Report back topics and questions that were addressed at the 6/27 Ex Libris Support Meeting
10 mins
Tom, Jackie
Support call with Ex Libris on Monday
Wasn’t a lot that came out of it other than noting known issues; difficulty getting answers from development in a timely way
Support knows this is a problem, and they’re doing what they can to move things along
Doesn’t change the fact that it’s continuing to be an issue for everyone
While we’re trying to raise the issue in the support calls, there doesn’t seem to be a way to escalate it on the support side
Seems like they have a plan on how they want to move forward, and while it matters to them, it doesn’t seem like there willing to change how they’ll move forward
Tom brought up Greg’s concern in terms of slowness of jobs and prioritization; asked if they would tell us how jobs are prioritized
The answer was basically that the folks that do development watch over all of the servers and make adjustments there, but didn’t say what those adjustments are
They said they don’t like to share out this information because this might change how folks use Alma/Primo in a negative way
Sounded like they’re treating folks with kid gloves
Mentioned they knew this was an issue, but they haven’t communicated that to us and that there are no mitigating measures
Want to keep it pretty “black box” with what they do
Greg has a ticket that is nearing 7-months old, it’s in the sandbox, the group working on this case with them is seemingly throwing things at the wall to see what sticks
They are communicating - try this, try this, try this
They’re not trying it first to see if it works
Greg’s team is spinning their wheels trying these different things, and nothing works
And now Greg’s team is getting repeat recommendations and having to remind ExL that they’ve already tried those things
Not sure if other folks have experienced this, but it’s really frustrating
Greg expressed frustration, and they’ve apologized
But seems silly that they have access to the sandbox, and are instead asking Greg’s team to try these solutions instead
If we do want ExL to go into our sandbox to do things, we should be explicit about it because they’ve been asked not to go into sandboxes
You would still think they would have some test environment where they can test things, without making us having to try things repeatedly that fail
What can we do to help with this?
Greg has already sent this to Tom; Greg’s team wants to give this a bit more time to see if ExL can come up with some sort of positive movement
But is there a place where we have listed all of the things we’ve escalated and a current status, within the OT group?
The ones that we’ve brought to the support meetings are scattered in our notes
But would make sense to create a spreadsheet to track this
@Mallory Gianola will include on the agenda for next week’s OT Steering Committee meeting, a topic to discuss creating a spreadsheet to track all of the tickets we’ve escalated and their current status
3
Q & A Session - Including Questions on Slack since last meeting
Any questions from the team?
Questions from Slack?
10 mins
Team
Question from Sarah
Analytics Slack and opening it to outside of the Cohort
Sarah tried to add someone outside of the Cohort to the Analytics Slack and it didn’t work
There isn’t a way to open it to everyone; people have to be invited and then Caitlin, Gem, and Alison have to approve it
@Caitlin Nelson will take this back to SILS Ops Center to check-in
@Caitlin Nelson will write up a communication explaining how to add non-cohort people to the Analytics Slack Channel
From Jackie
Updating one role in a user account now changes the status date for all roles on a user account
Jackie plans to submit a ticket tomorrow, but wondering if other folks have seen it
Tom will look into this on his end and get back to Jackie
Jeremy tested this and he is not experiencing the same issue
Zach also isn’t experiencing this behavior but seconds that the status date is important
Greg isn’t seeing this issue
Lakshmi also isn’t seeing this issue
What is the risk in this?
We can’t accurately track when roles were assigned to folks
Can get it from the history, but this is harder to read through
Jackie will do some more investigating, looks like it’s a UCB problem; thanks all for checking
Saw it in both the manual and API setting
Jackie will update folks on Slack after doing more testing
@Caitlin Nelson will follow-up with the SILS Ops Center about the procedure for adding non-cohort folks to the SILS Analytics Slack Channel
@Caitlin Nelson will write up a communication explaining how to add non-cohort people to the SILS Analytics Slack Channel and send it out to the Cohort
4
Following-Up with Project Teams and Working Groups
Discuss plan for OT / OT-SC following-Up with Project Teams and Working Groups; determine process, calendar, etc.
10 mins
Tom
Jackie and Tom discussed this topic at last week’s OT-SC meeting; discussed whether a schedule would be helpful and how to do that schedule
Explored a quarterly meeting
Or regular written updates
Currently have three groups, might be adding a fourth
If we want them to report to OT to give updates, we could schedule this across three meetings
What do folks think?
Did we talk about having them come to All-Chairs?
Since they’re reporting to OT, it would make sense for them to come here
They’re working with some of the Subteams, so it would end up going to All-Chairs anyway
Written Updates would be the path of least resistance, but since we aren’t doing many updates, talking in person might be more useful
See how things are going, get an idea of affect
What about something between these two?
A monthly written update and a meeting
This could help meetings be shorter too
Would be nice if there was a template for the write-ups
Template could include milestones, etc.
