How the University of Zurich enables users to use Connections – openly and decentrally managed

How the University of Zurich enables users to use
Connections – openly and decentrally managed
Roberto Mazzoni, Roman Benz, Marco Spühler
University of Zurich

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Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
Agenda

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Agenda
• The speakers
• The University of Zurich (UZH)
• The collaboration stack at UZH
• HCL Connections
• A different approach for a knowledge organization
• What works, what did not succeed
• Embracing administration, researchers and
students

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The speakers

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Roberto Mazzoni
@davoser
Roman Benz
Marco Spühler

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The University of Zurich

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The University of Zurich - Introduction
http://t.uzh.ch/100s

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The University of Zurich - Introduction
• 1525: College of theology
• 1833: first university in
Europe to be founded by
the state rather than a
monarch or church.

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The University of Zurich – TOP 100: AWRU: 61

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University of Zurich - Structure
• Decentralized and self-governed
• 150 institutes with 660 professors, 6669 FTE, incl. lecturers approx. 11’000
• Numerous associates Institutes
• Learning organisation

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The collaboration stack at the
University of Zurich

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Collaboration Software @ UZH –
History and Today
• 2005
• The university's IT strategy retains the evaluation of a groupware containing the usual
suspects: email, scheduling, contacts, tasks, mobile synchronization
• Opting for document management, synchronous communication, workflows
• Replacing the old solutions for approx. 35,000 users (email only, some scheduling solutions)
• 2007 - 2009
• Open tenders
• End of evaluation, final decision: Domino/Notes
• Internal “Going live” with IT services
• 2010: Official “Going live” and migration of the 40'000 users
(yes, we found some more...)
• 2011
• Sametime Standard with Sametime Meetings
• Connections - adoption only by IT department

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Facts & figures: email is not dead -> at all
• 595’000 internal emails per day
• 223’000 emails from internet
• 62 % classified as spam
• 129’000 registered email addresses
• Email quota: 20 GB, also for students
With 20 GB quota (and additional 20 GB per person freely
distributable within your organization), the UZH offers more
email storage than most big providers do. That was
unthinkable a few years ago and is still not achieved in many
companies.

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Facts & figures: Domino/Notes – daily
access by email clients
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

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UZH Connect
the next step in collaboration

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HCL Connections – a long, long journey
• 2011: IBM Connections kicks in
• Licensing support by Belsoft
• Missing Management Support
• First rollout within IT Service
• Connections 3.0
• We did wrong what can be done wrong
• No management support
• No plans which component should be used in which manner
• No community manager established
• Nevertheless: IT department employees won’t
miss it after short time of usage!

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[email protected] – history and today
• 2011: Connections - adoption only by IT
department
• 2013: Connections for projects and pilot groups
• 2014: Preparing Roll Out for all employees
• 2015: Starting Roll out
• 2016:
• 2017:

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Social collaboration challenges – change the
bevaviour of users
• It is a great platform - can be spread even if your
management does not promote it
• Show the features people always missed for their
work
• It is not “normal” to work with a Social Business environment
• It is not a matter of age !
• People like email, they used it for years – we did not offer them better ways
to collaborate
• People are shy (you won’t have digital natives in your administration)
• People can’t distinguish between privacy and transparency

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Connections – Integrate to your environment
• Make HCL Notes/iNotes/Verse, Sametime and Connections one
experience
• Add Connections to Notes
• Easiest way to get rid of attachments in emails
• Get your tasks from your activities to your calendar
• Show up your community calendar in Notes
• Get the profile pictures back to Notes through Sametime
• Connections Desktop Plug-in
• Replaces your file shares with much more
benefits (versions just to mention one)
• Yes, the macOS Finder integration is
different

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Connections approaches – Integrate people
with their projects
• Identify stakeholders that will help spread the
word and help them with their projects
• Integrate in working environment
• Show advantages and simplifications in the
daily work
• Find teams that cross borders
• Adopt communities to their needs

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Simple but effective - folder access for files
• University Management
• Grants access to stakeholders to minutes of
meetings with Connection Files
• Reuse Notes groups for access management
using folders only
• Flexibility of different access models

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Be prepared for hazards
• University Crisis management group
• Scenarios in case of hazards ready to use (selection)
• Radiation Protection
• Biological Safety/Security
• Fire Safety
• Chemical Safety
• Hazardous Waste Management
• People from different departments involved in
associated communities
• Subcommunities for handling different hazards

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Be prepared for hazards – private only
• Content “private” only
• Yes, it’s fine to keep Communities
restricted
• ensure that members gain confidence
• also social business must be learned
• prepare content for later public access

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The role of HR
• Identify the needs HR has
• Find stakeholders willing to optimize processes
• And then the voice is spread over 150 units by more
than 600 people and all 660 kingdoms

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Managing workflows with subcommunities
• Evaluation process for institutes
• Goal: reduce email without introducing new tools
• One community with all information for all evaluations
• One subcommunity for each evaluation
• Managing workflows by changing access rights during
evaluation process
• On community member level
• On file access right level

