WIZARD BLOG

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Entries in "General"

Trouble signing in?

Hey there,

Having trouble signing in to Wizard this afternoon - I'm getting a "credentials failed the authorization process, Reason: 12535: ORA-12535: TNS: operation timed out" error message.

Any known issues?

Thanks!

Karyn

Wizard has been updated

There is a new Wizard installer file located at:
https://www.cwru.edu/development/univ_dev/wizard/software.htm

This is just an update that fixes some bugs and adds a few minor features, not a major new version that is required in order to continue using Wizard. If we were a real software company, we'd probably call this Wizard 8.2.1.

New features include access to a few new research profile reports, a slightly faster clipboard, a fixed transaction lookup screen, and an updated staff drop-down field for the various reports. Now when we de-activate a staff member, they will no longer show up in the report drop-down fields.

We'll probably be updating the installer file posted at the URL above more frequently than in the past, as there are several enhancements that we are working on. Because of this, we've put the date that we've posted the current installer file next to the link to the file. That way, you can very easily see if you have the most up-to-date version of Wizard.

Enjoy,
-Matt

New Wizard Trainer

I'm happy to announce that Rachel Madewell has joined the team as the new Wizard Trainer. As many of you know, Rachel worked for Weatherhead's development office and was their representative on the Wizard Council before we stole her from them.

Rachel will be working on revamping the training program, concentrating not only on new employee training but also advanced Wizard training for those already using Wizard on a regular basis. If you have any suggestions or questions, please let her know.

Welcome aboard!

New programmer

Please join me in welcoming Jerry Yang to our team as a programmer. Jerry spent several years working for Case's ITS department before working for PerceptIS for the last two years. Welcome back to Case, Jerry!

Action Required : New Versions of Wizard and Alumni@Case

The new version of Wizard was released this morning. Every Wizard user must upgrade to the new version in order to continue using Wizard. The announcement and the installer file can be found here.

Coming Soon: New Versions of Wizard and Alumni@Case

I sent an email to all Wizard users, but I just wanted to make a post about next week's upgrades. Information on Monday's planned upgrades to both Wizard and the Alumni@Case directory can be found here. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Also, once this upgrade finishes up and is rolled out, I'm actually going to schedule another Wizard Council meeting. Lots to talk about: Wizard upgrades, Call Center implementation, new mass-email system, and hopefully at least 2 new employees on our team (included the much-anticipated Wizard trainer!). I'm looking at sometime Monday June 12th, Tuesday June 13th, Wednesday June 14th, or the afternoon of Thursday June 15th. Is there any time that is particularly bad for a large number of you for some reason I'm not aware of?

New Technical Services Assistant Director

Please join me in congratulating Matt Heimbach on his promotion to Assistant Director for Technical Services!

Staff Changes

We are undergoing some staff changes on the Technical Services team. First, Tawanna Armstrong has left Case as of April 28. Second, I am pursuing a new career opportunity and will be leaving as well. My last day is May 12.

We are currently recruiting for these positions as well as the open Wizard Specialist position. We will post staffing updates as they become available.

These departures should not impact the release of the upgrade. However, there may be some delays in fulfilling devreq's until the team is fully staffed again.

Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Upgrade Information

During April and May we will be upgrading Wizard and Alumni@Case to newer versions. The newer versions will have many new and exciting features.

This is a big project and will draw on the talents of all members of the Technical Services team. During this upgrade phase please be aware:

1. We will be strictly enforcing the high/medium/low priority system. The only requests that will be handled on a high priority status will be those critical to the operations of the university. Requests for mailing lists do not count as high priority. Please allow 5-7 days for your medium priority requests. If you need your info quicker than 7 days, please contact me and I will suggest an existing report to meet your needs.

2. We will only have limited capacity for Wizard reporting enhancements during this period of time. Once again, these enhancements will be limited to mission critical situations and bug fixes. However, we will be logging any reporting enhancement you suggest and will work on them once the upgrade is complete.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at x4470.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Wizard sign-in problems?

Both Natalie Samples and I are unable to log in to Wizard this morning (we're getting an authentication error)...anything we should be aware of?

Staff "Specialities"

At the last Wizard Council meeting it was mentioned that it would be nice to have a reference of who did what in Advancement Services. This was a great idea so we added our duties to the staff page on our website.

Check it out here: https://www.cwru.edu/development/univ_dev/resources/staff.htm

Don't forget about our Contact Info page as well. A lot of people find it helpful: https://www.cwru.edu/development/univ_dev/resources/contact.html

End of Year news

Howdy,

A couple of things regarding the end of the year schedule. First, the text of an email I just sent out to everyone I could think of who regularly submits DevReqs:

-------------------
Due to the week-long holiday break and programming team schedules during the week before the break, I ask that any DevReq download or email request that needs to be fulfilled before January 3rd be submitted to DevReq on or before Friday, December 16th. This will give us adequate time to process the request without sacrificing quality. We will, of course, do our best to process requests made after December 16th, but we cannot guarantee that the request will be fulfilled before the new year.
-------------------

If you know anyone who submits DevReqs, please spread the word in case I missed them.

Second, for the same reasons as listed above, there will be no Wizard Council meeting for December. We'll resume meetings in January.

Third, Prachi from Nursing has left the university to pursue other opportunities. While she doesn't know it yet, I'm going to ask Laura Bishop to join the Wizard Council as the Nursing representative. I hope she says yes, as I've already added her to the mailing list.

That's about it. If I don't talk to you or post again before the break, I hope everyone has a great holiday!

-Matt

Minutes, training hints, and a new member

Howdy,

Glad to see those that made it to the meeting on a Monday morning after a long holiday weekend. The presentation slides and minutes are now posted (finally...I was slow).

I've been meaning to say a little something about the new user training quizzes. We here in ISS have been working to eliminate any confusion, and we've gotten some feedback from you to help us make the quizzes a little better. Here are a few hints that I can give you that helped me pass the quizzes, and should help your new users as well.

First, by all means have the training manuals available when you take the quizzes...they are open book, open note quizzes! Second, I found it useful to utilize Adobe Acrobat's search and find features (both found in the Edit menu). When you read a question, you can search the manual for the important phrases of the question. This helps you locate the relevant material faster. Note that this doesn't work all the time. One of the reasons why brings us to hint number three. Pay attention to the screen shots within the training manuals. Several answers can be easily located in the screen shots. Text within screen shots is not located by the search or find function.

I hope some of these quiz hints help. Along these same lines, Beth Hlabse made a post about training issues. This means that she wins the "first entry by a non-ISS-er" award. Please take a look at her post and comment if you have any recommendations or suggestions. I think her suggestion is a great idea. I plan on bringing it up with our database administrator to see if we can set up a test account in one of our non-production databases for trainees to use. I will keep you updated on this.

Finally, there is a new member of the Wizard Council. Gretchen Denaro from Annual Giving has agreed to join the group as the representative of the new-and-improved Annual Giving office. Join me in welcoming her.

That's about it. I hope you all have a fun, snow-filled weekend.

-Matt

New Wizard user problem

I have two people who are going thru the training process right now on Wizard and are having a bit of a rough time of it. They suggested, and I think this would be great if do-able, to have a "Dummy Wizard" system so that folks can practice what they're reading about to get a feel for Wizard before they get access. It would make the learning process easier. It's really hard to get a feel for Wizard without some hands-on, like we had during the group classes.

Any thoughts from others on this?

Wizard Blog is open for business

We are happy to announce that Wizard Blog is ready for general posting and commenting. If you have any questions, please leave them as comments to this post. Thanks!