There will soon be some changes to the way that access to shared drives (S: drives) is managed within LCCOS. This post contains information for staff who will manage access and for all staff who may need to request access to shared folders.

What do I need to do now?

• Be aware that you may receive a message in the coming days advising you that you have been assigned as an owner of one or more top-level S: drive folders.
• Watch out for further communications on changes to the process of requesting access to S: drives.

What is changing?

ISD have introduced a new process where each S: drive (top level folder) has a number of named owners who can grant and revoke access to the folder and its sub-folders. Previously, administration was managed by computer reps, in particular the LCCOS HR Team.

Based on input from LCCOS Section Heads, we will shortly be assigning two staff members as owners of each top level folder. We will contact these owners with more information. ISD provide a management tool, accessible through Desktop@UCL Anywhere, which owners can use to add or remove access to these folders.

Once these owners have been assigned, we will provide a list of folders and owners on the LCCOS intranet. After this, line managers who need to request access to a folder for a member of their team should contact one of the owners to make this request. Similarly, line managers are responsible for working with the folder owners to revoke access when it is no longer required – e.g. when a staff member leaves the team or leaves UCL.

We will also be taking advantage of this opportunity to review the shared folders in use and rationalise/archive where possible, as well as providing best practice information on the use of shared drives alongside other storage options including Teams/SharePoint. Teams wanting to set up a new S: drive folder should discuss the request with LCCOS IT Support, as departmental computer reps.

What is the impact of these changes?

For the first time, we will have a local view within the department of the members of each folder and we can manage access more rigorously and efficiently. Previously, the ISD process was quite opaque, even to departmental computer reps.

By devolving access control to local managers, it will be quicker to grant access and easier to review membership at any time.

In parallel, our review of shared folders and best practice should improve the way we manage information and process data as a department.

What if I have questions?

If you have any questions about these changes, please contact LCCOS IT Support.

As part of ISD’s strategy to switch many of UCL’s services to Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory (AAD) identity management tool, how you sign into Alma is changing. If you use the short URL we have provided, e.g. via a bookmark, it will change automatically tomorrow morning (Tuesday 16 August 2022). Instead of entering your username and password into the current Shibboleth login screen, you will instead see one similar to when you log into your UCL email account, Explore, and other UCL IT services. If you have recently logged into another service using Azure, you may be logged automatically into Alma.

If you have not bookmarked the short URL, you will need to take action between now and Monday 3 October 2022. Please see the Alma page on LibNet for details.

If you have any questions regarding this change or encounter any problems, please use the Digital Services online form.

Library Services as a whole moved to telephone calls via Microsoft Teams Calling in October 2021.  Since then, most staff telephone handsets have only been available for outgoing internal calls, and these will eventually be removed.

We have been working with ISD to identify those handsets which need to be replaced with Teams handsets, and also identify which numbers (currently associated with handsets) need to be set up as ‘Call queues’ in Microsoft Teams.  This is being done on a site-by-site basis, ensuring that sufficient handsets are provided for emergency purposes.

As each site is scheduled, the ISD project team will work with the site manager to agree the replacement plan and the queues which need to be set up.

Any staff who need a headset for on-campus work should make a request to Library IT Support.

If you have any other queries as the process continues, please route these via site managers to Margaret Stone.

This month there are two important updates from the Digital Services team.

Alma’s new layout

From 1 November 2020, you will see a new screen layout when you log in to Alma.  The aims, according to the suppliers, are to increase the working area in Alma, improve navigation, give more options to customize menus, and facilitate improved user workflows.

Please note that this is not the same as the planned changes to the Alma metadata editor, which will be coming next year.

If you would like to try out the new interface and get used to it before 1 November, you can switch it on in the user menu of Alma.  Go to your personal user menu (head and shoulders icon) in the top right of the Alma screen and click to open the drop-down menu.  Then click on “Enable new layout”.

More information is available on the Alma pages of the Ex Libris Knowledge Center or from this short Alma New Layout video.

Digital Services support update

Some 18 months after introducing the new ISD support team for many of our applications, we are retiring the digital-library-support email address.  In its place, we are re-emphasising the first-line support role of ‘Functional Leads’ for Alma and other services.  Beyond that, there is now a single support form which guides you to the correct support route for each service.  For more information, and to bookmark the link to the support form, visit our Digital Services Support pages on LibNet.

The reason for these changes is to make the support process more efficient and to ensure that library staff get the quickest response from the relevant support team.  For example, the new support form prompts the enquirer to indicate to which service the query relates.

