Weekly Email

Here is the weekly email! Enjoy!

 

Inventory

Inventory must be counted by 10:00am.  It makes it difficult to get new supplies to the labs if we don't have an accurate count by then.

 

Also, Friday inventory will be ready to be picked up around 10:00 am. Please be sure that this inventory is picked up Friday since that is the day when everything is counted. And don’t forget to keep filling out “pending orders!” Thanks!

 

Remotes in the SWKT

Try to remember not to stack anything on top of the remotes in the SWKT. It can cause problems for teachers and others who try to use these remotes. Please try and avoid this as much as possible.

 

Wymount Phone

Recently there has been some trouble with the phone in the Wymount lab. If you notice this during your shift, try unplugging it. For some reason it is having a hard time connecting to the network, but just unplugging it and plugging it back in is all it needs. However, if you notice any other problems, send the Office Coordinators an email.

 

Laptop Website

The laptop website will be updated sometime next week. It will reflect the checkout forms more closely. Be sure to check it out when it is updated, fill it out accurately, and let your supervisors or Kim know if you have questions.

 

Best Customer Service

Kim just wants to let everyone know how grateful she is for the wonderful service that you offer to this school. You are consistently awesome. As finals approach and big projects begin to consume your lives, be careful of being distracted at work. Remember to always look approachable and keep the customers your top priority. Thank you everyone, and good luck on your finals.

 

Have a fantastic week everyone! Let us know if you have any questions!

 

 

Rebecca Kmetzsch

Office Coordinator

Training, Labs, Communications

rebecca_kmetzsch@byu.edu

(801) 422-2647

 

OACL Survey

Wonderful people we work with,

We are conducting a survey of all of our employees to assess how we're doing as an organization.  We have many different professional development activities and we want to ensure that we're there for you.  Please complete the following survey before next Saturday, April 3, and this is a required survey.  Thank you for your help and being wonderful to work with.  We love your feedback.

https://byu.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_cO0doisERhlqkQI&SVID=Prod

Jesse Keyser
Assistant Manager of Training
Open Access Computer Labs
OIT Training, Labs, and Communications
1011 JKB - 801.422.3074
jesse_keyser@byu.edu

Weekly Email

Here is the weekly email! Enjoy!

Lab Management Changes

We want to follow up on the mention we’ve made previously about the changes in management in the labs. Our close relationship with the training organization will continue, but the labs will be moving into the "Support Services" part of Production Services. With this change, I will no longer be the manager of the labs. I will very much miss getting to work with you. This change probably won't affect your day-to-day work in the labs. I expect that policies and procedures will continue to evolve as they have over the time that I've been the manager. This transition won't happen overnight, and the new manager of the labs has not yet been announced. I will continue to serve in this role until we complete the transition. I will continue to keep you posted through this weekly email as well as through the shift supervisors.

Fliers and Posters

We’d like to remind everyone about the advertising policy in the labs.  Apparently there’s been a woman wanting to hand out MTC fliers in the WSC lab and we’ve had several employees allowing her to do so.  While we support the MTC, we don’t feel that it is appropriate for people to be interrupting our patrons with ads.  If anyone comes in with fliers to hand out, please make them aware that we are willing to let them stand at the door with their fliers but we do not want them soliciting our patrons while they are at a computer.  Also, if anyone expresses interest in having  a sign or poster put up in the labs, please direct them to the office where we can take a look at it and approve it.  Thanks!

Weekly Email

We know that several people haven’t been receiving the weekly emails lately.  We’ve done some work and hopefully this is resolved.  If you know any fellow employees that are still not getting it, please ask them to email the OCs to let them know.  Also, just a reminder that the weekly emails are archived at http://oaclweekly.blogspot.com/ for those of you who want to refresh your memory or have been missing out on the weekly emails lately.

BYU/SA Powercords

BYU/SA decided that it wants to check out powercords for the student body. BYU/SA paid for the powercords labeled ‘BYU/SA powercords,’ and have “donated” them to us. Basically, since we already have a process in place, we are letting them fund a few extra powercords that we can check out through our system. We have the process outlined on a sign in the Media Center. Questions can be directed to Kim.

New Laptop Checkout Sheet

To replace the forms we have been using, due to some wonderful feedback and help from some amazing employees (thanks Jarom, thanks Kevin), we have a new Laptop Checkout sheet. The sheet is in a binder in the Media Center. Patrons fill out one line of the sheet per check out, and as they return the laptop/accessories/etc, the line can be highlighted with the marker in the binder. This will be a running record. As the top sheet is filled, it can be moved to the very back of the binder, and the new sheet can be on top. When the binder runs out of forms, more can be found on the website.

Hot in the Media Center

We hear that it has been extremely warm in the Media Center. In the evenings, when it is slower, employees should feel free to shut off some of the computers or all of the computers on the small side. Send a message and put up signs that inform the patrons that the computers have been turned off to reduce the heat in the Media Center.

Clarifications for Spring/Summer hours

Kyle has received some questions about picking up hours for Spring/Summer. For those of you who are picking up hours, you do not have to pick up 6 hour blocks. We want you to not pick up more than 6 hours in a single block, but you can pick up any combination of shifts that you would like.

