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P E P P E R D I N E I N F O R M A T I O N T E C H N O L O G Y

M O N T H L Y R E P O R T

NEW THIS ISSUENew Services.................................................................................................................2

MyLibrary Tool connects students with library resources

IT Updates......................................................................................................................3

PTD report determines athlete’s academic eligibility

Graduating? Move your student email to an alumni email

Leadership....................................................................................................................4

IT staff share success of MyID implementation with Oracle community

IT staff share best practices for managing IT services

Partnerships..................................................................................................................5

Online invoicing system streamlines precurement process

IT prepares for end-of-semester activities

Service Updates..........................................................................................................6

Faculty and staff to receive Adobe Acrobat Pro XI

EISteamhelpsSeaverCollegeimplementanewfinancialaidprocess

New IT Staff Members................................................................................................7-8

Eric Lauffenburger & Darwin Oriondo

Benchmarks & Accountibility...................................................................................8

Information TechnologyPepperdine Help Desk

Available 24/7(310) 506-HELP or

(866) 767-8623

IT Websitecommunity.pepperdine.edu/it

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INSIGHT | MARCH | 2014

M A R C H 2 0 1 4N E W I T S E R V I C EMyLibrary tool connects students with library resourcesIn Courses, powered by Sakai, there is a little tool in class sites called “MyLibrary” that connects students

with the specific librarian and helpful research resources relevant

to their area of study.

MyLibrary was a collaborative effort between Information Technol-

ogy (IT) and Pepperdine Libraries and has evolved over the years.

It began in 2007 when the library approached IT about students not

knowing where to go or who to speak with regarding research for

class papers and projects. IT’s Mark Giglione and Alan Regan assist-

ed in creating this tool. The tool finds a specific match for that class

site, section, and semester (e.g. ENG 101.01 F16), then it displays

custom information for that class including a picture and contact

information for the librarian related to their subject matter.

“We’re very grateful for our collaboration with Pepperdine Libraries and hope that students and professors

alike benefit from library resources readily available from their class sites,” commented Alan.

MyLibrary shared with Yale

Through a familiar Pepperdine connection, Alan and Mark were able to share their “MyLibrary” tool with Yale

University. Dr. Michael Dula, Pepperdine’s Library’s previous Director for Digital Initiatives & Technology Strate-

gy, invited Alan and Mark to showcase the tool to his colleagues at Yale. Like Pepperdine, Yale uses Sakai as

a teaching and learning platform, and they were also looking for ways to better link their students directly to

library resources. Pepperdine demonstrated the tool, explained its inner workings, and shared sample code

as a model for Yale’s consideration and inspiration.

“Being a member of the Sakai community has allowed Pepperdine to contribute to the advancement of

teaching and learning,” commented Alan. “It feels good to know what we do here at Pepperdine can go

to help other universities across the nation.”

P E P P E R D I N E I N F O R M A T I O N T E C H N O L O G Y

M O N T H L Y R E P O R T

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INSIGHT | MARCH | 2014

I T U P D A T E S

PTD report determines athlete’s academic eligibilityThe Progress Toward Degree (PTD) report is a vital component

in calculating NCAA Academic Eligibility for student athletes.

PTD looks at actual progress toward a degree based on

required general education courses and the student’s de-

clared major with allotted units for electives. This is separate

and distinctive from the University’s standard degree audit re-

port, and per NCAA rules and regulations, not every course

that has been completed is counted in calculating the percentage for PTD.

Previously, the Registrar’s Office manually reviewed and created these reports for every athlete

each term, averaging four to five hours for one person to calculate the PTD for each of the 17 ath-

letic teams. Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) Student Administration began working with the Reg-

istrar’s Office in January 2013 to automate the creation of these reports in PeopleSoft based on the

NCAA guidelines and using the enrollment data already in PeopleSoft.

