ISC Progress Report, February 2017
Thank you to all who participated in our client satisfaction survey in January. Our goal is to conduct this survey annually, using this year as our baseline. The results are available here.
Here’s a brief report on many of our major activities,
organized by our five strategic themes. Increase Value Through Differentiation & Innovation
Information Security: In December, the
University Firewall blocked 13.3 million threats. At that time it was only protecting 40% of the campus networks (PennNet). Since we enabled blocking, we have received only six client tickets.
In that same month, SafeDNS blocked almost 69,000 threats, and there were more than 102,000 unique system registrations.
On February 17th, James Brewer will present an update on several Identity and Access Management initiatives, including expansion of the 2-factor authentication service and proposed plans for PennKey password expirations and resets. James will also describe exploratory work on Privileged Account Management and flexible solutions for authenticating external user populations. Please register here.
HireIT: In November, we launched HireIT, which provides high-quality IT support services to schools and centers who need to augment their local services for either the short or long term. HireIT’s team of IT specialists ensure the availability and efficacy of IT support and resources for our subscribed clients. Organizations can subscribe to different tiers of service, which range from Key Desktop to Extended to VIP Leadership, as well as Field Services as needed. Fees for all but Field Services are FTE-based.
Origin Retirement: ISC is planning to migrate web sites off the Origin server (origin.www.upenn.edu) to a more secure platform with the goal of retiring Origin by the end of the current fiscal year. If you have content currently hosted on the Origin server, please contact ISC Client Care (
help@isc.upenn.edu) as soon as possible to start working with our Web Services team to transition your site to a new solution.
Strengthen & Optimize IT @ Penn
Human Capital Management: We are in Phase III of the Human Capital Management (HCM) program. HCM aims to increase Penn’s HR and Payroll work efficiency, enhance our ability to be responsive to changes in regulatory and compliance issues, improve the user experience, and improve information quality and access. During Phase III we are developing the proposed HCM Service Delivery Model (the “to-be”), and have issued and received responses to RFPs for products and integrators, and will be choosing a software solution to support our “to-be” model. Stay tuned for an HCM Lunch & Learn session.
Business Optimization, Harmonization & Transparency
IT Financial Management: Currently 51 of ISC’s rate-based services are available for clients to view in Apptio and we are piloting the presentation of two administrative systems bills. Twenty more rate-based items are scheduled for release to the Apptio bill from March to July. We continue to on-board clients and business-administrator staff at their request and will be seeking their feedback on ease-of-use, accuracy and overall helpfulness of the Apptio bill. Apptio is part of a larger effort to improve the transparency, accuracy, and understanding of chargebacks and the cost of providing IT services.
Planview Time Tracking: The Planview team is making great progress on our new ISC-wide time tracking tool that will ultimately improve costing and billing. Planview’s application development team is currently configuring the tool based on our requirements.
Application Rationalization: This project was intended to improve the value of IT investment decisions by better understanding the applications portfolio. Findings included: 1,000 applications were clarified down to 305 significant ones; we have a high degree of diversity in technologies and approaches requiring unique skills; most applications with risk are covered by a migration plan; and application risks are related to resource skills/knowledge, technology of underlying software, and vendors. We reviewed this information with other Penn IT groups, and are actively engaging with client organizations around campus. Continuous Improvement
Continuous Improvement: In our continuing effort to optimize ISC, we have reorganized several groups. ISC’s Emerging Solutions Group is now part of the Technology Services Group. Portfolio Management, including the Project Management Office and Service Management Office, is now part of the CIO’s office reporting to Marion Campbell.
Cloud First
Thank you for all your support,
The ISC Leadership Team
