal Commerce vendor in March, and now we’re currently in the discovery phase with our vendor and internal stakeholders. Work is currently being done on wireframes and then we’ll move to the design, with implementation beginning on June 5th. We hope to launch the new system for membership dues and donations the week of November 6th. Mary Ghikas is taking point on some of the discussions and is putting together a small group to work on the bigger decisions.
- ALA Connect RFP (Jenny)
Working with a group of staff and members from the Website Advisory Committee, the RFP for a new Connect platform was issued on May 4th with responses due by May 26th. This group will read through the responses to select vendors to do a demo. We hope to select a new platform by the end of June so that we can start work in mid-July. We have an ambitious target date to go live in September, but that’s dependent in part on units providing the information we need to move forward. For example, we’ll be asking each unit to decide which of its groups and how much of their content should be migrated into the new system.
Question: Will the conference scheduler be going away?
Jenny: Yes, starting with Midwinter 2016, Conference Services will take over the conference website, scheduling tool, and mobile apps using a different platform. These services are currently hosted in Connect’s Drupal installation, which will be going away before Midwinter, so they have to be migrated to other services. - Training (Sherri)
Informz How To
The first Informz remote classes were held this month, and will be offered monthly so remote offices as well as local staff who want refreshers can get in on the sessions via Adobe Connect.We are also working with Dan Kaplan and Mary Mackay to create Informz training videos for on-demand staff access on topics such as the Basics, Opt-out forms and links, and more. The plan includes working with groups to help update Opt-out options on template footers as needed. Details on these and other upcoming classes are on the support site.Digital Library Help
There is also a new Digital Library section on Support. Clicking on the link reveals submenu items for tips on how to Search and/or request and item from the Library, using our new WorldCat.Where is the KM?
Just a friendly reminder that we no longer have the KMS and most things can be found at ala.org/support under Staff Resources. Your staff login will be required to see Conference Registration stats, HR Policies, and more.New iMIS Videos
There is a new iMIS page on support with over 20 TASK BASED videos, most of which are under a minute. You can learn where to find data on records in the History and Detail tabs as well as refresh on the several ways of Finding a record, including options for creating an Ad Hoc Search. - General Q&A
Question: Where we are with the new grant cube in the accounting system?
Sherri: We met with grant managers, accounting, and consultants to come up with a specifications document. We signed a contract this week in the hope that life-to-date grant reporting will be available in early June.
02 Oct 14 Catching up on some ITTS projects
I’ve been out of the office for a couple of weeks, so I’m playing catch up on the projects I’m involved in, so I thought I’d share what I’ve learned about our progress. This is hardly a comprehensive list, but it’s great to be able to share positive progress.
Windows 7 Upgrade
It was a huge project, but we now have all staff workstations in the Chicago office upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7, including updated printer drivers and the annual cycling in of new computers for some staff. I wasn’t involved in this, except that my workstation got upgraded and I’m a million times more productive now, so yay team. Although I saw the hiccups behind-the-scenes, I was impressed with how smoothly the transition went thanks to the extensive planning and testing that other ITTS staff and consultants did.
iMIS 20 Upgrade
This is another project that I’m not directly working on, but it affects my projects because iMIS is the system that manages all of our member, committee, dues, CE, and registration data. This is a big number upgrade with some behind-the-scenes changes to the setup, not just a patch. The whole project has been complicated greatly by ALA’s extensive customizations of the iMIS software, as well as the fact that our ecommerce system is 10-years old.
The team working on this has hit roadblock after roadblock trying to get the new iMIS software and web services to work with our old ecommerce system, and they’ve smashed every one of them. If all goes well, we’ll implement this upgrade later this month. Watch for more information about this because there may be some downtime associated with it since we’re talking about the system that’s at the heart of the Association’s infrastructure.
Shibboleth for ALA Connect and the Conference Schedulers
The completion of the iMIS upgrade is great news for Connect and the Conference Schedulers because it means we can move those sites to Shibboleth. This means single sign-on between these sites and ala.org. You’ll finally be able to log in to any of these sites with your regular ala.org username and password and then be logged in to all of the other sites automatically (non-members, too). Huzzah! Our goal is for this to happen in early November before the 2015 Midwinter Scheduler opens.