Also, the whole process is a lot like picking up classes. You will be given access to pick up a certain number of hours and you can simply go through the week and pick up hours that you would like to have for the whole semester. Remember, May 1-7 is a template that Kyle will be using to create the whole Spring Schedule. It works just like picking up shifts on the website too.

Let Kyle know if you have any questions.

Training Deadline

The training deadline is April 1.  All training-related projects are due at midnight on that day, both completed and created/revised TIPs should be done.  All competency projects should be turned in.  IF YOU HAVE ANY TRAINING ACTIVITY (TIPs, competency projects, still taking classes) THAT YOU WANT TO BE CONSIDERED FOR SEMESTER REVIEW, E-MAIL JESSE BY 4/1 TO LET HIM KNOW.  Be sure to record all your competency projects as TIPs on the internal website to avoid being penalized for not meeting the TIPs requirement.

TIPs for Lab Consultants

Lab consultants, be sure to complete your created/revised TIPs by April 1.  If you were promoted to be a lab consultant after the  mid-semester deadline, you only have to create/revise 1 TIP, otherwise you are expected to create/revise 2.  After you have created/revised a TIP, e-mail it to Jesse and immediately record it on the internal website to avoid being penalized for not meeting the TIPs requirement.

Thanks and have a great week!

Rebecca Kmetzsch

Office Coordinator

Training, Labs, Communications

rebecca_kmetzsch@byu.edu

(801) 422-2647

Weekly Email

Here’s the weekly email!

 

Promotions

We're pleased to announce some promotions in the labs. Spencer Wallin will be our new SAM of Customer Service. He will take over the reins of that position completely in fall and will assist Kim over the spring/summer in addition to continuing as a shift supervisor. Philip Hurst will be our new SAM of Personnel. He'll be working with Kyle immediately to start learning the position and will take over in spring/summer. Lynda Draper will be accepting an Office Coordinator position with some training over the spring/summer and then will become an OC in the fall.

 

Mid-Semester Reviews

Mid-Semester Reviews have been sent out in email. Please review them and use them as a stepping stone in your continual improvement as an employee. If there are errors, please let us (the SAMs)  know. Group Leaders- Discuss with your groups their reviews in your next Group Leader Conference (which is due 3/21). Let us know if you have questions or concerns about these reviews. In doing these reviews, we get the opportunity to look over and read through a great number of comments and evaluations. We are impressed by the great employees we have in all of you. Thank you for working hard and making the lab such a positive environment. We appreciate the great team we have.

 

Training and Hiring

The OIT Training is going to be hiring trainers from March 22 – March 31 for Spring/Summer. If you are interested, email instructor-application@byu.edu with your resume and cover letter and CC Kyle at oat-personnel@byu.edu. Let us know if you have any questions.

 

Have a fantastic week everyone!

 

Rebecca Kmetzsch

Office Coordinator

Training, Labs, Communications

rebecca_kmetzsch@byu.edu

(801) 422-2647

 

Spring/Summer Schedule

All,

 

I am finalizing the Spring and Summer schedules right now. I am basing everything off of the availability I asked you to submit (number of hours for each semester) as well as the poll that I put up about a week ago. We will be contacting those people who wished to stay in the labs within the next couple of days to let them know what will be happening. Like last year, we will be allowing each person to pick up hours and choose their own schedule. More details about this will follow.

 

If you haven’t submitted your availability or answered the poll question incorrectly, Tuesday will be the final day to make changes. If you do make changes, you need to email me so I know. After that, we begin to let people know about shifts etc. This is for both SPRING and SUMMER (though we are more flexible to changes in plans for Summer at this point). Please double check to make sure your information is correct on the website.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Kyle Evans

Assistant Manager - Personnel

Open Access Technologies

(801) 422-7898

oat-personnel@byu.edu

 

Hours

All,

 

I just want to remind you about the requirement to submit the number of hours you are looking to work for Spring, Summer, and Fall. I need this done as soon as possible, tomorrow at the very latest. Many of you have already done this but there are still quite a few who haven’t.

 

As a reminder, go to My Info, My Availability and then submit the hours you would like to work for each semester. Remember to save it for each semester. Also, if you will be gone for any or all of those semesters, please black them out and leave a note so I have that.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Kyle Evans

Assistant Manager - Personnel

Open Access Technologies

(801) 422-7898

oat-personnel@byu.edu

 

Weekly Email

Here’s the weekly email! Enjoy!

 

Message from Relia and Bradley!

As we mentioned last week, there are considerable changes that have been made to the upper-level management structure of OIT. Now that those changes have been settled, changed within Production Services (our part of OIT) are underway. The full-time employees will learn about these changes in a meeting on Tuesday afternoon. We’d like to invite you to join us for a meeting at 4:15 on Tuesday for us to share with you what we’ve learned about any changes that might affect us. We’ll meet in 2107 JKB. You are not required to attend this meeting, and some of you will have shifts or classes that would prevent it. We’ll follow up the meeting with an email providing as much detail as we have. If you’re curious, we’d love to have you join us!

