Over the weekend DoIT performed software updates on the campus phone system. While the updates were successful, users may find that their ‘phone services’ in the Webex app have disconnected. If you are experiencing this, logging into phone services again may resolve the issue. For instructions on logging in please see this FAQ. 

If your initial attempt to reconnect phone services does not work you may need to clear some settings on your device. To do this please see this FAQ for resetting your connection and try signing in again. 

If your connection problem persists or you are experiencing any other outage related to the campus phone system, please let us know by contacting us at DoIT Technology Support Center. 

Ray Soellner

Director of Telecommunications / DoIT

rays1@umbc.edu

Congratulations Debbie Michaels for being selected as this month’s DoIT Gritty Award winner!

We are proud to announce that Debbie Michaels has been awarded the DoIT Gritty Award for her outstanding work in inventory management.

Debbie’s efforts as the property custodian for DoIT, and the successful and timely completion of the FY23 sensitive and FY24 capital inventory cycles have been outstanding. Of all custodians across campus Debbie has been charged with one of the largest, but most mobile, departmental inventories of any single person. Despite these challenges, she managed to complete the task with only six missing items. In addition, Debbie has completely modernized the process by which DoIT and many other departments handle the inventory process. She has collaborated with Asset Management and the Business Systems Group to help create campus-wide Docusign forms for inventory management control, moving away from the cumbersome paper process. Additionally, she implemented electronic scanning methods for sighting equipment. These major improvements have made the inventory process more effective and efficient.  Congratulations on a job well done! Debbie is much appreciated.

For her exceptional efforts and commitment to excellence, we are proud to present Debbie Michaels with the DoIT Gritty Award. Congratulations, Debbie!

The Gritty Award is in recognition of outstanding work within the Division. Full-time DoIT employees and teams are eligible to be nominated for going above and beyond! Anyone in DoIT can nominate someone for the Gritty by completing this short Gritty Nomination Form. 

Thank you Debbie for all of your hard work! 

The DoIT Community & The DoIT Gritty Committee

Erica D’Eramo

Ally Hepp

Carlos McKinney

David Toothe

Dondre Hatef

Kashka Donaldson

Mariann Hawken

Nick Beech

Tony Finneran

Roy Prouty

Congratulations to our Graduating students in the Division of Information Technology Class of Winter 2024!

Congrats on all your well-deserved success and best wishes for your next adventure! There’s so much still to come. Go out there and enjoy life, make a difference, and be who you truly are.

The DoIT Technology Support Center is looking to hire additional student consultants to work during the upcoming semester and beyond. Please see our job description below and visit our job posting on Handshake to apply. (Search for DoIT Technology Support Center Student Consultant.) The application will be open until December 6, 2024.

TSC Student Consultant Job Description

Technology Support Center (TSC) student consultants are the first points of technical contact for the UMBC community and those who do well often go on to work in other areas of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). Minimally, consultants are expected to provide initial triage and support for a wide range of information technologies including accounts, hardware, instructional technologies, networking, software, telecommunications, and basic web development.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Provide technical assistance to users by phone and online;
• Answer TSC phones in a professional and courteous manner;
• Create, update and resolve tickets in the Request Tracker (RT) ticketing system;
• Create, update, suggest and recommend relevant FAQ articles to users (www.umbc.edu/faq);
• Provide direct assistance to users on technical issues they cannot easily resolve on their own;
• Respond to all work-related communications in a timely manner;
• Escalate urgent problems to the Full-Time staff, as appropriate.

Required Skills and Experience

• Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate by phone or in writing.
• Demonstrated writing ability.
• Demonstrated ability to achieve successful outcomes in handling difficult situations and customers.
• Demonstrated analytical and troubleshooting skills.
• Ability & willingness to learn coupled with a clear understanding of one’s technical abilities, so as to triage and escalate an issue that leads to an effective solution for the user.

We are proud to announce that Eric Ludy has been awarded the DoIT Gritty Award for his exceptional work in managing the complex Federal Student Aid system changes to UMBC's Peoplesoft Campus Solutions system over the past year.

The Peoplesoft Campus Solutions system experiences a routine 3-4 upgrades per year, with simultaneous upgrades of the underlying Peopletools system and upgrades for the Highpoint user interfaces. In addition to this work, there were numerous unexpected code releases from the federal government to address issues with the overhaul of the Federal Student Aid system this past year.

Eric navigated these obstacles with expertise and professionalism, ensuring that all upgrades were completed seamlessly and on schedule. He was able to coordinate the loading of multiple patches, proof of concepts, and PRPs onto separate databases for testing, before moving them to the production environment, all while still managing the regular upgrade schedule.

The August PUM upgrade, which included moving the Peoplesoft CS system to AWS, added an extra layer of complexity, but Eric handled it with the same efficiency and dedication. 

Through it all, Eric's work remained largely unknown to the broader university community, as he ensured that these critical system upgrades were completed without disruption to students and staff.

Congratulations Eric Ludy for being selected as this month’s DoIT Gritty Award winner!

For his exceptional efforts and commitment to excellence, we are proud to present Eric Ludy with the DoIT Gritty Award. Congratulations, Eric!

The Gritty Award is in recognition of outstanding work within the Division.

Full-time DoIT employees and teams are eligible to be nominated for going above and beyond! Anyone in DoIT can nominate someone for the Gritty by completing this short Gritty Nomination Form. 

Thank you Eric for all of your hard work! 

The DoIT Community & The DoIT Gritty Committee

Erica D’Eramo

Ally Hepp

Carlos McKinney

David Toothe

Dondre Hatef

Kashka Donaldson

Mariann Hawken

Nick Beech

Tony Finneran

Roy Prouty

Debbie Michaels

Ray Soellner