ALA Connect Survey
This isn’t really a project update so much as a reminder to fill out the ALA Connect survey if you haven’t already done so. Besides the fact you could get an iPad Mini in return for your responses, your feedback will help us improve the site. We want to hear from everyone – members, non-members, frequent Connect users, infrequent Connect users, international folks, tall people, short people, basically everyone, which includes you.
Profile Management Project
The iMIS upgrade is the first domino in a series of projects that have been unable to move forward until it’s completed. The second domino is Shibboleth for Connect and the schedulers, and the third combines ala.org and Connect profiles into a single profile that can easily be managed from either site. Phase one combines all of the data into one profile and future phases will expand the amount and types of data we make visible to you in your profile, including expiration dates for member dues (finally!), lists of continuing education activities completed, past conference registrations, and more. Our goal is for you to implement phase one in November.
New Ecommerce System
And now we get to the biggest domino in the path, the ecommerce system that desperately needs to be replaced. With the iMIS upgrade almost done, we’re scheduling meetings with potential vendors for later this month. It will still be a months-long selection process while we involve all of the various stakeholders and go though contract negotiations, but if this project stays on track then we’re in good shape for a 2015 (calendar year) implementation.
So that’s a quick update on some of the things that happened while I was gone. I’m thinking I need to take more vacations. 😉
23 Dec 13 ITTS News Meeting – December 17, 2013
1. Financial System Problems (Sherri)
ITTS had to allocate more space for the financial system, at which point it started working again. We have reports of Prophix being slow and have an open ticket with them about it. [Ed.: This issue was resolved on December 19th and reports should be running much faster now.]
2. Solr (Louise)
Solr will launch this week [Ed.: It did go live on ala.org on December 19th). Louise did a demo to show what it looks like, including how the search results also display press releases and facets (ways to further narrow searches). “Suggestions” are still available as part of the results.
Due to the limited resources available in ITTS at this time, we can’t predict for sure when Solr will be rolled out to ALA Connect, making federated searches possible, but that’s part of the long range plan.
It’s very important to use style headings in your text for the facets and for weighting results. The setup process for each microsite is a manual one, so the rollout will occur in phases as we make the changes to each microsite so not everyone will see it at once. If users have any questions or comments, please send them to Louise so that we can tweak the settings for the best results.
3. iMIS Self-service Reports (Irene)
In order to empower staff, Irene has created several reports staff can run themselves on iMIS data (especially since ITTS is now down two people). You can find the reports in the Customers module under Generate Reports. These are the requests Irene gets the most often from staff (eg, all ALA membership statistics, membership statistics for my division, publication subscribers, members with a specific job title, etc.). When you export the data, you can put it directly into Excel. Irene and Pam are working on a training class for how to navigate the data.
4. Windows 7 Implementation (Sherri)
We need to finish this project by April because that’s when Microsoft stops supporting XP. We’re currently doing an inventory of all our applications to find out which ones work in Windows 7 and which ones will need upgrades. Note that ome old scanners, printers, and other hardware may not work with Windows 7. We’ll likely do the installation unit by unit in the evenings and on weekends, starting after Midwinter, but we need to finish all of the testing first.
5. iMIS 20 Upgrade (Sherri)
While reviewing ecommerce system proposals, it became clear that we need to upgrade to iMIS 20 first. The current plan is to do this upgrade by the end of February. Pam will offer training on the new version when it’s ready. The biggest difference is a structural change to the database, but many of the interface screens are similar or the same. We’ll be doing an automated rollout of the new software (using Zen).
6. Ecommerce Proposals (Sherri)
ITTS has been reviewing proposals and has narrowed them down to the top three. We plan to hold demos with the top vendors and internal stakeholder groups sometime around April. Noted that moving forward with implementing a new ecommerce system is dependent on the iMIS 20 upgrade being completed first.
7. Profile Editor Mockups (Louise)
Louise provided a progress update on the implementation of the CSI Profile Editor, a product that integrates with iMIS. The profile is the first step in account creation for new memberships and event registrants, and thus it is a crucial piece in the upcoming ecommerce implementation. The profile project objectives are to merge the data from the two existing profiles from ALA Connect and ala.org to make it possible for both members and non-members to view and update a single version of their profile from either location. The new profile is intended to make it easier for members to communicate their engagement with ALA as part of an online CV that shows ALA memberships, committee service, conference registrations, and ultimately continuing education and elearning. It also includes fields for members to tell us more about their education, work history, social media accounts and interests. The member profile is intentionally more elaborate than the non-member profile so it can be considered a member benefit, and the ability to showcase involvement in the profession will assist with member retention. Suggestions about how to incorporate profile update reminders into other messaging to members were provided by staff in attendance. (Thank you, Dan Kaplan and Ron Jankowski!)
