So I have the privilege of being the first person to post on the eCommunication Blog. In thinking about which topic to talk about, I decided that providing quick updates on a couple of topics would be the best use of this post. So, here are some updates on some of the projects that I am working on.

Events calendar:

Thank you to everyone who responded to University Relations' request for feedback on the current events calendar and suggestions for improvement. We have taken those responses and have started to create a draft proposal to submit to the OIT so that the project can be included in their planning process. In addition to creating a draft proposal, we are working on drafting functional requirements to be used later in the process. We will be meeting with various groups to get input as the process moves along and will also be creating an advisory committee to help with feedback. The major next step will be to meet with OIT so that we can determine what an appropriate timeline will be. If you are interested in meeting with UR regarding this project, please feel free to e-mail me at casper@umn.edu.

Search:

This is one project that has been delayed longer than I care for. The hope was to have the updated tabbed search results out around the same time as the templates. Due to other projects, this has been delayed. I am currently shooting for the end of March, but it will most likely be in April. We are working to get this setup so those users on OIT hosting (whether through OIA Shared or IS Group Web Hotel) will be able to just set a configuration file and be able to use it with minimal programming knowledge. To answer a question that some people have asked, yes it is possible to pull in search results other than the Google Search Appliance. Users wishing to utilize this will probably need some programming knowledge to integrate it.

UMContent:

Most of my time has been spent trying to get the rest of UR sites out of FileNET and into UMContent. After this project is over, more of my time will get shifted to search and events calendar. We have been working with OIT to help identify areas where performance could be improved as they work with Fishbowl Solutions. We have determined that one of the services that the system is using (SS_GET_SEARCH_RESULTS) is running full-text searching and therefore is very slow to return results. To get around this, we have switched our dynamic lists to use the GET_SEARCH_RESULTS service. This has had the effect of reducing our page load times from around 27 seconds to 2 seconds. When OIT and Fishbowl determine how to get SS_GET_SEARCH_RESULTS optimized, this will hopefully be able to speed up the contributor experience as this service is used heavily on the contribution side.

We are planning to get the new U Templates into UMContent, however we are waiting for Site Studio 10gR4 to fully implement the templates. With the 10gR4 functionality, we should be able to provide templates that users will just be able to use out of the box. This is an improvement over the previous versions where customizing the templates required groups to copy the layouts and then modify them themselves. Site Studio 10gR4 has been installed on the DEV environment, so we have had the opportunity to start to look at the architecture, but until some of my other projects are out of the way, this is a lower priority.

Other Notes:

As some people may know, my appointment is an 80/20 split with the 20% of my time reporting to OIT's Office of Communications and Advancement. This has been beneficial as there is overlap in the projects that both OCA and UR are working on. Hopefully in the next few weeks, you will see a revised OIT home page (www.oit.umn.edu) that uses the new U Template and also brings in graphical elements from the U home page. Hopefully this new page will provide an improved user experience.