IT systems are the backbone for many of the business functions of the University. These systems require teams of ITS technicians to implement, maintain, and upgrade them. These teams work in concert with our functional partners to identify and implement improvements that align with community needs.  

Many times, ITS performs a major upgrade of a system to ensure the University remains on a current and fully supported version of the product. Major updates, however, are disruptive for those who use the software and require months of preparation and coordination with stakeholders. With the updates this year, we have positioned the University better for long-term supportability.  Changes made to Kuali Financial Systems (KFS) and the Student Administration System enable us to adopt an incremental framework, where we can perform minor updates and avoid outages, and prepare for future transitions to the cloud.  

KFS is a comprehensive software suite that serves as the University’s financial system of record for accounting and other fiscal operations.  The upgrade includes enhanced usability with a redesigned interface, navigation, and search.  Additional features, such as the general ledger transfer, introduce new functionality and improved financial controls.  

This is the authoritative system of record for student academic data, the administrative environment supporting numerous academic processes, and a service portal for students.  ITS, in collaboration with our functional partners, upgraded CS to the latest version.  This upgrade improved the performance of the internal search engine, simplified navigation, and enhanced mobile responsiveness. 

All IT systems evolve and need to be updated in order to remain under support and perform well for our community. Below are the systems upgraded during the span of this report:

• AIM Facilities Management System 
• Unifier Project Management System for UPDC 
• Meridian Facilities Management System Document Management 
• Pinnacle Telecommunication Management System 
• Filenet Document Management System upgrade 
• LEAP online form/workflow development tool upgrade 
• CTL M Job Scheduling System 
• WEBFocus Reporting system 

ITS collaborates with our functional partners to implement new software solutions and perform integrations that support the business functions of the University.  

The University needed a way to collect, analyze, and act on large amounts of health-related data so that students could return.  This initiative required tight collaboration among ITS, Student Health and Wellness (SHaW), and Student Affairs IT (SAIT).  ITS identified a solution provided by Qualtrics, an industry leader for survey software that specializes in capturing event-driven, actionable data from people, and we coordinated the technical implementation and integrations.  SHaW determined the content of the surveys and information they needed to quickly and effectively address cases, and SAIT assisted with medical records integration.  Through this partnership, we were able to effectively deliver essential health attestation and contact tracing survey capability in mere weeks. 

ITS collaborated with Accounts Payable and the Office of the Bursar to transition the University to a new electronic payment solution.  Previously, the process of paying vendors with Kuali Financials involved verifying and securing the corporate bank account information of our vendors and printing and mailing paper checks.  ITS integrated Kuali Financials with the Comprehensive Payables service offered by Bank of America (BoA).  This service verifies and stores corporate bank account information, instead of the University, and provides a virtual card option, where a subscribed vendor receives University payments on a dedicated credit card.  This integration has enabled Accounts Payable to discontinue local check generation altogether and instead have them printed and mailed directly by BoA.   

Many areas at UConn were responsible for implementing procedures that would better protect our community during a pandemic and facilitate continued operation. ITS collaborated with these units to implement and update systems to enable needed capabilities. Below is a selection of some of these activities: 

• Provided GIS work to facilitate wastewater tracking 
• Implemented AIM inventory module to facilitate PPE tracking and distribution 
• Implemented a process in AIM to manage, report and alert on building and room locations impacted by COVID-19. 
• Updated Parking system to provide option for refunding thousands of parking permits 
• Updated Mail system to facilitate touchless package distribution. 

Over this past year, UConn has prioritized enhanced flexibility in how our community teaches, learns, and works.  Hybrid work perpetuates these needs as academic and administrative areas strive to maintain productivity from different locations.  ITS found and implemented solutions that enhance workplace flexibility. 

With much of the workforce working remotely, employees needed to answer and initiate calls from their university number while off-site. We implemented Unified Contact Center Express (CCX) as a replacement of the previous call center solution.  This VOIP-enabled technology routes calls to both local and remote endpoints and helps manage volume when there are more calls than agents.  We piloted the technology with Financial Aid, and based on their positive feedback, migrated the remaining  university call centers to Unified CCX, and began implementing to other university units on request.