ISO Newsletter, Issue No. 2

Abstract

Home Newsletter Issue 2 Strategic Direction of ISO STRATEGIC DIRECTION OF ISO To start with, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our colleagues in various Schools/Offices for their participation, contribution and hard work in the information systems projects delivered in the past year.

The strategic focus of ISO in the coming year is summarized in the following IMPACTS model.

IMPACTS

Your continued support in the ongoing Enterprise Information Systems digital transformation journey is appreciated. If you have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to write to me (isderryfong@ust.hk) or our ISO support (issupprt@ust.hk).

Derry Fong

Director of Information Systems

September 2020

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BENEFITS / COSTS JUSTIFICATIONS FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROJECTS Our information system (IS) projects need to be justified and ISO needs the concerted effort of business owners to prioritize our IS projects

BENEFITS

The demand for information system services is ever increasing and ISO’s resources are limited. In the University Administrative Meeting held in March 2020, the President emphasized that benefit delivery is the key and an important angle for the University to prioritize the Information Systems projects/tasks. IS projects should offer substantive evidence showing where and how the University have streamlined and improved.

Benefits Justifications Sub-committee, under the University Information Systems Steering Committee, has discussed and set guidelines that IS projects should be categorized as Strategic, Compliance, User Experience Improvement and/or Operational Efficiency/Feature Enhancement projects. IS project should be attached with a primary category if the project falls into more than one category. The Sub-committee also set guidelines on ISO’s manpower resources allocation against different categories of projects. Some quantifiable benefits were discussed, including FTE savings, savings in paper etc.. The Sub-committee believes that these justifications should be pre-determined, agreed with the business owners and used as the factors for prioritizing projects in the pipeline.

ISO will work hand in hand with the business owners in all upcoming projects.

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A BRAND NEW MOBILE RESPONSIVE ADMIN INTRANET A brand new Admin Intranet https://my-ai.ust.hk is available now to provide a better user experience, via your desktop and mobile device.

Our current admin intranet has been revamped with better user experience in mind. With just a few clicks, you can now create your own "My Shortcuts" to any of our preset functions and administrative functions published in our admin intranet. And with just a few keywords under search, you can retrieve your frequently used functions. In addition to these handy features, "My Worklist" alerts you any approvals pending your decision (*now only restricted to Leave Approval and more will be coming) and "My request" alerts you any requests you have submitted to your approvers (*now only restricted to Leave Applications and more will be coming).

Do visit the site and enjoy the new look and experience and let us know your feedback via https://my-ai.ust.hk/feedback.

You can access the site https://training.ust.hk/courses/others/my-admin-intranet-user-manual for the training guides or the recorded video on how to use the Admin Intranet. Alternatively, you can join the online training session via the link below

Date: 8 Sep 2020 Time: 15:30-16:00 Zoom Meeting link: https://hkust.zoom.us/j/93288977776?pwd=N2RURjBaenNsRXB6Tkc0NmgyNUsxUT09

If you would like to know more about this solution, please email to issupprt@ust.hk.

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UNIVERSITY MOBILE APPS STRATEGY – A NEW HKUST STAFF MOBILE APP In mid-August 2020, HRO officially announced that leave applications and leave balance inquiry functions were added to the existing Staff Mobile App and recently, it was enhanced from our latest version of 2.2.0 onward to support Touch/Face ID and work with your mobile phone's biometric security feature.

Apart from the online leave platform, staff members can now submit some of the leave applications via the “HKUST Staff” Mobile App with immediate effect.

With this new launch, application and approval for 3 types of leave - Annual Leave, Sick Leave and Special Leave - can be handled by the mobile app in one go.

For IOS users, simply search in the app store for “HKUST Staff” or open below link at your mobile browser to download the app:

App Store <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hkust-staff/id1351121804>

Important note for iOS users: If you have an old version of the HKUST Staff app on your phone, you are advised to completely uninstall your existing HKUST Staff app and follow the download instructions to install the latest release of from the app store.

For Android users, simply search in the google play for “HKUST Staff” or open below link at your mobile browser to download the app:

Google Play <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=hk.ust.staffapp&hl=en>

Similar to the web-based platform, the mobile app also provides an upload function for colleagues to submit relevant documents with ease and at their convenience (e.g. medical certificate, supporting documents, etc.) when required.