The project went into production at the end of March 2014, after several hundred hours of analysis,

development, and testing. An automated, system-generated report eliminates potential errors in

reporting that could place the team and/or the University out of compliance, and it saves the Reg-

istrar’s Office an estimated 85 hours each term.

“The PTD report allows me to run reports for all athletes or by team — in a matter of minutes. [PTD]

takes into consideration current enrollment, so it accurately reflects units needed for each of the

areas,” said Lesbiz Tovar, associate registrar for Academic Records.

REMINDER: Student email accounts are deleted

90 days after the student’s last enrolled semes-

ter. Once an account is deleted/deactivated the

data/emails in that account it is not recoverable.

But alumni may obtain a free, lifetime email ac-

count through Pepperdine’s Alumni Association.

For more information, visit: http://www.pepperdine.edu/alumni/onlineservices/email/.

Graduating? Move your student email to an alumni email

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INSIGHT | MARCH | 2014

L E A D E R S H I P

IT staff share successes of MyID implementation with Oracle community

Three members of IT’s identity management team

presented at the “Alliance 2014 Conference” in

Las Vegas on March 10, an event that brings to-

gether a network of Oracle application users to

share opportunities and best practices they have

with Oracle systems, e.g. PeopleSoft.

The team including Rita Schnepp, Ryan Kim, and

Kevin Phan, presented on the implementation of

the Identity Management System better known to

the University as MyID - Pepperdine’s first self-service password reset portal.

The team shared how using a hybrid project management approach helped increase better

adoption of the new system. The successful implementation of MyID has resulted in a noticeably

lower demand on the Help Desk for password-related problems.

IT staff share best practices for managing IT servicesIT staff Joe Munoz presented at the 14th Annual Pink Elephant In-

formation Technology Infrastructure Library Conference in Febru-

ary held in Las Vegas. This conference brought together IT prac-

titioners from all industries to share best practices on managing

technical services to help elevate IT operations to be run more

like a business.

Joe shared with attendees that the first steps toward IT operational excellence begins with iden-

tifying common blind spots in managing IT services and aligning those areas of improvement to

an organization’s business goals. He also spoke about the importance of thinking of users more

as business partners to ensure a healthier relationships with them.

“We shouldn’t be in the business of JUST fixing things,” commented Joe Munoz. “We should be

actively listening to our business partners (users) on how our services can help fit their needs.”

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INSIGHT | MARCH | 2014

IT prepares for end-of-semester activitiesIT Client Services staff is checking all public computing equipment and copiers

before they are put into heavy use during finals. Copiers, computers, audio-vi-

sual equipment, conference room technology and classroom technology must

be functioning properly during final exams.

The team makes an extra effort to preventively maintain all public computer

and copier equipment before the University enters the last weeks of the semes-

ter. This proactive approach to support for technology equipment helps save

students, faculty, and staff time by not having to wait for support staff to react

to an equipment failure.

Online invoicing system streamlines precurement process

Finance in collaboration with IT’s Senior Lead Developer

and Finance Lead Hector Ramirez, worked to develop

an interface between ADP’s Electronic Invoicing Sys-

tem and PeopleSoft Financials. The interface between

these two systems allows Finance to better manage

the procurement processes at Pepperdine.

Prior to the implementation, external vendors would

send invoices via mail to Finance. Finance staff would then send the invoices to each of the departments

to be reviewed and approved for payment. This outdated method could not keep up with the sheer vol-

ume of invoices needed to be processed on a daily bases. Now, purchase orders are electronically posted

to ADP’s system from Peoplesoft Financials. Invoices are created in ADP and then routed to departments

to be reviewed and approved for payment. Approved invoices are then imported back to Peoplesoft

Financials for payment processing.

This project was made possible by the latest PeopleSoft tools upgrade. The University can expect more

efficiency projects like these to be implemented in the near future.

“I am personally excited to have the chance to explore the possibilities these technologies can bring to

Pepperdine’s systems,” commented Hector. “It is always exciting to work on improving business processes.