For many digital services, such as Alma, there are designated Functional Leads in Library Services who are the experts and coordinators for the digital service. For these services, please first contact the relevant Functional Lead with your query or problem report. They can assist with resolving some issues directly, collating multiple reports and leading the liaison with ISD as necessary. For Alma, the Functional Leads are responsible for granting and updating access rights to Alma.  For this new process, please see the updated FAQ on the Alma page on LibNet.

The next tier of support is provided by the Library Applications Team in ISD. This is a dedicated team for our digital services, who can also bring in assistance from other support teams in ISD as necessary. When a support ticket is opened from the problem report form, either by the Functional Lead or by you directly, the Library Applications Team will respond to the ticket.  Please only contact the team through the support form or through the tickets which are generated.  You may occasionally come across their team email address, but it is only used for internal communications, not for raising new queries or issues.

Progress on problem reports and requests for service changes is monitored by Rob Drinkall and Margaret Stone on behalf of Library Services. This liaison includes escalating urgent matters and clarifying the priority of ongoing work.  Please do contact us if you have any queries about these support arrangements.

Reminder: Visit the new problem report form.

The support arrangements for library staff desktop IT equipment have changed slightly, as outlined in the Core Brief for May.  Please note that this is in addition to (and complementary to) recent changes in support for Alma and other digital library services.

In summary, the first points of contact are as follows:

• for support for Desktop@UCL hardware and software, contact servicedesk@ucl.ac.uk as this forms part of their standard service
• for support for non-Desktop@UCL hardware and software, contact Library IT support (the usual address, listed on LibNet)
• for ordering, disposal, liaison and escalation with ISD, again contact Library IT support.

This information will be kept up to date on our IT for Staff pages on LibNet.

Further to the recent post on Aleph outages this summer, it has been necessary to change one of the dates.

Aleph will not be available at the following times:

• Monday 31 July 0900 – Thursday 3 Aug 0900, although the work may finish earlier.
• Monday 14 August 0900 – 1300 and at risk for the rest of that day.

Please see the earlier post for implications of the outages, but note that Aleph will be available on Monday 24 July after all.

Sorry for the inconvenience this will cause, as part of the UCL-wide datacentre migration project.  As ever, do bring any queries or concerns to the Digital Libraries Team, through section heads.

As part of the ISD datacentre migration project, the live Aleph server will be migrated on Monday 31 July.  This means that Aleph will be unavailable for two periods:

• Monday 24 July 0900-1300 for preparatory stages
• Monday 31 July 0900 – Thursday 3 Aug 0900, although the work may finish earlier.

We have allowed a large window for the migration in order to complete standard checks and ensure thorough testing of all migrated functionality, allowing for any anomalies to be addressed.  The Digital Libraries Team has appreciated the work of colleagues on testing the server migrations so far, including the Aleph test server, as this work has contributed to a better understanding within the ISD project team and Ex Libris of the unique challenges of migrating these services into the new datacentre environment.

During the Aleph outage, services will be affected in the following ways.

• Offline circulation within the Aleph client will still be available for loans and returns, but no other Aleph staff functionality
• Self-service loans and returns will not be available.
• Reading list pages will not display availability of items.
• Explore will not display up to date availability information. Holdings and locations information will be available in the Details tab rather than the Locations tab.  Users will not be able to sign into Explore to access their account, place requests, book rooms or renew their items online.

However,

• Access to e-resources (ejournals/ebooks/databases/digital collections) will be retained.

If you have any queries about working around the outage periods, do raise them with the Digital Libraries Team via section heads, as this will help to co-ordinate any related work.  Public information will be made available nearer the time.

Over the next few weeks, substantial changes will be made to the arrangements for resetting forgotten or expired passwords for UCL computing accounts.

Firstly, the option to reset a password by obtaining a token from a departmental computer rep will be removed.  Instead, you will need to register your mobile phone number with the MyAccount service, so that it can be used for issuing a code directly to your phone in the event that you forget your password or it expires.  This has the benefit that forgotten/expired passwords can be reset at any time, even during UCL closure periods.  Regular password changing is unaffected.

I will notify you when the new service becomes available, and at that point you should register your number.  If you need to reset a forgotten/expired password in future and have not registered a phone number, you will need to visit the ISD Service Desk in person.

Secondly, you will be able to set a longer password (up to 30 characters) and the stronger your password, the longer you can keep it for.

Role accounts are included in these changes.  Owners can register a phone number against these in the same way.

For full information, see the MyAccount FAQs.