Completed Projects

What was the Project About? 

Aligned with the University’s Policy and Procedure for Blended Working, which was signed off by Governing Authority, highlighted the need for a Blended Working Application Form.  

In partnership with Human Resources, ITD delivered the online application form to enable our staff to submit their Blended Working request. As part of the solution, there are approvals and e-mail notifications in place as well as reporting and tracking functionality. 

There are three key components to the Blended Working Application Form: 

1. Ability to complete & submit the online form (PowerApps).  

2. Ability to assign the online form to your Line Manager for approval, triggering approval e-mails (PowerAutomate). 

3. Reporting – This captures a full audit trail of the process, including the respective data fields, date and timestamps (Sharepoint Online). 

What did this mean for you? 

In compliance with the Policy and Procedure for Blended Working, if you wish to be considered for a Blended Working model you will need to complete the online application. The link to the online application is as follows. 

What’s the project about? 

In early 2021, the Executive Committee approved the principle of introducing an up-to-date, agile communications platform for staff, an intranet. The University has grown exponentially since its foundation and the move to a blended working model, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, increased the need to bring staff and ideas together in a central online space.  

Following on from this Executive Committee meeting, more detailed scoping of the proposed provider followed, which led to the deployment of ULConnect.  

What does it mean for you? 

The platform is a tool that enables you to inform, engage and collaborate more effectively. It allows you to post, read and share content & videos seamlessly, leading to an open and instant connection with our peers. UL Connect has vastly reduced the large volumes of non-work related e-mails, which instead have been replaced by activity feeds in their respective Spaces. 

In a time of blended working, there was no greater need than to streamline our communications across the campus, with that, UL Connect continues to grow each day, currently hosting up to 1,400 active users per day. If you have not accessed UL Connect yet, please click on the following link.  

Status

The project is now completed. 

What is the project about? 

As a part of the University’s digital transformation, colleagues in OVPR, ITD and Finance worked on the development of the Research Proposal Authorisation System (RPAS), which provides a digital solution to support the research pre-award funding process at UL. 

What does it mean for you? 

RPAS allows submission, collaboration, progress tracking, review, management and approval of the pre-award research funding applications. With the introduction of RPAS, this new workflow replaces the paper process - Proposal Authorisation Form (PAF). 

This project has enabled users to trace the application at any stage and will allow tailored research support through early engagement and communications around the development of research funding proposals. Research Support Services can manage and report on the applications throughout the process from development to award status. 

The platform will also offer a Collaboration Workspace for users to enable more efficient communication across the UL parties involved in developing, supporting, and approving research proposals. The new solution will decrease the volume of emails and will introduce a more transparent information flow and record management system.  

Status

The overall project is fully complete.  

What’s the Project About? 

Following on from an initial proof of concept, the scope of this project was to deliver an Online Form and Workflow solution that catered for all type of recruitment packs including: 

• Academic & Support Staff 

• Administration 
• Research 
• Research (Fellowship) 
• Short Term Contract \ Hourly \ Unijobs 

The online platform has replaced existing, manual, paper-based form processes. The solution will help drive efficiencies by reducing the time and effort of processing paper forms. There are three key components to the Online Recruitment Packs: 

1. Ability to complete & submit Online Forms (PowerApps).  
2. Ability to assign the Online Form through the various stages of the given approval process electronically, triggering approval e-mails (PowerAutomate). 
3. Reporting – This captures the status of a process, who currently owns the process as well as capturing the full audit trail of the process, including the respective data fields, date and time stamps (Sharepoint Online). 

What does this mean for you? 

Staff across the campus will now need to submit their upcoming packs by using the online solution. This will enable the staff member to track their pack using the online tracker so they will always have full visibility of the approval lifecycle. The solution also offers the use of Templates for commonly used packs, Sharing and Co-authoring, while it also offers staff members to Copy existing. Access to Online Recruitment Packs can found through the following link. 

Status 

This project is now officially closed.  

What is the Project About? 
In April 2021, ITD implemented a digital COVID-19 Day-Pass Portal, as part of the University’s COVID-19 Prevention and Control measures. The Portal was initially introduced on a pilot basis, in order to further strengthen COVID-19 protocols that were already in place and ultimately help prevent the spread of COVID-19 within the UL campus community. The Portal provided a means of reassuring staff, particularly student-facing staff, that the students present did not have any symptoms of COVID-19. 

What does it mean for our Students? 
During the Pilot phase, Students were requested to show their Day-Pass on a daily basis when gaining access to the Library, Lectures and Modules. The wider Pilot ended on May 17th 2021, however the the COVID-19 Day-Pass Portal is still being utilised by a cohort of Students attending Clinical Placement. There was additional added value for our colleagues within the School of Medicine and Nursing & Midwifery, who are leveraging the Day-Pass reporting, which is driving efficiencies within those areas on a daily basis, replacing manual paper processes. 

