Application Development

Students – download Office 365 free!

 

Recently Microsoft announced the Student Advantage Program which provides a free copy of Office 365 Pro for students.

This includes the full version of Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, and more) which can be installed on up to five PCs and Macs, and includes Office for iPad and other mobile devices.Student Adv. logo

If you already use the free portion of Office for iPad for reading, viewing and presenting, once you have a valid Office 365 ProPlus license, you can also create and edit Office documents on your iPad with Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

You can download the software here using your U of L username and password. For step-by-step instructions, visit our site.

For more information, contact the IT Solutions Centre at (403) 329-2490 or help@uleth.ca.

Mobile app developed for Portal – first for U of L

 

The U of L will soon be launching itself into the mobile age thanks to a mobile application version of the Student Portal coming later this summer. Students will soon be able to download the app from the iTunes App Store and Google Play for iOS and androids respectively. Jamie Chinn, IT Services Applications Development Manager, says an email went out to all summer students the week of June 23 to make them aware and to solicit feedback for future versions.Mobile App

“We are very aware of how much students use their mobile devices, and we thought providing a mobile app version of the Student Portal would be a good place to start. While the portal performs quite well on a mobile phone browser, this app will make it even easier to navigate from feature to feature on a smaller device like a smartphone,” says Chinn.

The team is busy polishing the prototype with the University’s brand, colors and images, and testing the app for functionality. Following that will be getting it into the App stores. “It takes about a week to get an app approved by Google Play and three weeks to get approval from Apple.”

Chinn says the first version of the app will include much of the same functionality in the portal, and as new features are added to the latter, they will likely be added into the app as well. Mobile app-specific features such as push notifications when final grades are entered are being investigated for a future release.

Students can provide feedback on the App by visiting the Portal site: https://portal.uleth.ca/ , and either submitting a vote in the features poll, or by clicking on the blue Feedback tab on the right side of the page to submit ideas not found in the poll. With each suggestion or vote, students’ names are entered into a weekly draw for a $100 gift card until the end of August.

The Development team expects to have the app available mid-to-late August, which will coincide with the full launch of the student portal.

For more information, contact the Solutions Centre at (403) 329-2490 or help@uleth.ca.

No Call Waiting for this upgrade

Combined efforts on the part of Advancement, a vendor and three units within Information Technology Services (ITS), compressed four months of work into three, fast tracked the project timeline by starting eight months sooner than anticipated, and enabled the University’s Call Centre to launch its alumni calling campaign on time.

The Call Centre’s software required an upgrade at a time when hiring a manager was underway, and when the software required a critical upgrade. To add further challenges to the project, Advancement’s Call Centre, which operates out of the Penny Building, already had to cancel its fall donor campaign due to construction within the facility. Missing out on the winter semester’s donor campaign as well would have significantly hurt the University’s fund raising efforts.

“We were advised that the former vendor of the software had been bought out by a new company. Consequently the old product needed to be migrated over to a new software, called CampusCall,” says Wim Chalmet, ITS Application Support Analyst. “Advancement approached us in October to ask if we could fast-track the project in order to run the next campaign in mid-January. That meant our usual timeline of May to September would be pushed up by eight months, and shortened our work schedule into three months instead of four. After consultation with all stakeholders, we felt it could be done.”

Staff from Advancement, Desktop Support, Applications, Systems, Telecom, and Finance were all involved in the effort, along with great support from the new application vendor, RuffaloCODY.

“The IT team was very supportive during the transition to a new software program in the Call Centre” says Kathy MacFarlane, Manager of Development Programs. “Wim Chalmet led us through the process smoothly and was always accessible. Most importantly, we finished on time for the next calling session.”

For more information, please contact Wim Chalmet at 403-380-1837, or at wim.chalmet@uleth.ca.

Consultation results in collaboration

 

Technology can fuel the collaborative spirit in ways researchers of the not-too-distant past never thought possible. Collaboration tools, like many other types of 21st Century business interactions, are born of need and limited only by the imagination.NVivo

Faculty of Education professor David Slomp had been using a stand-alone version of an application developed to organize and analyze non-numerical or unstructured data, such as audio files, videos, digital photos, and a variety of text-based data. NVivo enables users to classify, sort and arrange information according to individual needs. But, as with all software, its capabilities and functions continued to develop and become more robust.

After doing some initial investigation through NVivo, Slomp knew he needed the ability to share files with his research assistants in Ottawa and Halifax in order to work on them collaboratively.

“David knew the desktop version had its limitations and approached us about support for the server version,” says Wim Chalmet, Application Support Analyst.

Slomp says going from a simpler desktop version to a server version with multiple people using it required a level of expertise he did not have, and the ability to rely on people who understand the technology has been a relief. “The value for me is that I don’t have to worry about the complex technical aspects of integrating the technology. I have a lot of confidence in the IT team’s abilities. Wim has been pretty dedicated to the project. I know that when issues arise, he’ll be managing them.”

When Trevor Butler, Manager of Technology Services in the Faculty of Management, became aware of the product, he obtained permission from the Faculty of Education to share the server. It was simply a matter of purchasing the licenses after that.

“Sharing the same resources provides great economy of scale,” says Chalmet. “But it also gives users additional benefits because we gain a significant amount of product knowledge through the experience, allowing quicker resolutions to any issues. Also, it fosters collaboration and enriches the experience with peers.”

Slomp concurs. “Working on a project like this requires lots of negotiation with the vendor and, through the use of University resources like IT Services, creates a higher level of collegiality and understanding. I think, too, there’s a high degree of competence. Technical experts like Wim and Daryle Niedermayer know what they know, and know what they don’t know.”

Next steps for the project include providing access to an additional research team in the fall.

For more information, please contact Wim Chalmet at 403-380-1837 or wim.chalmet@uleth.ca.