Services System and UPI Upgrade work – 5th November

By Tim J Purkiss, on 25 October 2012

On 5th November 2012, both the core UPI system and the Services System will be undergoing upgrade work.

This work will mean that:

The Services System will be unavailable in the evening of 5th November
from 5:30pm to c8:00pm

Both UPI and the Services System, including all interfaces, should be considered “at risk”
from 5:00pm on 5/11/12 to noon on 6/11/12.

In summary, the UPI release:

• adds some additional student data to UPI core views;
• tidies up, rationalises and brings up to coding standards many core UPI views and objects;
• introduces ground work so UPI will be able better to provide the most up-to-date Person data record from the most suitable primary system;
• fixes some inconsistencies in name formatting between the primary systems;
• improves UPI Search Matching by taking into account Known As names;
• includes a new interface for the CMIS timetabling system;
• deploys changes required for the Identity & Access Management Project;
• fixes other minor bugs and removes obsolete objects.

The Services System release:

• updates the system in line with changes to UPI;
• deploys forms converted to the latest Oracle Forms server technology;
• allows user access to be disabled from within the application;
• fixes minor bugs.

If you would like more information, please contact us using the form below.

Welcome

By Tim J Purkiss, on 25 October 2012

Welcome to the blog for the Identity & Infrastructure Applications team. We’re part of the Application Services department in UCL’s Information Services Division.

What we do:

The IDINA team are mainly concerned with “identity” data. That is data related to people, their associations to UCL and their access to services and resources.

Our main services are:

• The UPI system: Creating a unique identifier for UCL People. You’ll find your UPI printed on your UCL ID card. It’s the code used ‘behind the scenes’, allowing the UPI system to act like a clearing house for data about UCL people. UPI combines information from UCL corporate systems (like the HR system or Portico, or the Telecoms Switchboard system) and passes this information to other UCL systems that, for example, populate the UCL Directory, e-mail system, Research systems, or control access to resources.
• The Services System: This has two key roles – firstly as the place for departments to record their visitors (i.e. people who are neither formally staff nor students at UCL); and secondly to allow departments to monitor and request access to services. This mainly applies to visitors but also to some types of service that aren’t otherwise provided automatically to staff or students.
• Find UPI: This is a tool specifically for support staff (in ISD and a few other central administrative or support departments). It allows for searching against all UPIs and is potentially useful for resolving systems problems where there is confusion over who a person is or what they may be entitled to access.

More information about UPI and our related services can be found on the UPI section of the ISD website.