8. ITTS Project Request Form (Sherri and Louise)
We have launched the ITTS Project Request Form as a place for staff to request the future allocation of ITTS resources. The form is at http://www.ala.org/support/res/projectrequest. (Day to day help requests should go into Track-It; this form is for grant funded or other types of projects that will require a significant investment of ITTS resources.) We review project requests at a weekly meeting and will return a response to you and to any others you specify on the form. You will need to log in with a staff ID at http://www.ala.org/support before you will be able to access the form. If you don’t have, or aren’t sure if you have a staff record in iMIS, put in a Track-It request and Pam Akins will get back to you.
9. New staff change form (Sherri and Louise)
Supervisory staff who are on-boarding or off-boarding personnel are reminded to use the Staff Change form at http://www.ala.org/support/staff-change to communicate with ITTS and other units that have relevant responsibilities. You will need to log in with a staff ID at http://www.ala.org/support before you will be able to access the form. Try to give us two weeks or as much notice as you possibly can. If you don’t have, or aren’t sure if you have, a staff record in iMIS, put in a Track-It request and Pam Akins will get back to you.
10. The next ITTS News meeting will be on March 11, 2014, at 2:00 pm.
04 Oct 13 ITTS News Meeting – October 1, 2013
1. TrackIt! Requests (Sherri)
Reminder – Please provide us with as much information as possible (assume we know nothing – where something lives, URLs, etc.)
Please provide us with a due date, planned well in advance, for email blasts
Reminder – we can’t guarantee a response time given our staff capacity right now, but we’re doing our best to respond to every ticket
Questions about attaching files to a Track-It request – this should work (some people noted they’ve used it successfully); Might have to use IE to attach a file? Will check.
Question about how to get member lists from iMIS more quickly – ITTS is working on a way to allow units to do this themselves; to learn to do this yourself, put in a Track-It request for the access so that ITTS can create the queries for you; training can be done in 15 minutes
Request for a report to track division memberships for a specific iMIS group code; ITTS will try to work on this
2. New ITTS Project Request Form (Louise)
This form will have to be filled out in order for ITTS to consider committing resources to your project
Use it when you’re planning projects, not for individual tasks (those go in Track-It)
The form is still under development, but the link is in the left-hand navigation under “ALA Staff Resources” on the Support site (http://ala.org/support) and requires a staff login to view it. Please don’t use the form until we send an all-staff announcement that it’s ready.
Did a walkthrough of the form
ITTS’ queue is currently around 38 projects, 20 of which are rated as “priority 1” so it’s very important to fill out all of the information in this form to get in the queue. This is in addition to all of the help requests in Track-It, so we won’t be able to help with your project at all if you don’t go through this process.
3. Demo of the New Staff Change Form (Louise)
This is the first item under “ALA Staff Resources” on the Support site (http://ala.org/support) in the left-hand navigation.
Note that it requires a staff login to access the form.
Use this form for all personnel changes – arrivals, departures, name changes, status changes, etc.
Please try to give two weeks notice, especially for Staff Support Services so that there’s enough time to get everything set up. This is very important for new hires.
Did a walkthrough of the form
We’ll try to add Outlook group lists to the form (eg, all-staff, unit managers, etc.)
4. Twitter Feeds on the ALA website (Sherri)
Twitter changed its API several months ago, which broke our implementation displaying tweets on ala.org
We’ve implemented the new Drupal module but it’s not a real-time feed, so we’re working on a way to schedule updates; until this is resolved, you might not want to add Twitter feeds back to your sites
We’re investigating options and will report back.
Question about ACRL’s implementation on its home page and how it’s working – we’ll investigate.
5. Postini Spam Filtering (Sherri)
Google owns Postini and they’re working on a new interface for spam filtering;
Changes will take effect sometime between now and December 31st
There will be a new “message center” and “quarantine summary” that uses Google Apps
No set date yet, so we’re waiting to hear from Google
All ALA email is routed through Postini first and then they go to OWA/Outlook
This will represent a routing change for us, so there may be an interruption when we do the switchover
All the Sympa lists hit Postini first, so they’ll be affected, too.
