School Computing Coordinators

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Agenda:
Andrew Laurence lead a discussion about Corporate Time (CS&T http://www.cst.ca)
as a potential Campus Calendar solution, including deployment

 

Minutes:

 

Discussion:

The group began by noting some Calendar products currently in use on Campus:

NACS:	Meeting Maker
ICS:	Outlook with University of Washington IMAP Mail Server (eventually)
PS:	Testing Corporate Time on NACS' TestNT Server
BioSci:	Lotus Organizer (Dean’s Office)
	Dos Based (Student Affairs)
	Calendar (Service s Group)
AdCom:	Meeting Maker (will migrate to CT if NACS & Campus Depts migrate)
DUE:	OnTime on Novell

 

The group discussed some of the features of Corporate Time:

Mike raised the issue of security and privacy.  His Dept is very, very concerned about privacy ­ they do not want anyone accessing their calendars, not even a ‘SuperUser’ outside of the Dept;  others agreed that privacy is also a concern within their Departments.  The group noted that the ‘culture’ of UCI might well offer the strongest resistance to using a Campus Calendar --- not the technology.

 

Andrew demonstrated some of the basic privacy inherent in CT:
*accessing another person’s calendar can only be done with that person’s permission;
*an invitation does not make the time of the event readable --- that is, sending an invitation does not generate notification of either a time-available or a time-conflict, when the person invited does not allow the person sending the invitation specific, read-access to their calendar;

 

Steve asked if CT would allow for the creation of an ‘alias’ calendar for person’s like Department Chairs who have both personal and ‘Dept Chair’ schedules.  After much discussion involving possible ways in which to do this, Andrew offered to check with the Vendor and forward an answer to the group.

 

VENDOR RESPONSE:

I would suggest you create an account called 'Chair of Chemistry' and only give the acting chair access to that account.  When a new chair is appointed simply transfer the access rights and password to that account.

 

Andrew:

We thought of this solution during the meeting, but concluded that the resulting duplication of a person’s calendar identity wouldn’t be ideal.  I’m taking this question to other CT-using universities, to see how they have dealt with this issue.

 

Kate Morris suggested that if NACS deploys CT, DUE would use the product right now for about 40 Staff.  She also mentioned that DUE would like to include class scheduling in the CT Calendar --- Jan said that UNEX has also expressed interest in using CT to schedule classes.

 

Rob Leon asked if anyone was using CT to schedule Faculty teaching schedules?  Andrew stated that the API in CT can be used to customize calendars, but for that specific question he’ll check with the Vendor and forward the information.

 

Andrew:

Robert Cassidy (UCI’s Engineering Student Affairs) has used Corporate Time to build his schedule of classes, using “Schedule of Classes” as a user and resources matching each major.   The standard client was used.

 

 

The group next discussed deployment methods:
*One Central Server for the Campus
*Servers for each Department
*Servers for each Department with data sharing between Campus Servers

 

Andrew promised to distribute information gathered from other Universities using CT (Berkeley, CalPoly Pomona, UCSB, UCOP, etc. with a user-base of mostly Staff) about their deployment methods and recommendations; Andrew will forward this information directly to the SCC listserv.

 

This information was sent to the SCC mailing list on Monday 10/4/99.

 

Steve noted that Allen Schiano mentioned a while ago, that a Campus Calendar would be part of NACS’s Enterprise Services and wondered when the service would be offered and at what price.  Andrew stated that a Campus Calendar is an Enterprise Service and mused that NACS would probably begin similar to IMAP --- buy a small number of accounts, get them working, and then expand the service.

 

Rob, John, and Dennis stated that until an Outlook/Corporate Time connection is ready, they would not move to CT --- their Departments have standardized on the Outlook client for both Mail & Calendar and they will not move their Users to another product.  Andrew noted that CT is developing for access by the Outlook client, but did not know the release date.   John stated that if ICS buys CT and it really does work with Outlook, ICS could deploy it by Winter Quarter.  Andrew will check with the Vendor to get access to the Outlook beta for testing and forward the information to the group. 

 

Andrew:

CS&T has agreed to supply an alpha of the Outlook connector, with an NDA.  Andrew can proxy the NDA for interested parties; contact Andrew directory at atlauren@uci.edu, or campus extension 3966.

 

Dennis expressed concern over UCI moving away from the direction of most of Businesses towards Calendar packages --- i.e., he noted that Exchange with Outlook has outsold all competitors in the last two quarters and that the majority of Businesses are deploying Exchange to handle Email and Calendars.   Dennis wondered if it was wise for UCI to buck that trend.  Jan agreed that Exchange has outsold competitors, but given the NACS computing environment, it isn’t likely that an Exchange Server would be deployed; so, using a Calendar product, which can utilize Outlook clients, makes sense, especially if NACS changes direction and deploys Exchange in the future.  Andrew mused that the user-oriented draw to Exchange is the single-client integration of mail and calendaring of Outlook, and pointed to CS&T’s upcoming Outlook service connector as an indication of the company’s willingness to meet market needs.

 

Kate asked the time frame in which NACS is looking to deploy CT --- is it now, in six months, or in two or three years.  Rob volunteered that two to three years, is a very long time in the desktop environment.  Andrew and Jan stated that they did not know the timeframe, but guessed that it would take about a year or so to fully deploy to the Campus; they will check with Allen Schiano and get an answer for the group.

 

Andrew:

Based on high interest in a few schools, NACS is proceeding with a software purchase and pilot program.  NACS is currently finalizing the details of this service pilot, and will share details within the next few days.  If your school or department would like to participate, contact Andrew directly.

 

Tory said that Physical Sciences would prefer to run their own Server now, and if NACS gets a server in a year or so, they might consider switching to NACS at that time.

 

Steve asked if NACS would guarantee 24x7 service for a Campus Calendar?  He would move his Department to an NACS Campus Calendar, but first needs a commitment that 24x7 service like that provided for E4E would be provided for Calendar.  Andrew and Jan said that they would take that question back to NACS and send the group NACS’s answer.

 

Andrew:

The aforementioned NACS service pilot will be a “service” with appropriate administrative support, reliability and responsibilities.

 

Andrew discussed CT pricing:
$21/user with 16.5% maintenance/year
Clients for Mac, Windows and Motif
PDA client from Sync Software @ $69/user ­ reduced to $30/user

 

John mused that it’s so cheap - we should just buy it for the Campus! ;)

 

Jan and Andrew thanked the group for their time and advice and said they would take their questions and concerns back to NACS and forward any answers to the group.

 

Regarding E4E IMAP services:
Steve asked, if a limit has recently been placed on storage space for Faculty?

A BioSci Faculty member said that colleagues were unable to send him Email (they were given an error message of “mailbox full”); when he called the RC for help, the Faculty member was told that he had exceeded his storage limit and to use Telnet to access E4E, run Pine, and delete unnecessary Email messages.  Andrew & Jan said they didn’t know if there was a storage limit, but would ask Allen Schiano and get the information to Steve.

 

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last modified October 4, 1999 Jan Vescera jvescera@uci.edu