ISO is now working on a major revamp of the mobile staff app. In October 2020 onwards, the new app will deliver brand new and improved user experience with more functionalities. It will come with a digital staff card, an access to HRO employee self-service, a new look to apply and approve leave applications, a new way to approve expense claim and travel applications, eForms submissions, sports facilities booking and a new channel to receive university event update, push notifications etc.

If you would like to know more about this solution, please email to issupprt@ust.hk.

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SINGLE CAS (USER ID/PASSWORD) LOGIN A simpler user login to our administrative systems will be available soon.

We are working closely with ITSC to enable a simpler user id/password login mechanism. With the new mechanism, you will be prompted for a CAS login to verify your staff identity. As long as your valid staff login session is active, when accessing ISO administrative systems, the usual secondary login prompt will not pop up. You are still required to pass the DUO two-factor authentication. In a private and non-shared device, and if your browser supports, you may save your DUO session key for 21 days that may streamline your login process (i.e. you are not required to pass through the DUO two-factor authentication within the 21-day grace period).

If you would like to know more about this solution, please email to issupprt@ust.hk.

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API Getting real-time access to information under Single Source of Truth is ISO’s established system design principles.

ISO has developed around 100 APIs over the past few years for the private use within the University community. They are used to retrieve data of core administrative systems and they are custom-made for specific user departments who have no direct access to the backend systems or little knowledge of the backend; and they are developed when ISO wants to implement the Single Source of Truth strategy and integrate systems with a more sustainable approach.

User departments are welcomed to discuss with ISO if the data they want could be delivered via APIs and ISO would either build new, or modify existing ones to suit the needs.

So far, around 20 API are shared amongst different schools / user departments for their applications, in particular those relevant to student and staff basic and transaction data. User departments will be granted the API access after the proper approval by the data owner, taking into account the conformance to personal data privacy concerns where applicable.

All APIs are now documented in accordance with ISO's internal standard. ISO also has a plan to work with ITSC in making use of their API documentation portal for publishing our common APIs documentation before the end of 2020 so that users can learn more the use and capability of those APIs. So please stay tuned.

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EFORM - A STRATEGIC INITIATIVE TO GO PAPERLESS In early 2020, ISO has launched a new eForm platform, FlowPortal eForm, to help transform the existing paper forms to digital forms. ISO is now working with various departments such as Provost, DAO, ARO, PURO, HSEO, FO, HRO, FYTGS etc. and we aim at launching 45 forms by December 2020 and another 25 forms by June 2021, based on the benefits/efforts justifications to determine the priorities.

Meantime, ITSC is promoting another Microsoft eForm platform for end users and has already arranged and will continue arranging trainings to end users. With these trainings, hopefully end users can manage the Microsoft technology based eForm platform to develop simple operational forms which do not require sophisticated integration to backend systems. The developed forms would also support basic workflow to streamline the daily operations.

If you would like to know more about this solution, please email to issupprt@ust.hk.

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AUTOMATION OF E-TENDERING PROCESSES In May 2020, PURO launched the end-to-end paperless e-tendering and Tender Recommendation system. Since then, over 200 tenders have been adopting these new processes.

In the past, the whole tender process, from tender issuance, to manual submission of proposals into our physical tender box, to tender opening, tender evaluation by panel members, to award of contract and to subsequent retrieval of documents, is a manual one. It was a big challenge to PURO to enhance the efficiency of the whole tender process. Particularly when there was bulk volume of sensitive and paper documents being involved.

ISO has worked with PURO to overcome this challenge through a tight integration of our in-house developed e-tendering solution with eForm and our ECM (Document Management system). While the eForm enhances the workflow of the tender evaluation and recommendation process in a paperless environment, the ECM stores the digital tender reply copies in a secure environment under proper access control together with a document search feature.

Meanwhile, PURO is working with ISO to migrate all the historical tender documents into ECM for future reference and retrieval. Once this is done, there will be additional 800,000 pages of historical tender documents stored in the ECM for future reference.

If you would like to know more about this solution, please email to issupprt@ust.hk.

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LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (LMS) FOR STAFF AND STUDENTS Enabling our application systems training materials, user guides, procedures documents and reference materials accessible on-demand and online is central to our user self-service initiative. This supports the ongoing training and informational needs of our end users.

LMS (https://training.ust.hk) is a centralized platform that departments / schools administrators can now easily organize their training and reference materials in a systematic way. Materials can be Word or PDF documents, PowerPoint slides, or even video clips. Readers can easily browse by topics, or search by keywords for materials they look for, and access them anytime on-demand and even anywhere on their mobile devices.