6. Informz Training (Pam)
We’re working on training classes to show how to build an Informz email and send it out based on iMIS queries
The first training session will be on October 15th
Advantage: emails sent through Informz using iMIS-based lists are always current
You can use it to send thousands of emails at once
We bought a large block of emails – when you log in, you can see how many emails are left on our account
Using Informz queries respects member communication preferences, which is an important issue
Once Irene creates a view for an Informz list, you never have to go back to her for that query – you can then run it yourself, so good for repeat queries
Submit a Track-It request for a new query
7. Drupal Changes to Slideshow Feature (Louise)
We’re trying to implement fewer microsites but provide more flexibility with slideshows so we’re removing the limitation of one slideshow per site
By the end of the year, we’ll transition to a new setup that will allow for multiple slideshows and tabs on one site; you’ll no longer need a new microsite just to have these options.
The new system will use new content types, so the previous ones will be deprecated.
Let Louise know if you want to volunteer to implement the new system first
8. Solr Search Engine Implementation (Louise, Sherri)
The Solr search software is installed and is almost ready to go
Allows for faceted searching (like Amazon’s seach results pages with options for filtering results in the left-hand column)
Still crucial that authors enter metadata or those pieces still won’t work
9. ALA Connect (Jenny)
- Email Notifications – We’re working on improving the readability of email notifications, based on feedback from the survey we did last April. Hope to launch new versions in the next few weeks.
- Demo of new Meeting Request feature – We’ll be releasing a new group-based feature that lets you post potential meeting times (similar to Doodle) and then lets you easily create a calendar event from the most-selected time. Watch for this to release in the next few weeks – will send an all-staff email about it when it goes live. Contact Jenny if you want to help beta test it.
10. Ecommerce Project Update (Sherri)
A revised RFP was sent out last month and we’re starting to receive responses back from vendors
Proposals are due by October 16th
We hope to have the new system in place by FY15
11. Next Meeting will be in early December – we’re moving to a quarterly schedule
12. Other
Question: Timeframe for Windows 7 implementation? Staff need to be able to test most current versions of browsers, but IE9 and IE10 won’t install on Windows XP.
Sherri: It’s one of the 20 “priority 1” items in the queue and will start soon because Windows XP support expires in April; we have to get a working image and test all of our software on it before we can begin rolling it out
Contact ITTS if you need to occasionally use a Windows 7 computer/laptop for testing purposes
We’re not planning to go to Windows 8 at this point
All of our computers and laptops are Windows 7-ready because we anticipated this migration.
18 Sep 12 ITTS News Meeting – September 18, 2012
1. Membership & Connect profile management system (Sherri)
ITTS is merging the ala.org and Connect profiles into one for future viewing and management
we’ve found a software package to handle the merged profiles and we hope to have the legal documents signed by the end of this week
2. Ecommerce proposals (Sherri)
we’ve received 22 proposals; Sherri and Louise are making a first-pass through them to narrow down the field
3. Adobe Connect demo (Louise)
All-staff emails were sent to note how to get your password
you were added as a user in Adobe Connect if you were on HR’s list as a staff member
this means you can easily be given access and added to meetings
enter your email address into the site in the “forgot your password” field to set a password
we have 15 rooms, but 12 of them are licenses bought by units for their own exclusive use
3 licenses are for anyone in ALA to set up, run registration, and hold meetings/webinars
there are 3 Outlook calendars managing these steps to book your events in Adobe Connect
you’re basically booking a license; ITTS monitors the calendars and moves you into the “meeting host” group when you need meeting host access
meetings are created according to user license so that has to be enabled to create or host a meeting
booking the license in the Outlook calendar does NOT create it in Adobe Connect; all it does is tell ITTS that you need a license for that date and time
you can use any of the calendars to create or host your meeting; just can’t have more than three licenses in use at once
remember that ITTS has to manually transfer licenses between people in your unit, so please include deadlines in your Track-It requests so that we know when to transfer a license back to you or someone else
if you’re booking an event, you probably only need a license for half-an-hour
if you finish early, you can let ITTS know so that we can release that license to others
ITTS moved past iLinc content into units’ “shared content” folders in Adobe Connect
each archived event has a URL you can give out for public viewing; the default on all of the past content is public
we only have until September 30th for the iLinc content to be migrated to Adobe so check if you still need anything moved in enough time that we can migrate it for you
after September 30th, we can’t access that content anymore so this is very important
“event management” section lets you handle registration; you can upload images to create a pretty template
Adobe Connect has many short tutorial videos at http://adobe.com/support/connect/gettingstarted
there is a staff group in for Adobe Connect users in ALA Connect; if you’re not a member of it and you think you should be, find the group and ask to be a member of the group or email Louise
these licenses are for approximately 100-user or less meetings; 100 registrants doesn’t cost us any additional money, but 101+ does
note that half the people who register usually show up for the meeting, so adjust your expectations accordingly
you can’t limit the number of registrants and the number of attendees separately – it’s one number/setting for both
you won’t get charge if more than 100 people register, but we do get charged if more than 100 attend
ITTS isn’t setting any audio conference phone numbers by default so assuming you’re using VoIP instead
there’s no default conference call line, although you can add your own
should we change the default registration message to note users needs to be set up for VoIP?
