IT Project DashboardÌý
This page is updated at the end of the Fall and Winter semesters. Latest update: December 2024
Learn more aboutÌýIT project management, governance, regulations, and guidelines.
Although an IT project may benefit multiple communities, the projects below are classified according to the community each predominantly benefits:
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Academic
These IT projects primarily benefit the Academic community:
| name | Overview | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Banner 9 Functional Upgrade |
Banner is the enterprise database Â鶹AV uses to store all student, employee, and financial data. By upgrading to the latest version of Banner, which uses an entirely new application development framework and technology, staff and students will have aÌýmodern, improved end-user experience. Ìý |
In progress |
| Convocation Management System | The current solution, built in 1988Ìýwith outdated technology, is difficult to maintain due to a lack of in-house and external technical expertise. This project will provide a modern and adaptable solution to support the convocation processes, including the production of all degrees, the management of the convocation ceremony artifacts, graduating student reports, and diploma management.Ìý |
In progress |
| eCalendar Replacement (Curriculum and Course Catalog) |
The current solution for managing the publication of programs, courses, and other important information for the academic year is built on outdated technologies. Feedback from students and staff also revealed high end-user dissatisfaction. This project will replace all technical components of the eCalendar with one central system. |
In progress |
| LMS to Student Information Systems | Holding Tank enables the automatic transfer of non-credit course data between the School of Continuing Studies' SIS, Destiny One, and myCourses LMS Service. This technology behind this critical integration is at the end of life. This project will replace the Holding Tank data integration and the Banner Adapter data integration between our main Banner SIS system and our main LMS myCourses. | In progress |
| Medicine BI (Business Intelligence) and Analytics | This project aims to build an efficient, accurate, and secure platform for reporting and analyzing data about medical students and residents. This foundation will meet current needs and allow for rapid adaptation for future reporting requirements from accreditation governing bodies. | In progress |
| Student Admission Systems |
Â鶹AV Enrolment Services, in collaboration with Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS), is replacing all existing solutions with one central system (Slate) to efficiently support all variations of the graduate and undergraduate credit program admission process. Slate admissions rollout:
|
In progress |
| Student Career Services Management Software |
This project aims to provide a University-wide career services management solution to support career counselling, assistance for student job searches, event management, internship, co-op management, and reporting and analytics. The current solution has inadequate integrations, limited mobile and bilingual support, and is missing many capabilities that would enable automation and more efficient process workflow and tracking. The new solution will address these deficiencies and enable integrations with other higher education institutions and the federal government. Rollout:
|
In progress |
| Student Digital Credentials |
Enrolment Services processes student requests (both from current students and alumni) for official documents for third parties (e.g., government officials or other academic institutions). The former process was highly manual and paper-driven. The process redirected students to different systems, resulting in a complex andÌý less-than-optimal student experience. This project allowed Â鶹AV to move to a more environmentally friendly, integrated, and secure digital platform where students can receive and share documents with third parties to verify digital credentials. This project was delivered in two phases:
|
Delivered |
| Student Peer-to-Peer Mentoring System | There are thousands of coordinators, mentors, and mentees across many Peer-to-Peer Student Mentorship programs at Â鶹AV. This project implemented a comprehensive, integrated, and user-friendly solution for automating, assigning, managing, recording, and reporting these relationships. |
Delivered |
| Student Recruitment Management | This project aims to provide more streamlined, personalized communications and targeted outreach to prospective students. It offers Â鶹AV recruiters additional capabilities for event management, registration, campus tours, and managing all prospect and applicant interactions. It also provides new reporting insight on recruiting prospective students, applicants, and registered students. | In progress |
Administrative
These IT projects primarily benefit the Administrative community:
| name | Overview | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Expense Management System | The current travel and travel expense management tools in the Minerva system (Advances and Expense Reports) are cumbersome, highly manual, and principally paper-driven, with a substandard user experience. This project will explore the different solution options available on the market, acquire, and deliver an expense management tool that integrates with the tools (Online Booking Tool, Central Airfare Card, and Individual Travel Corporate Card) that are part of the travel management program at Â鶹AV. |
In progress |
| Facilities Administration Management Information System (FAMIS) Asset Management Solution |
The current Facilities Management solution, FAMIS, is built on obsolete technology. FMAS needs to move towards a modern Asset Management solution. The project will have two releases:
|
In progress |
| Service Desk Virtual Agent | This project introduced an IT support chatbotÌýthat can scale up capacity to meet the increased demand for IT support. | Delivered |
| University Advancement (UA) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (Alumni and Donor Relations) | UA'sÌýCRM is critical for facilitating stakeholder communications, engagement, relationship management, fundraising, and stewardship. This solution is essential for fundraising and alumni engagement programs. The current CRM is built with software nearing the end of its useful life. The project aims to implement a new CRM, called Iris, to improve stakeholder experience with dynamic features that allow UA to automate manual processes and increase productivity while maximizing fundraising and engagement potential. | In progress |
Institutional
These IT projects primarily benefit the Institutional community:
| Name | Overview | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Cybersecurity & Risk Initiative | This project documented the security and risk maturity for all Â鶹AV administration and some research units using the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Cybersecurity Compliance. An external vendor performed this assessment. | Delivered |
| Disaster Recovery Plan |
This project aims to move all resiliency currently in place in the Ferrier data center (presently our secondary data center) to a location that will provide redundancy, lower recovery time and recovery period objectives, and mitigate the risk of a potential environmental disaster. The project's scope will cover the primary data center, the wide-area network (WAN), and network connectivity.
