Personnel

Good news; In March of 99, Dr. Wei Cao joined our staff, coming to us from Vet Med where he developed and maintained databases and applications for use throughout the College of Vet Med.
Bad news; In August of 99, Laura Guazzelli left us for a position with the new UF CIO.
Good news; On the first work day (January 3) of the new millennium, Hanna Choi joined us to fill the vacancy left by Laura Guazzelli, and seems quite qualified to fill the position. Hanna came to us from the private sector, and has a solid IT background, both in education and experience.

Continuing Systems Development

Due to the efforts of Gary Thompson's programming enhancements to the Departmental Accounting System, our most heavily used IFAS-wide CICS system, plus some adjustments to the NERDC charging formula, the charging trend for IFAS has been moving steadily downward since early this past year. We may truly see a fifty percent reduction in our annual CICS charges, since the average monthly charge is moving in that direction!

The IFAS Travel System, ably guided by Donna Williamson, has become our second most heavily used IFAS-wide CICS system, growing to the point that on some days there are more transactions processed on that system than the Departmental Accounting System. This system was given final audit approval from the State Comptroller's Office to submit audit free electronic transactions direct to Tallahassee.

Thanks to our IT NT group efforts in implementing the added efficiencies gained through T1 line connectivity to our off campus units, a person entering transactions into our business systems, or extracting an ad hoc report from the accounting system will see no difference in response time from a person doing the same activity on campus!

Our operations and security manager, Scott Owens, successfully trained all IFAS administrative computer unit contacts in the use of the new UF Access Security system while continuing to handle the daily needs of our more than 500 administrative users.

Mae Thomas accomplished many improvements to the Overhead Distribution System and the Rate Control System, while continuing to work on the Y2K mitigation.

New Systems Development

After many listening sessions with various faculty members, we assisted Dr. Howard Beck in the development and implementation of the new Faculty Reporting / Plan of Work System. The system is currently in phase I production, with much yet to do to fully develop this new product to its full potential.

Dr. Wei Cao, with the assistance of Bill Cope, has developed a new IFAS Personnel System running on an SQL server. The goal was to deliver this system for the new millennium, and the IFAS Personnel Department is currently testing it. The database for this system will be integrated with the new Sponsored Programs and CRIS databases that are also being developed by Wei and Bill.

Wei also was instrumental in assisting Ag Education and Communications with the final implementation and production of their new web based Professional Inservice Development system.

Y2K

After many months of searching, modifying and testing our existing systems, and planning for the worst with contingency plans, we seem to have come through the "gate" to the "other side" with smooth sailing! Of course we are not so smug as to assume that we will not have some minor glitches pop up here and there, but we have definitely avoided any major catastrophes. This was an "all hands" evolution.

Miscellaneous