Status 
The overall project is fully complete.

Project Name:  University of Limerick Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) & Self Service Password Reset (SSPR) for Students & Staff 

What’s the project about?
Multifactor Authentication (MFA) is a security system that requires more than one method of authentication from an independent source, to verify the user's identity for a logon or other transaction.

The University of Limerick had been subject to a number of security attacks on student Microsoft Services over the last year. These attacks pose a major risk to our networks and computer systems, while they also have the potential to compromise critical systems and lead to data protection issues.

The deployment of Multifactor Authentication had been recommended by the Data Protection Commission, as outlined in GDPR guidelines to enhance security processes and minimise the impact of phishing cyber-attacks. This project was one of an overall set of security measures being deployed by the University of Limerick.

In conjunction with MFA, Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) was enabled for both students & staff. This was a change of scope to the project, however, it allows students and staff to reset their UL computer account password anywhere, anytime without the need to contact the ITD Service Desk.  Self-Service Password Reset can be used if users have forgotten their password, need to change their password, while also giving them the ability to unlock their own account.

What does it mean for Students & Staff?
Students and staff with a University of Limerick Microsoft 365 account, are now periodically requested for MFA when accessing Microsoft 365 services, e.g. Email, One Drive, Teams, and SharePoint when connecting to the network remotely. Students are not yet requested for MFA while located in the Student Villages or while on Campus, however going forward they will be, in order to tighten the University of Limerick security posture.  

Status?

The project is now closed. All Students & Staff are enabled for MFA & SSPR. The combined registration experience (One authentication for both MFA & SSPR) has also been implemented. 

Project Name: Radius Implementation for GPS

What is the project about?
As part of its strategy, the University of Limerick aims to increase the number of postgraduate, professional studies and international students. The importance of engaging with and maintaining relationships with prospective students, international agents/partners and industry contacts is key to the conversion of applicants into students.

To support this strategy, ITD, working in partnership with Graduate Professional Studies (GPS) and UL Global (ULG), have deployed a CRM system (Radius) for select groups of applicants in the student admissions lifecycle. A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System is a technology product, used by companies to help manage interactions with current and potential customers. Radius is a leading cloud-based CRM System, which is used by universities throughout the world to develop a communications and engagement strategy with prospective students.  

What does it mean for you?
This project provides a technology tool to help the Graduate Professional Studies (GPS) and UL Global (ULG) teams to develop a communications and engagement strategy with prospective students, from the application stage through to student registration. Applicants will receive an enhanced experience from their interactions with the University of Limerick. 

Status?
A new integration process from SI to Radius (via the ITD managed Business Intelligence Data Warehouse) has been successfully developed and implemented. Throughout August and September, select post-offer communications campaigns for taught postgraduate programmes, taught professional education programmes and Non-EU applicants to undergraduate full-time programmes were managed on Radius. The project team are now working to define the requirements from the broader GPS and ULG teams for the future rollout of Radius functionality. Implementation of future requirements will be resourced as a separate project activity over the coming months.

The project is in the Execute Phase, status Green. 

Project Name - TOPdesk Implementation – Academic Registry

What is the Project About?
The objective of this project was to implement TOPdesk (UL’s ticketing solution) into the Academic Registry Division. The solution, which is widely used in ITD, will help the Academic Registry area to manage their services. It will enable them to track and record all issues and queries logged by our Students, which will drive efficiencies within the service for both Students and Staff.

What does it mean for our Students?
The solution will deliver a seamless and enhanced experience for our Students. Students now have the ability to log their own support call using Student Hub Online which is the TOPdesk self-service portal. Student Hub Online will also allow the Student to view and update their existing calls, while they will also have the capability of viewing FAQs & Knowledge items. Student calls can also be assigned between Academic Registry and ITD which will also deliver a better experience for our Students.  

Status
The overall project is fully completed.

Project Name - MS Teams & Desk Phone Integration

What’s the project about?

The University of Limerick are currently using Microsoft Teams for collaboration and the purpose of this project is to integrate the current desk phone system in UL with Microsoft teams. It will provide a soft phone to allow internal & external calls through MS Teams for a limited number of users in response to the COVID-19 remote working environment.

What does it mean for you?

Staff members who have been migrated will have a similar experience as if they were in the office using a desk phone. However, all calls both inbound & outbound will be routed through their laptop via Microsoft teams. This will allow staff to make and receive calls while working from home, or moving between different work area’s while in UL. It maintains all the features that are currently available on your desk phone.

Status

The overall project is now live, status Green.

Project Name - Student COVID-19 Request

What was the Project About?