4. 503 errors on ala.org (Rob)
we believe we’ve finally tracked down the problem and resolved it after testing with AASL and PLA
as of Monday morning (9/17), it should be fixed, so please submit a Track-It ticket if you still encounter this problem
5. Midwinter website (Jenny)
the Midwinter website will go live on October 1 at alamidwinter.org and for the first time, the Scheduler will be at the same URL so we can point users to one place now
the Scheduler will go live in November
6. Track-It (Sherri)
reminder: we get a lot of email, so please be sure to submit your help requests in Track-It so that they don’t get lost
14 Sep 12 ITTS News Meeting – August 21, 2012
Drupal features you may not know about (Louise)
Louise showed how to:
- Embed a video in a web page; anyone can do it using the icon on the WYSIWYG editor; she recommends keeping the size to 500-700 pixels wide at most (500 for pods)
- Add an audio file using the “multimedia” section of the page (not an icon in the WYSIWYG editor)
- Embed external content using an iframe by inserting the HTML into the source code; the example she used was OIF’s Banned Books Week Timeline
Louise also discussed “microsites,” which are subsites that use a different template from the standard ala.org one
any unit can request a microsite, but please allow a minimum of two weeks notice so that ITTS has time to implement it before your deadline for it to be live
for a microsite, you’ll need to provide a banner, color scheme, and links; colors can be different from the ala.org template, but not font size
Virtual Meeting Software (Sherri)
Louise is configuring Adobe Connect
please make sure your staff list is current for your unit in the KM system because Louise is creating “groups” now
because of the way the Adobe Connect licensing works, we need to assign one person in each unit to be the main point of contact for using the software
Adobe is trying to convert our iLinc archives
all ALA staff are Adobe Connect users by default
we recommend you put your webinar materials in your unit’s shared folder so that anyone can get to it
Blogs & wikis (Sherri)
ITTS has found software to maintain our blogs and wikis in-house, so we’ll be migrating from DreamHost sometime in the near future
we’ll give plenty of notice and set up a schedule when we have more information
Rollout of network disk space (Sherri)
ITTS is moving files to a new storage location in order to add more storage space
this should stop the network full messages, but please take a few minutes to clean out any files you no longer need
RFPs (Sherri)
Sherri noted that we have several RFPs running right now
- Profile Management System that will help us merge Connect and ala.org profiles into one (released in June, work to begin in September)
- New ecommerce system – will replace ActiveMatter (responses due in September, work to begin in November)
- New event management system – will replace ActiveEvents and add abstract management plus speaker management (RFP released in August, work to be completed before August 2013)
- Committee Appointment System – ITTS is talking with Charles Wilt about redoing the committee appointment forms to move them out of ColdFusion; will solicit input from other units after initial discussions (work to be completed by June 2013)
ALA Connect (Jenny)
Jenny will hold additional sessions on the redesign in a few weeks
10 Jul 12 ALA eCommerce RFP now available
The ALA-ecommerce-RFP is now available. Released July 10, proposals are due on September 10. Please contact Louise Gruenberg, lgruenberg at ala.org with any questions.