|
In progress |
| Facilities Campus and Security Incident Management System (IMS) |
Security Services presently uses a solution to manage incidents at the Security Operations Center. This solution was not designed for a campus safety operation and has limitations, specifically during major incidents. This project aims to implement a streamlined incident management solution that will document an incident from the initial alert to the final distribution of the reports with reduced processing time and effort. The project will deliver incremental functionality through four releases:
|
In progress |
| Firewalls/VPN Evergreening | This evergreening initiative will replace the existing infrastructure with new firewall hardware that should last at least six to seven years. At the same time, we will take advantage of technology built into new solutions to create new security rules based on the user's device and identity. This will give users better and more secure access to applications and systems. | In progress |
| IT Hardware Asset Management | IT hardware asset management tracks, monitors, and controls assets assets (e.g., laptops, monitors) through their lifecycles: acquisition, receiving, use and reuse, and, finally, end-of-life management. This project improves and expands on the existing IT hardware asset management process and regulation for all IT hardware assets purchased using Â鶹AV funding, including Research funds. The project leverages the existing functionality of ServiceNow; no new software is expected to be deployed. | In progress |
| Â鶹AV Enterprise Integration Services | This upgrade project addressed end-of-life concerns regarding the installation of IBM's API Connect management platform supporting application programming interfaces (APIs) enabling enterprise application integrations. These are key when off-the-shelf solutions (cloud or on-premise) continue to be privileged over custom-built solutions. | Delivered |
| Mobile Device Management | The Mobile Device and Application Management project at Â鶹AV is focused on ensuring compliance with the Ministère de la Cybersécurité et du Numérique directive. This directive mandates enhanced cybersecurity for Quebec para-public institutions, emphasizing protecting organizational data on mobile devices. To meet these requirements, Â鶹AV must implement Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM) solutions for both institutional and personal devices, while also aligning with the University’s existing mobile management processes. | In progress |
| Network Unified Communications | This project aims to replace our aging telephone system with newer technologies that will seamlessly integrate and improve communication channels between members of the Â鶹AV community. It aims to enhance the student learning environment and increase workplace effectiveness by providing a new means of virtual collaboration and communication.Ìý | In progress |
| OpenShift upgrade (Application development and deployment platform)Ìý | OpenShift is an open-source cloud development platform that enables developers to develop and deploy their applications on cloud infrastructure. Â鶹AV's current version of OpenShift requires an infrastructure upgrade and additional investment in the evolution of functionality, training, and onboarding of resources to grow the platform's usage. The platform enables self-service for developers to create, modify, and deploy applications on demand, thus enabling faster development and release life cycles. | In progress |
| Physical Access Control System and Virtual ID | The objective of this project is to upgrade Â鶹AV’s access control and alarm monitoring software. This enhancement will empower Security Services to bolster security measures, safeguard assets, and ensure the safety of individuals by effectively managing access to restricted areas and monitoring alarms. | In progress |
| Unified Emergency Notification Dashboard |
In emergency situations, Â鶹AV employs various methods to notify its community of ~50,000 students and staff, but the current communication process is time-consuming and disjointed (requires various systems). This project's goal is to ensure the safety of the Â鶹AV community during emergency situations by: 1. Streamlining the process and reducing the time required to disseminate critical messages during emergencies. ​ 2. ModernizingÌýthe solution for emergency communication and reducing the technical landscape complexity if possible.​ |
In progress |
ResearchÌý
There are no current IT projects.
For more information about the above dashboard or specific ITÌýinitiatives, please contact announce.ics [at] mcgill.ca (IT Communications).Ìý
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