As part of our COVID-19 Prevention and Control measures, the University, in conjunction and led by the HSE, developed a fantastic initiative to swab-test as many students as possible for COVID-19 in the direct locality surrounding UL.

In alignment with our Medical, HR, Marketing & Communications and Buildings & Estates colleagues, ITD were very much at the forefront in developing and providing the solution to manage the uptake of the student requests.

ITD provided a digital system, which enabled our colleagues in the HSE to input the uptake of students into their HSE systems, in an efficient, secure and GDPR compliant manner.

What did this mean for our Students?

Although, the Student COVID-19 Request initiative was not a mandatory requirement, over an eight day period, as many as 1,062 students submitted a COVID-19 Request prior to Christmas.

The initiative was repeated in February, in what was a further attempt to curb the spread of the virus. Again, the take up from our students was fantastic, with 894 students requesting a COVID-19 swab test.

Status & Success Metric

Phase 1 of the Project is now officially Closed.  

What’s the project about?

“Panopto” is the leading video content management system for Higher Education and has been selected by the University of Limerick, with a campus wide license secured in August 2020.

ITD purchased recording equipment for lecture capture, with over one hundred and twenty teaching spaces now equipped with recording facilities. In addition, Aver Advanced Tracking Cameras have been deployed within 11 large lecture theatres which enables the camera to track your movement with AI technology to easily detect the teaching areas.

ITD also purchased mobile video and audio recording kits, which can be used in non-standard teaching spaces to record hi-quality audio and video resources. Each kit consists of high-end recording technology, which have been allocated to faculty technologist. 

What does it mean for you? 

For staff:

• Record video content from any PC, Mac or mobile device and is available in primary teaching spaces on Campus.
• Full control of the recording process (on-screen presentation with audio\video camera).
• Recordings can be edited and slides can be attached with interactive quizzes.
• Playlists can be created to easily group related recordings for your students.
• Recorded content is shared in a secure manner and Staff have control over when a resource is shared and with whom.
• Assignment folders can be setup in Sulis where students can simply, and securely, upload their video assignments for review.

For students:

• Panopto provides a simpler method of accessing video content.
• Video recording will be available for viewing directly in Sulis. The online web player is compatible with all PC, Mac and mobile devices.
• Access to any video shared in their video library.
• Ability to review key sections of the lecture recordings to assist in the learning process.
• Easily search any video for specific words or phrases, enabling Students to quickly find relevant information.
• Ability to change the video quality & playback speed based on their own specific needs and broadband connection speed. 

Status?
The project has now been fully completed.

Further information on Panopto is available on TOPdesk portal and also on the LTF Website. 

Project Name - Data Centre Equipment Upgrade

What’s the Project About?
Virtualisation of UL Data Centre to new fit for purpose fully virtualised Vxrail servers, which also includes a new Commvault data backup solution. This delivers a world-class, secure, tried and tested solution that underpins the University’s digital transformation.

What does the Project Mean for You?
This project included the data centre migration, installation of large-scale changes, including virtualisation of fully supported hardware, to provide stability of our key systems running on the UL platform. This solution will improve its capabilities, performance, efficiency and scalability. It will also safeguard the University’s data retrieval process going forward.

70 legacy servers and backup units have been decommissioned, this will deliver significant savings on power consumption to the Campus, while also improving service availability.  

Status?
This project is now completed and closed since January 2021  

The overall project is now Closed, status Green.

Project Name: - Cloud Desktop Transformation Project

What’s the project about?
The University of Limerick are implementing a Windows Virtual App & Desktop solution to provide additional remote access for students and staff to digital services. Currently, remote access to IT services is provided by a VPN (Virtual Private Network) solution. 

The purpose of this project is to implement a solution to allow staff and students to access their desktop and applications located on a remote server, from anywhere, on any endpoint device. The project will initially focus on a defined set of pilot users and will be rolled out to additional users based on the results from the pilot.   

What does it mean for you?
This project will enable students to access software or applications, which are currently available in the ITD managed campus labs, via a remote virtual solution. Staff will be able to access applications such as Agresso and Core HR, and shared drives, from any remote location without having to leverage the VPN solution or connect to a campus-based device. 

Status?
A pilot group of approximately 100 staff and student users have been set up with the solution. The feedback has been very positive to date. Testing has, however, highlighted performance issues with the SI application in the virtual environment and therefore cannot be supported by the solution. It has recently been agreed that Windows Virtual App & Desktop solution will be the default method for accessing Core HR and Agresso for new staff and the project team are currently working to implement this direction. A decision on the future rollout of the solution will be taken at a later time.  

The project is in the Execute Phase, status Green. 

Project Name - University of Limerick Office 365 Migration Project

What’s the project about?

