Tony's Tech Terms: Splunk

Splunk is an OIT-supported tool that helps us keep an eye on our applications by collecting and organizing the detailed "logs" our apps generate. When our applications run, they create a record of their activities, known as a log entry, which captures everything from normal operations to errors. 

Splunk gathers all these entries into one place, making it easier to track application performance and troubleshoot issues. By using Splunk, we don’t have to sift through logs manually to find problems—we can instead set up automated alerts that notify us whenever something unexpected happens.

With these alerts, we can quickly respond to issues. For example, if an application keeps erroring under certain conditions, Splunk can detect this recurring error and immediately alert us. This real-time notification system helps ensure that problems are identified and addressed right away, reducing downtime and keeping applications running smoothly.

ASR Staff Engagement October 31st Survey

This week’s ASR Engagement Survey continues our fall season theme. Thank you for continuing to share your stories and experiences.

According to the last survey, 44.4% of respondents do not like scary movies, followed by 29.6% who sometimes like them and 25.9% who do like them. When asked about your favorite soups to have during the fall season, butternut squash soup, pho, and chicken wild rice soup were mentioned most frequently.

In addition, most staff are not planning to take a trip to see fall colors (60.7%) followed by 25% who are planning to take a trip. Thanks all for your continued participation! It is very much appreciated.

October 17th survey results

Do you enjoy scary movies?

·       Yes (25.9%)

·       No (44.4%)

·       Sometimes (29.6%)

What's your favorite type of soup to have during the Fall season?

·      Chicken Wild Rice

·      Red Thai Curry soup, or pho (but pho is literally the best soup any time of year)

·      Butternut squash

·      Matzo Ball

·      Beef Barley

Are you planning to take a trip somewhere to see the changing Fall colors?

·       Yes (25%)

·       No (60.7%)

·       I’m not sure (14.3%)

Upcoming project request deadlines

Now that prioritization for Q2 FY25 (November-January) is complete, we will begin reviewing project requests for Q3 FY25 (February-April) and beyond. Please submit project requests as early as possible to allow time for review. Full details of the project request process and additional resources are available on the ASR Staff Site.

Dates and deadlines for Q3 FY25:

1. Project request deadline: December 5, 2024

2. Project prioritization meeting: January 9, 2025

3. Start of quarterly planning period: February 2, 2025

Complete ASR Planning Calendar

Please feel free to reach out to osi-projects@umn.edu with any questions or concerns as you go through the project request process.

Digital Playground kickoff on 11/13

Join Pete Fleenor on Wednesday, November 13 from 9:30 to 10:00 a.m. as we kick off the new monthly “Digital Playground” series. These optional professional development sessions will focus on growing your technology skills and knowledge. The first session will focus on Gmail and how to organize, maintain, and utilize some of the tools that are available. We will cover both basic and more advanced features of Gmail, so all levels of learners are welcome and encouraged to attend. Bring questions that you may already have about Gmail or feel free to message Pete ahead of time. 

Join the session via Zoom. The session will be recorded and shared with those that cannot attend. December’s session will be an Open Forum, and you can also schedule a 1:1 time to talk about tech-related questions that you have. 

To stay in the loop on Digital Playground, join the Google Group. If you have questions contact Pete at fleen010@umn.edu.

Open Enrollment for Benefits

Open enrollment for 2025 benefits begins tomorrow, November 1 and ends on December 2. There are resources available to help prepare you for making benefits selections that best meet your need:  

• The Open Enrollment webpage is where you can learn about changes for 2025, get a refresher on what benefits are available and where to research those options, determine whether or not you need to enroll this year, and read enrollment instructions.

• You can attend an Open Enrollment Webinar at noon on November 1 to learn more about how Open Enrollment works and what your benefit options are at the University. You can register using this link or find a link to the recording on the Open Enrollment webpage. 

When making your selections, make sure that you click “Submit” and then “Done” in the pop-up window to finalize your enrollment (otherwise they won’t be officially entered). Once submitted, you can check your choices by going back into the My Benefits section of MyU and clicking “Confirmation Statement.” You can make changes until the last day (December 2). 

If you experience difficulty enrolling or have questions, the OHR Contact Center is available to help. You can email benefits@umn.edu, or call 612-624-8647 or 1-800-756-2363 and select option 1.

Update from Stacey

 

Update from Stacey

Every other fall, the University conducts an Employee Engagement (E2) survey of all employees and provides results to supervisors. We are at roughly the mid-point between surveys, so it’s a useful time for ASR to reflect on our survey results and employee engagement efforts that have happened since fall 2023. Employee engagement work is important to our organizational health and making sure ASR is a high quality workplace. While imperfect, I think the survey provides us with important feedback and metrics, and a good incentive to stop and reflect also. 

Each unit in ASR has reviewed its E2 results and has plans in motion. The Office of the Registrar has conducted feedback sessions with staff and has a small working group making recommendations to its managers. Both One Stop and ASR-IT have done mini-surveys to get some more detail to inform particular efforts. Some units including Operations & Strategic Initiatives are using regular meetings to focus on DEI topics and other areas of note from the survey.

On an ASR-wide level, there have been a few initiatives related to E2, whether created specifically because of E2 or other needs in ASR. As always, we look at the alignment of our organization, teams, and processes in an effort to be efficient and support employees. What’s changed since fall 2023? The development of our project intake and prioritization process and implementation of ClickUp is directly related to feedback from the survey—I see these as key parts of our ability to say “no” to work or defer work that does not fit, creating transparency about what we are able to get done, and what teams across ASR are working on.

Another way we support employee engagement is by having effective supervisors—Natasha, Amber, and Carin have formed supervisory development cohorts to promote discussion and sharing of best practices on a variety of topics (e.g., hiring practices, coaching and giving feedback) across ASR units. As an organization it is important that we cultivate the knowledge and skills for success and develop our supervisors and future leaders.

Update from Stacey

October is the season of Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) meetings, where participants gather with their peers across member institutions to discuss pressing issues and learn from one another. In ASR, we participate in BTAA meetings for financial aid, bursars, privacy officers, and registrars (I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone!). Last week, I had the pleasure of traveling with a few OTR staff for the registrars meeting hosted on the Purdue campus. I always appreciate getting inspiration for some business improvements as well as the reminder that we are doing so many things right.

Sarah Kussow got a special tour of some classroom spaces, and we discussed alternative credentials and microcredentials. We also shared our wisdom with schools starting a one stop office for students, and discussed numerous detailed processes. If you would like to know what peer institutions are doing, talk to your unit director for ideas on how to connect through the BTAA or other professional organizations. I’ve found immense benefit from these opportunities.