Since March 2020, Finance Office, Academic Registry and Campus Development Office have already started using this LMS to offer ongoing online trainings in areas such as use of Travel Expenses system, Student Information System Students Inquiry function, Student Exchange Credit Transfer System, Premises Analysis System.

If you would like to know more about this solution, please email to issupprt@ust.hk.

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A CENTRALIZED EVENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM Our schools and departments are having different ways to organize and manage their events held throughout the year. This centralized event management system, to be launched in September 2020 with SBM's team, will be standardizing the event management work practice. Later, SENG, DAO etc. will be adopting the platform for their events.

The new Event Management system, which integrates with our University’s Centralized Event Calendar, will cover event creation, enrollment to events by general public and target groups, confirmation email to attendees with QR code, collection of fees from attendees via common payment channels such as Visa, FPS, Alipay, Wechat Pay. To further enhance the attendance management, a mobile QR attendance scanning feature at event site will also be provided at a later stage.

If you would like to know more about this solution, please email to issupprt@ust.hk.

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UNIVERSITY MOBILE APPS STRATEGY – A NEW HKUST STUDENT MOBILE APP Mobility is important nowadays. A brand new HKUST Student Mobile App is to be launched in early September 2020. This app delivers a brand new and improved digital experience in their journey with HKUST, allowing our students to access both academic and non-academic resources provided by the University, anywhere and at any time.

Around 30 student representatives from different background and regions were involved to contribute their ideas during the design stage of this mobile app. In June – July 2020, hundreds of IPO students were invited to be the first batch of pilot users to download and experience this mobile app.

The HKUST Student App carries the following five core themes:

Mobile App Themes Remarks e-identity • A digital eCard for every app user Learning experiences • Student learning activities @ HKUST Student services • App features tailored for students Easy Living • App features and resources commonly for students Stay connected • Let students stay tuned with HKUST

The features which come with this release are:

A new digital identity that allows him/her to enjoy the same privileged offers/access in selected Campus amenities Browse the course catalog, access class schedules, view course grade, and get classes and examinations update. Book sports facilities Access to various student services information such as career center, counselor, student housing, SEN support etc. Enquire the student accounts summary Book library facilities and search library resources View ePurse balance and print quota Get information of various facilities and transport Pay accounts due with AliPay. We are evaluating the additional features to be included in this app in the next releases to provide an improved user experience.

If you would like to know more about this solution, please email to issupprt@ust.hk.

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STUDENT ONE RECORD - A ONE-STOP PLATFORM TO HAVE A HOLISTIC VIEW OF STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC AND NON-ACADEMIC RECORDS In the past, colleagues of program offices, departments, Schools or even central offices could only use Student Information System (SIS) to access their students’ academic records such as enrolled courses, grades, CGA and unofficial transcript. When colleagues needed to evaluate both academic and non-academic student records, for student advising or reporting, they had to approach various offices to gather, review and consolidate the records in order to generate the necessary student profiles for evaluation. The process is troublesome, ineffective and time consuming.

The “Student One Record” project is therefore introduced. The goal of the project is to allow colleagues to access students’ personal data, academic records, and non-academic records on a single platform. Colleagues could then access the holistic view of a students’ profile with a few clicks rather than collecting and compiling data from scratch.

After a series of discussions and cooperation with multiple data owners of non-academic and co-curricular records, a number of integrations between application systems were built. Through these integrations, academic records in SIS and non-academic records such as scholarship and co-curricular data from different application systems are linked together.

The Student Information Inquiry function in SIS is then enhanced to display all aspects of student data from SIS and other linked systems. It includes:

Academic Information:

Student Program Unofficial Transcript Academic Advisement Report Registration History (full/ current intake) Term Performance & GAs Course & Grades (full/ current intake) Academic Standing Exchange Out Transfer Credit Honors and Awards Advisor Info Admission Details Admission Documents Non-Academic Information:

Co-curricular Activities, including Study abroad (Exchange and visiting) Internship Community services Research Field Trips Competitions Scholarship & Financial Aid Personal Data

Identification (full/ selected) Contact Info Photo

The enhanced version of the Student Information Inquiry function was launched in August 2020.

“With the introduction of a unified and comprehensive student record covering all aspects of a student’s studies, relevant staff across the University have quick access to the information they need for their work and we maintain a single source of truth within an appropriately secure and controlled environment.” … James PRINCE, Academic Registrar

If you would like to know more about this solution, please email to issupprt@ust.hk.

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