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Simplify research cooperation in art history

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Research Project “The Churches of Rome in
the Middle Ages”
• Completion of a six-volume catalogue of the
approximately 120 medieval churches of Rome (3
volumes published, 3 volumes in preparation)
• Cooperation project
• Chair of Medieval Art and History of Photography at the
Università della Svizzera italiana, Mendrisio (Prof. Dr.
Daniela Mondini)
• Chair of History of Medieval Art and Medieval Archaeology
at the University of Zurich (Prof. Dr. Carola Jäggi)
• Further scholars located in Europe and in the US

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The need of sharing documents
• The researchers need a common platform to
share their documents (images, journal articles,
manuscripts etc.)
• Before using Connections:
• Shared directory on a Windows server (VPN
connection required to access from outside the
university network)
• Too complicated to set up the necessary VPN and
server connections on the researchers’ computers

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Benefits of using Connections
• Fully browser-based solution → no setup
of VPN and server connections needed
• Improves the information flow between the
project members: Thanks to email
notifications, everyone is well-informed
about the activities in the Community.

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Connections media gallery
• Allows immediate overview
• Files allows organizing information in
chapters

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Simplify collaboration: Directorate for
Real Estate and Facility Management

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Infrastructure and Construction Challenges
at UZH in a nutshell
• Outstanding Infrastructure is a decisive factor
for the future of UZH
• At present, too many sites make efficient
teaching and research more difficult
• Outdated properties are resulting in high
operating costs and inefficient teaching
• The long-term goal is to integrate the Oerlikon
and Schlieren site at Irchel Campus
• The pent-up need for restoration work on
Irchel Campus is considerable. This puts
operating safety at risk and increasingly leads
to structure stabilization measures that
cannot be planned
Schlieren Campus

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Directorate for Real Estate and Facility
Management (Direktion Immobilien und Betrieb DIB)
• Challenges for EDM:
• wide spectrum of tasks DIB (e.g. site development,
project management, facility management, maintenance)
• Different roles with very specific needs (e.g. cleaning
staff, architects, portfolio managers, gardeners,
engineers, mechanics, controllers, project managers)
• Recent reorganization (directorate DIB since 01/2019)
• Project organization vs. line organization; projects with
other UZH units (e.g. IT, Finance, user groups)
• DIB plans, develops and operates the real estate portfolio of the UZH (Website)
• Since June 2019: Team «Development and Data Management» (Entwicklung und
Datenmanagement EDM)
• Simplify collaboration & evaluate software for the directorates specific needs
• Establish & optimize information flow and knowledge management

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Directorate for Real Estate and Facility
Management & UZH Connect
• Work in progress:
• EDM as «think tank»: all team-related content on Connect UZH
(e.g. files, meeting protocols, requests) -> testing, testing, testing
• Subcommunities for EDM projects (DIB- / UZH-wide)
• Communities for software user groups (e.g. manuals, FAQ, Q&A,
discussion forums)
• Coming Soon (maybe… hopefully!):
• DIB Community with all staff members (mandatory, e.g. to secure
constant information flow, implement employee suggestion system)
• DIB knowledge data base (e.g. fact sheets, instructions, manuals,
guidelines)
• Communities for DIB projects to simplify collaboration (no more «all files
on my desktop / in my mailbox» or «who’s got the newest version?)»

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Sharing knowledge
https://youtu.be/yEYCWkK-iEk

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Since fall semester 2017: access for
students
• Students have been integrated since autumn
2017 without further ado
• Institutes use Connections as a
documentation (especially Wiki's) and
collaboration platform for students
• Students open their own communities

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Connections usage

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Veterinary hospital –
UZH Connect is the collaborative intranet
• Blog used for announcements also from
the director
• Wiki for docu-
mentation, also
for students
• Reduce of email
à check the community !

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Workshops for “Community Managers”
• Rollout is not a technical challenge !!!
• It’s a organisational one
• Prepare units to be aware of it
• Community Manager
• There is no technical role for it
• People need to be enabled for it
• Workshops
• Your users know what they need
• Let them find out and assist them
• IT will be critical: loss of control

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Workshops are open for students

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It’s open – let it open – let the choice !
• Let them use and show them all options !
• Notes integration (Outlook and MS Office too)
• Desktop plugins
• Mobile Apps
• If you miss it: they will found out!
• You can’t loose control – you never had!
• It’s social !
• It’s open, let it open
• The only way they can contribute their own ideas and are also prepared
to rethink their own processes
• People need to learn and will learn to handle it
• Discuss consequences of errors

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Thank you for your attention

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PLATINUM SPONSOR
PLATINUM SPONSORS
GOLD SPONSORS
SILVER SPONSORS
BRONZE SPONSORS SPEEDSPONSORING BEER SPONSOR

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How the University of Zurich enables users to use Connections – openly and decentrally managed

How the University of Zurich enables users to use Connections – openly and decentrally managed

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