 

Hours

If you are sick or have an emergency where you can’t come to work, please email/call Kyle as well as put up your hours. Often someone will be able to pick up your shift, even on short notice, so please don’t forget about this step.

 

Lab Assistants and Support Desk

What is up labs peoples!  So this is the first time that I’ve submitted input into the weekly email.  What a crazy experience!  Anyways, here’s the deal:

 

So previously (and currently), only Shift Supervisors can put in Support Desk tickets.  Well, apparently a lot of people were jealous-ized by their awesome ticket-making-powers.  So the powers that be decided that to be fair, we should grant such privileges to all labs employees.  We do this for one principal reason:  Ownership. 

 

We hope that lab assistants feel they have ownership over the lab in which they are working.  If something is broken (highly unlikely, I know, but bear with me here), we would hope you would feel enough ownership to want to get things fixed.  You know what they say, “If the computer is grey, the lab assistant should say, ‘Hey, technician’, come out and play!”  And yes I did just make that up.  But they could say it in the future.  And yes, you should feel free to marvel at my amazing poem-writing skills.    Point being… we hope by giving rights to all lab assistants, they will feel like they can report the necessary problems easily.

 

Lab Assistants, with this change, we hope that you continue to report to your Shift Supervisor the tickets that are being entered.  This way, they will also know if something is wrong.

 

Please note that this change has not been enabled yet, but will in the near future.  We’ll let you know when the switch is flipped.  Feel free to contact me with any questions.  Aight, well I’m out!

 

Clocking in

You guys give awesome customer service. If you are helping a patron and you get to the end of your shift, you are perfectly fine to pass off the issue to another lab employee. If you decide to stick around for a few minutes past your shift, please stay clocked in. The Feds will haul me away in handcuffs if you work off the clock. Besides that, you’re worth it! (Well, you’re worth a whole lot more, but BYU won’t let me pay you more. J) Just be sure to put a note on the Kronos punch so we know what happened.

 

Appearance of Evil

We had a funny incident last week where the police were alerted to a gambling incident in a lab. It turned out to be a lab employee playing an innocent game on Facebook in a quiet lab in the evening. The police chuckled off the incident, though they spent several hours trying to track down what happened. No harm, no foul. Even so, let’s redouble our efforts to avoid the appearance of doing inappropriate things.

 

Have a fantastic week in the labs!

 

Rebecca Kmetzsch

Office Coordinator

Training, Labs, Communications

rebecca_kmetzsch@byu.edu

(801) 422-2647

 

Weekly Email

Here’s the weekly email! Enjoy!

 

A note from the technicians:

There are a couple of lingering issues that we are experiencing with the computers in the labs.  For example, we've received feedback about computers hanging on login leaving the user at a blue screen.  It appears these problems are related to the login piece and Windows XP.  As we are now preparing to migrate to Windows 7, and development on the login piece for Windows XP has stopped, the plan is to continue to ride out these nagging issues and then reassess our situation on the other side.  We thank the patrons for their patience and ask all lab employees to mitigate this issues to the best of their abilities.

 

Applications

We will begin accepting applications for Shift Supervisor on Monday, March 8 through Wednesday, March 17. We encourage everyone who is interested to apply.

 

OIT Changes

On Friday, the CIO announced a significant restructuring of the Office of IT. These changes affect nearly every area of the organization. All the reporting lines have been changed and internal structures at lower levels are under review. At this time, I don’t expect any of these changes will affect your daily work. We continue to be in the same department with the trainers. The tools team that does our website development and the communication and writing team are both moving to other areas of OIT. The new managing director of Production Services, of which we are a part, is Elaine Lauritzen, replacing Brad Stone. Again, this doesn’t indicate any change in our day to day operations; I just wanted you to be aware of the changes that are afoot behind the scenes. Thanks for your continued awesome work. I’ll keep you posted as things become more settled.

 

Thanks

To everyone who completed their evaluations or group leader reports.

 

Back to School

Kim is going to work in the schools for the month of March, so she will not be in the office until evening hours. But never fear, she is not leaving you high and dry. She can’t take phone calls during class, but can respond to voicemails during her lunch so feel free to call her cell phone and leave a voicemail (801)791-0208. If it isn’t urgent, send her an email and she’ll get to it as soon as she can. Please contact her with any questions you might have.

 

LRC

We just want to let you know that HBLL 4840 is no longer called the LRC.  The library has decided to change its name to the Media Center.  All signage has been changed, so we need to make an effort to call that room the Media Center and to call that lab the Media Center Lab.

 

Library Copier

We have been getting a lot of questions in the Media Center (LRC) about the copier that is outside of that room.  We’ve done some research and found that the Music and Dance department of the library is supposed to be watching that copier and keeping the paper filled.  Hopefully they should be putting up a sign to direct people to them when the copier is having problems, but if you’re still getting complaints about low paper levels or jams, you can call 2-5063 to let them know.  If you continue to get a lot of questions about the copier, let us know.

 

Have a fantastic week! Let us know if you have any questions!

 

Erika Kimbler

Office Coordinator

IT Training, Labs, and Communications

422-2647

erika_kimbler@byu.edu