• The legacy University of Limerick Microsoft environment had a combination of on-campus exchange servers for staff email and an Office 365 environment services for student email and data and some staff data. The legacy 365 environment was not suitable for the current needs of the university. 
• As part of the University of Limerick Office 365 project, a new single Office 365 environment was set up under which all student and staff Microsoft services and data now reside.
• The project has provided an expanded set of Microsoft Services, enhanced security for all users across the systems, enabled better collaboration and information staring between students and staff and facilitated the retirement of legacy IT infrastructure and legacy software.

What does it mean for you?
As part of the project, staff One Drive, One Note and email data has moved to the new consolidated University Microsoft Environment. Student Microsoft accounts have also been set up in the new Microsoft environment. This allows enhanced collaboration between students and staff through Teams, Stream and One Drive. Any shared links now contains ‘ULCampus’ as opposed to ‘Studentmailul’.

Status?
The project is fully complete. 

Project Name - University of Limerick Multi Factor Authentication(MFA) for staff MS 365 Services

What’s the project about? 
Historically, the University of Limerick has been subject to a number of security attacks on Microsoft Services.  These attacks pose a major risk to our networks and computer systems and have the potential to compromise critical applications and cause data protection issues. ITD have recently completed the deployment of Multifactor Authentication which has enhanced the security processes and helped minimise the impact of cyber-attacks. This project is one of an overall set of security measures being deployed by the University of Limerick.

Multifactor Authentication (MFA) is a security system that requires more than one method of authentication from an independent source to verify the user's identity for a login or other transaction. MFA is an effective control to insulate against remote attacks and has been recommended by the Data Protection Commission.  

What does it mean for you?
Staff and affiliates with a University of Limerick Microsoft 365 account are now periodically challenged for MFA when accessing Microsoft 365 services, e.g., Email, One Drive, Teams, and SharePoint when connecting to the network remotely.  

Status?
The project is complete. All staff and affiliates are enabled for MFA.

Project Name - SharePoint Migration to Office 365

What was the Project?

SharePoint 365 is a document storage and management system, utilised for collaboration & communication and a range of other purposes. A cloud-based service, hosted by Microsoft for businesses of all sizes and is used by organisations all over the world.

The project objective was to migrate your department’s data from your existing SharePoint 2010 environment to SharePoint 365.  The end vision for this project was to provide a stable and secure solution, that can facilitate intelligent content management and a modern user experience for staff. After 18 months and 11 migration waves, ITD are pleased to announce the successful completion of the SharePoint Online Migration project. 

What does it mean for you?

A key project in Phase 1 of the UL Enable strategy, SharePoint 365 is now delivering a powerful document management and collaboration system for Staff across the University. As part of the broader Office365 suite, this solution offers the potential to provide even greater value as a high impact business application platform, supporting the University’s accelerated digital evolution.

In the past 18 months, engagement with SharePoint has skyrocketed and the move to remote working has driven user adoption across the UL campus. 750 SharePoint sites have been created to date and SharePoint data has tripled to 3TB, as the University begins to harness the full collaborative capabilities of the platform.

Delivered in partnership with Digital Transformation Programme specialists; Central Solutions, the ITD department has engaged with 35 Faculties and Departments, 5 schools, 8 affiliates and 31 administration departments since January 2020. The team has migrated almost 1TB in data and over 120 departmental sites from on-premise to a cloud-based solution. 

Staff now have a modern workplace platform for document collaboration, with the following benefits:

• Can be accessed anywhere, any time
• Platform that is built for team work and enhanced collaboration
• Improved Information and SharePoint Governance
• Seamless Integration with other Office 365 products
• Work with colleagues on same document at the same time
• Search for anything you need
• Version History of all documents 

Training Materials are available; UL SharePoint 365 Training Centre 

Status?The overall project is fully complete.

What’s the Project About?

The University of Limerick had a combination of both Windows 7 and Windows 10 devices. Windows 7 is no longer a supported model from Microsoft. Due to Covid-19, the University decided that best practice was to purchase laptops instead of desktops, which reduced the number of desktops that required upgrading. 

What does the Project Mean for You?

Microsoft support for Windows 7 ended on January 14, 2020, however the University of Limerick purchased extended support from Microsoft, to upgrade all relevant hardware by 14th January 2022.

After that date, Microsoft no longer provided security updates or support for PCs running Windows 7, any device still running this version of Windows will become more vulnerable to security risks.

All staff that were using a UL Managed Windows 7 device had been contacted by the Project Team, requesting them to back up their data and either upgrade or replace their Windows 7 device. 

Status

Through the lifecycle of the project, over 1,000 devices were successfully upgraded/replaced, while all inactive devices have been removed from Active Directory. 

The overall project is now closed.