Above, the new Technology Support Center that is now open 24/7.
Did you know that eMerge is now ESP, or that BITS is now APPS, among other changes?
The recent reorganization within Illinois State’s information technology (IT) community involves a lot of alphabet soup, so we thought we’d take a moment to help you understand the changes. Because what hasn’t changed within Administrative Technologies (AT) is the outstanding customer service and technical support it continues to provide to the campus community.
In 2012, the Illinois State IT community had a bold vision to create a manageable yet flexible IT environment for the University that efficiently blended the local and central IT support functions. That vision involved re-aligning some of the central technology units from the academic side to the administrative side.
The idea is actually very simple: to merge the units doing the exact same work, thus eliminating duplicated processes and creating opportunities to reallocate those duplicate resources to solve other IT service gaps.
The units under AT, before the merger, included:
— BITS (Business Intelligence Technology Solutions)
— Business Office
— eMerge
— ESS (Enterprise Systems Support)
— Portfolio Management Office
The units that were part of the Office of Academic Technologies (OAT) and merged into AT were:
— CISS (Computer Infrastructure Support Services)
— Telecomm and Networking (T&N)
Here is the structure of AT today:
— AIM (Analysis, Insight, and Management Information)
Formerly part of BITS
— APPS (Application Services)
Formerly part of BITS
— ATBO (Business Office)
— CS (Client Services)
Formerly part of ESS and CISS
— ESP (Enterprise Solution Partners)
Formerly eMerge
— ION (Infrastructure, Operations, and Network)
Formerly part of ESS, CISS, and T&N
— PMO (Portfolio Management Office)
Although the various name changes within Administrative Technologies over the past year may seem confusing, the reasons are very logical. Duplicated services were combined and multifunctional units were divided into customer serving areas and infrastructure areas.
For example, CISS (previously part of OAT) was serving customers and handling infrastructure. Now, that unit has been split into ION and CS. ION manages infrastructure and CS offers customer support.
In addition, CISS (originally part of OAT) was previously managing technical support for some academic support areas, and ESS (originally part of AT) was managing technical support for non-academic support areas. The customer service functions of CISS and ESS are now part of CS. Regardless of which AT unit is serving customer needs, outstanding support has remained constant for Administrative Technologies.
Technology Support Center launched
In addition to eliminating duplicate services and streamlining processes, with the reallocation of resources, AT has implemented the new Technology Support Center offering tech support campuswide 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Technology Support Center was the result of combining the University Computer Help Desk (part of CISS) and the Enterprise Service Desk (part of ESS). Customers in need of support may contact the Technology Support Center in several ways:
— Send email to SupportCenter@ilstu.edu
— Visit SupportCenter.IllinoisState.edu
— Chat with the Technology Support Center online
— Call (309) 438-4357 (HELP)
— Stop by the Technology Support Center office in 115 Julian Hall
To help clarify what each unit is responsible for, please see the chart below.
| Unit | General responsibilities |
| AIM | Oracle Database Administration, Data Warehouse, Business Intelligence Environment, Business Intelligence Solutions, and Information Security |
| APPS | Enterprise Application Administration, Application Development, and Quality Assurance |
| CS | Release Management, Technology Support Center, Desktop and Printing Support, Outage Communications, Computer Labs Administration, Inventory Disposal\Reuse, Training, and IT Service Monitoring |
| ESP | Business Process Analysis, Business Requirements Gathering, and Customer Relationship Management |
| ION | Technology Design, Servers, Workstations, Operating Systems, Data Center, Networking, and VoIP |
| ATBO | Budget, Contract, Financial Management, Talent Management, and AT Communications |
| PMO | Project Coordination, Communication, and Portfolio Management |
For additional information on Administrative Technologies, or to contact a certain unit, visit the AT website.