Then when they meet with us, it would be more of a temperature check and only be like 10 minutes
Wouldn’t be too much of our meeting time, and would make it so we can see them fact to face
@Caitlin Nelson will find a template that might work for these updates, and share it out with OT to see if there is anything we would want to add/change
Quarterly should also be good
We should make it clear that if they want to meet with us, they can always ask for that
We are an escalation point; they shouldn’t have to wait for the quarterly meetings if they need to/want to meet with us
We also don’t want these reports to be duplicative work
Next steps:
We’ll look at the template that Caitlin provides, and then go from there
@Caitlin Nelson will find a template that might work for the Project Teams to use as a quarterly write-up update, and send that template to OT so the group can determine if there is anything we would want to add/change
5
Digital Collection Project Team report and conversation with Madelynn Dickerson from DCPT
Today is the last day that the DCPT will be meeting as a group
Did folks get a chance to read the report? Any questions or concerns that we need to take back to Madelynn?
There are some action items that will come out of the report that we will need to consider
The recommended next steps:
They’re encouraging that we create another team for sustained engagement in this area
They’re also asking for responses in the appendix area; questions they want to get some answers for
Was going to be a survey; recommending that we do still send out the survey and collect that information for whatever team decides to move on with this work
This would be a 5th project team
But we’re not on an implementation schedule, so doesn’t need to be a rushed job
Any thoughts on the report?
Are they recommending a whole new team, or are they willing to stay on?
Only had a 6-month charge and typically project teams have a 1-2 year commitment
Do we need a whole new team with a new charge and new roster? Or could this team continue this work for another 18-months?
Sounds like they were expecting another team to be spun up outside of them; some are willing to continue on though
Another part of it is changing the Charge; this was looking into the issues and figuring out the next steps
The new team would be enacting those next steps
It might end up being largely the same group of people
If they’re recommending a series of next steps, do they nominate anybody to do that work? Or does it come back to OT to determine who would be on the new team?
Madelynn might have a list of people who might be interested in continuing, but it’s not in this report
Who picks-up the ball, and is that OT? If it is OT, how do we make sure that ball is carry forward?
Tom would recommend spinning up another taskforce and project team that is more long term
DCPT is really hoping this gets intertwined into the existing structure
But who writes this charge, and puts together the structure for this new project team?
Is it a Subteam from OT who does this work?
This is a good question; would either be OT or LG, or both
This is something Tom or Todd can bring up to LG
It is a good idea to socialize this report with LG
This group was charged by Leadership in Phase 4
Would be good to have a couple of discussions about this report at different levels
Would be a good idea to notify LG that this report is coming out
Is possible LG will kick the report down to OT
Unless there is a sense of urgency from OT to do something quickly with the report
There was some discussion with Phase 4 Leadership about the extent and size of the issue
LG would be interested in learning what the outcomes were of this group
@Tom Bustos will send this report to LG via their Slack Channel today and have them look through it and have it on their topics to discuss at this week’s LG Steering Committee, and also discuss it at next Friday’s all LG meeting
There are notes on the Wiki about forming this group
There is history here worth noting; not sure if anyone in LG Steering Committee was part of Phase 4 Leadership
@Tom Bustos will send the Digital Collections Project Team Final Report to LG via their Slack Channel today and have them look through it and discuss it at this week’s LG Steering Committee meeting, as well as next Friday’s all LG meeting
Jackie put together a decision page for this in our Confluence
It is a draft, we can make adjustments to it
Would be good to finish up the decision page
Are we at a point where we are ready to vote and finalize this?
John gave some feedback on Slack from UCLA on June 14; has this been integrated?
From John:
Report is somewhat unclear. Some specific comments:
The first two headings in the Table of contents don't work.
Under "When to use it," I don't totally understand the difference between the two bullets. One says "If you suspect a local SILS-related component may be causing issues at other campuses," and the other one says "If you suspect a local SILS issue is also happening at another campus." How would most people know the difference? Are these the only two possibilities? (It seems framed as an either/or.)
The Example timeline of issue reporting is helpful–it would be nice to have something higher up in the document (in the tiered technical communications section maybe?) giving some guidance for what kinds of situations are level 1, 2, or 3.
Not sure if Jackie has integrated this feedback
@Caitlin Nelson will follow-up with Jackie on whether John’s feedback has been incorporated
We’ll hold off on voting for now
Everyone should take a look at the decision page to see if there is anything folks would want to change there
Any other notes folks have, feel free to add it to the Google Doc
Caitlin copied John’s feedback as a comment on the Google Doc
All of OT should take a look at the decision page to see if there is anything folks would want to change there; and if folks have any other notes they should add it to the System/Component Down Communication Path Google Doc
7
SILS Ops Center Housekeeping
Determine how to clean-up issues with some email addresses on the SILSNEWS-L
2 mins
Caitlin
On SILSNEWS-L, Caitlin has about 15 email addresses that are having issues
Can Caitlin send OT this list and ask folks to verify whether these folks have left, etc.?
Yes, everyone is okay with this
@Caitlin Nelson will send this list to OT so folks can give feedback about whether those employees are still at their respective institutions
8
Executive Session
Private discussion as needed
9
Parking Lot
Capture important topics for future discussion
Taking the Temperature Survey
Discuss Responses from Survey, particularly the What worries you? and What are you most excited about? sections
Communication with Subteams, Cohort, and Campuses
Need to create a page for System Down Reporting
10
Total
55 mins
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