However, it doesn’t beat making my colleagues’ jobs more efficient and enjoyable.”

P A R T N E R S H I P S

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INSIGHT | MARCH | 2014

IT’s Device Management (DM) service will begin deploying Adobe Acrobat XI Pro to all university-owned

machines on April 17. Faculty and staff will be able to enjoy the version XI features, which include creating

and editing PDF files and forms as well as merging and combining files into a PDF.

“We are eager to get Acrobat Pro to the community,” Technology Liaison and DM Project Lead Jason

Eggleston said. “Now Pepperdine colleagues no longer need to worry if they have the right Acrobat ver-

sion to modify or create PDF files.”

During this deployment, all of the work will be done by the DM service, removing old instances of the Acro-

bat and replacing it with version XI. Few faculty and staff will encounter a pop-up notice on their computer

— like the ones pictured below — letting them know the installation will begin.

By selecting “OK” and closing any instances of Acrobat or Reader, the installation will start. An alert will

appear when the process has been completed. IT staff know the features of Adobe Acrobat Pro XI will

provide many benefits to Pepperdine’s business processes.

“The DM service streamlines IT’s patching process as well as allows our colleagues to continue with their

work undisturbed,” added Jason.

For more information or to stay up-to-date with the DM team, visit: http://devicemanagement.pepper-

dine.edu/.

Faculty and staff to receive Adobe Acrobat Pro XIS E R V I C E U P D A T E S

MacintoshPC

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INSIGHT | MARCH | 2014

EIS Team helps Seaver College implement a new financial aid process

P A R T N E R S H I P S

This past January, Seaver College began utilizing the firm Maguire

Associates for their predictive financial aid awarding services with

the incoming fall 2014 students. This change allows financial aid

funds to be used more strategically while continuing to attract ex-

ceptional students and increase enrollment rates.

Implementing these major changes for the upcoming aid year re-

quired extensive collaboration among the EIS PeopleSoft Student,

the Seaver Financial Aid, Seaver Admissions and IT’s Application

Development teams.

Strategic revisions were made to Seaver’s financial aid packaging plans, equations, and reports.

A new process was written within PeopleSoft to import the data files from the Maguire firm; and a

new application was created to integrate TargetX (Seaver’s recruitment tool) data with People-

Soft data.

With the hard work and cooperation of all groups to streamline new business processes, Seaver

successfully sent out admission letters and financial aid award letters on schedule to their new fall

2014 admitted students.

L E A D E R S H I P

Eric Lauffenburger operates as lead application developer and IT

liaison for Student Affairs at the Seaver campus. His primary duties

involve maintaining existing communication systems and devel-

oping new software to relay and receive information for the nu-

merous departments Student Affairs encompasses.

He comes to Pepperdine with a Bachelor of Science in computer

science engineering from University of California, Merced and has

experience in networking protocols and data structures/algorithm

analysis. Eric hopes to develop new ways to help Student Affairs

make more informed decisions and communicate even faster

through data organization and analysis.

Eric Lauffenburger joins IT’s App Dev Team

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INSIGHT | MARCH | 2014

A C C O U N T I B I L I T Y & B E N C H M A R K I N G

IT is dedicated to transparency with the

Pepperdine community.

Figure 1 indicates the quantity of IT help

calls received in the past four months.

Figure 2 indicates the reported quality

of IT services in the past four months.

Darwin Oriondo serves as systems and data administrator for IT. Dar-

win comes from Roll Global where he was the IT services supervisor

for three years. Under his supervision his group supported Roll Glob-

al users as well as sister companies Fiji Water, POM Wonderful, and

Teleflora. Prior to that Darwin worked for Warner Bros. Animation as

project systems manager and was responsible for maintaining artist

and animator workstations.

Darwin Oriondo joins the server engineering teamL E A D E R S H I P

Figure 1: Quantity of Help Calls

Figure 2: Quality of Help Calls