Update from Stacey

I struggle to balance my desire to be a well-informed citizen with the weight of the national and international news. Most present on my mind recently, probably like many of you, has been the escalating war in Israel and Gaza. After reading the University-wide messages, I want to emphasize a few points.

We need to remember that we have members of our community directly impacted by this news and to provide flexibility and kindness. Staff, faculty, and students may have loved ones in that region, and they greet the news or their text messages with increasing dread. This prevents people from being able to pay the same level of attention to their work or studies. I encourage folks to take advantage of the many mental health resources we have available through the University.

President Ettinger also noted in his message that “our differences can heighten during times of crisis and conflict,” and that you are encouraged to report any bias incidents on campus to the Bias Response and Referral Network.

Finally, I was in conversation with someone whose daughter was stuck in Israel after her outbound flights to the U.S. were canceled. Thankfully, she was supported by Project Dynamo, along with several other U.S. citizens, and safely landed in the U.S. this weekend. As we think about making donations as part of the Community Fund Drive, I’m planning to contribute to the Tina Rovic Falkner Memorial Scholarship and make a donation to Project Dynamo as well.

ASR’s Best in Show: Community Fund Drive 2023

The Community Fund Drive is the University of Minnesota’s annual charitable giving campaign where employees can donate through payroll deduction or make a one-time donation. There are many ways to give, including donating to charities, nonprofits, and on-campus fundraising events.

ASR is participating in the fund drive by hosting ASR’s Best in Show! Yes, you read that right. We’re hosting a pet (or not-a-pet) contest! There are two ways to participate:

• Submitting a picture of you pet(s)
• Voting for your favorite pets with a cash donation

To submit your pet(s), complete the ASR’s Best in Show submission form. Each pet can compete in up to 3 different categories, ranging from the “best dressed” to the “best toe-beans”! The form will be available for submissions until November 2.

Voting will take place in person on Thursday, November 9 from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in Williamson 130J and 333D Bruininks Hall. You can cast your vote in each category by donating cash (and cash only). Winners will be determined by the total dollar amount of the “votes.” The donations will go toward the Twin Cities Student Success Fund. So come on in and vote for your favorite pet!

If you’re unable to come in person, you can still make donations to the Community Fund Drive online. If you want your donations to count towards the Best in Show votes, send a screenshot of your donation to asrcentral@umn.edu and include which photo(s) you would like to put the money towards.

Employee Engagement Survey

As a reminder, the Employee Engagement Survey became available on Monday, October 16 and will close on November 3. The link to the survey was sent from UofMNSurvey@qualtrics-survey.com and should be available to take in your inbox. The survey is the most consistent opportunity for you to share your feedback with ASR and the University. So please set aside 10-15 minutes to take the survey. 

When you take the survey, some of the questions will refer to terms such as your “department” or “college leadership.” Since ASR is not structured like a college, please use the following definitions when filling out the survey:

• Campus – Twin Cities
• College leadership – ASR directors
• Department – Your ASR department (OCM, OTR, OSF, ASR IT, One Stop, OSI)
• Manager – Your direct supervisor (person who does your performance review)

Project Request and Prioritization process

We are pleased to announce the launch of the ASR project request and prioritization process! Moving forward, all projects must be submitted via the Project Request for consideration. The guidelines for submission and process details can be found on the ASR Staff Site. Anyone is welcome to submit a project request, but we recommend that your leadership is aligned with the proposed project before submitting the request.

Project requests will be prioritized by the ASR Directors on a quarterly basis. However, it is encouraged to submit a project request as soon as you have the details. This will provide ample time to gather information and provide early visibility into potential projects.

Upcoming quarter dates and deadlines:

• Deadline for project requests is December 15, 2023
• Project prioritization meeting is scheduled for January 10, 2024
• Quarterly planning period begins on February 5, 2024

An overview of the new project request and prioritization process will be presented at next week’s All-Staff Meeting with time set aside for questions. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to osi-projects@umn.edu with any questions or concerns.

Operations & Strategic Initiatives

Operations

• Annual review of our Williamson Hall building emergency plan and ASR’s Continuity of Operations plan is happening.
• The annual space survey was completed last week. Each year departments are asked to look at the space they are responsible for and ensure that everything is accounted for accurately. 

Projects

• Completed the New American Indian Scholars Program workflow in Jadu and it is ready for launch.
• The Projects team is providing project management coaching for lead staff working on the FAFSA Simplification project through the launch in spring 2024.
• We continue to partner with the ASR Application Development team to provide ongoing UX & Business Analysis to support their work intake and refinement.
• The Projects team has taken on the OIT PI Planning coordination efforts for ASR. We have been meeting with all ASR-IT and business unit teams to ensure our collaborative efforts with OIT are submitted to the appropriate OIT agile team for prioritization in the coming quarter. 

Training

• To coincide with the Coursedog launch, OSI Training created four new training courses that teach Coursedog authors and approvers across the University the basics of the new system.
• OSI Training is beginning to create an updated online FERPA training.

UX & Content Strategy

• The team has been supporting the FAFSA Simplification effort mandated by changes at the federal level. There are many changes related to terminology, so a thorough review of forms, emails, and web content is underway. The team is also helping ensure that students and families are aware of the changes and this year’s delayed availability of the FAFSA form. 
• Following a redesign of the DORS website, an awareness campaign was kicked off so that the campus community is aware of the benefits of using DORS. This effort is based on feedback from users saying they wished more people knew about DORS. 
• The 2022-2023 annual report process has kicked off. This is an update of a publication initiated for the previous academic year (linked on the ASR website homepage). An area of focus for this year’s project is documenting the sources of data we publish. 
• We’re also starting a content review of the One Stop website. This annual process ensures that all the content is accurate and trustworthy.

WorkflowGen retirement update

The work to retire ASR WorkflowGen (WFG) processes is well underway. ASR units have been hard at work planning, analyzing, and developing solutions for our WorkflowGen processes. ASR currently still supports 22 active processes in WFG, and we’ve already transitioned/retired 6 processes from our portfolio over the past several months. OIT has provided further details about the necessity for retirement of WorkflowGen from central IT support and planning, which is based on:

• The lack of IT specialists within business units to build and maintain the complex development of their WFG processes
• WFG’s reliance on older, unsupported .net technologies 
• The need for significant OIT technical resources due to WFG’s frequent performance failures 
• Data security constraints
• WFG being out of compliance with UMN Accessibility standards for WCAG 2.1 AA

ASR’s work to retire our WFG processes is critical to the success of the overall project, and we appreciate the time and effort that ASR staff is committing to this work. For details about ASR’s processes and progress, see our WorkflowGen Retirement Status Update.

Change of College update and terminology review

In the summer of 2023, representatives from OUE and ASR collaborated to improve change of college (internally known as ICT—Intra Campus Transfer) processes and definitions. The ICT working group asked the ASR UX & Content Strategy team for assistance on this project. So far, the team has helped with:

• Journey mapping
• Conducting advisor and transfer advisor interviews
• Gathering transfer-related Google Analytics information
• Organizing and managing a UX team content plan
• Participating in weekly ICT working group meetings
• Developing a terminology review worksheet and working with Usability Services

Gathering student feedback is crucial when altering a student-facing process. The UX team partnered with Usability Services to conduct a terminology review with over 100 student participants. These results will impact how the ICT working group defines the change of college process for both students and staff. The ICT group aims to share this improved definition and process by early November 2023.