June 2022

The new Meal Plans Portal is online, allowing students to purchase meal plans using any device. Texas AΜ Dining Services worked with the Division of IT to replace the legacy Meal Plan Tracker with the new portal and its “mobile first” design.

Microsoft Bookings is being incorporated into workflows across campus, as it works seamlessly with Outlook and Teams for scheduling. The College of Science uses the software to schedule use of the lightboard video studio, which is shared with the Math Learning Center. The Secure Technologies for Aggie Researchers (STAR) team uses Bookings to schedule discovery meetings/consultations with interested researchers and create separate scheduling pages for different audiences to avoid overlap.

Matt Lacy, assistant director of Texas AΜ Health IT, has been accepted into the CyberAmbassador Facilitation Program at Michigan State University in July. The NSF-funded program offers training in communication, teamwork and leadership skills for CyberInfrastructure (CI) Professionals.

The Division of IT provides customized product demos and training for many Microsoft 365 applications. If a team in your unit is interested, please email m365training@tamu.edu to schedule a Microsoft 365 demo or training session.

Texas AΜ University’s IT organization will become Texas AΜ Technology Services on September 1. Additional details, including a new brand guide, instructions and expectations will be shared in the weeks ahead.

A new web page is available to help recruit student employees and build the future of campus IT. Visit it.tamu.edu/studentjobs for information about student IT opportunities across campus. Student worker employment opportunities in IT are also being promoted at New Student Conferences this summer.

The Texas AΜ University System Tech Summit call for presentations is open. Proposals will be accepted through June 24. Texas AΜ IT professionals selected to present will receive a paid registration to the 2022 conference, themed “Change Facing IT Professionals.” The conference will be held virtually September 27-28.

Campus network upgrades continue to increase speed and reliability. Ten buildings received switch replacements and other enhancements over the past year.

A Proof-of-Concept website and submission form for campus IT professionals to submit information about the products and ideas they're testing is now available. This site will allow collaboration and information sharing by providing one place to see what other groups are testing.

Retired employees can now quickly view a list of technology services they can continue to access upon retirement. The list is available in the Knowledge Base and has been added under the “resources” section of individual service pages such as Texas A&M Exchange and Texas A&M Gmail.

An auto-registration process is being developed for Laserfiche. The feature will allow anyone to register automatically as a user when they initiate a Laserfiche form. The process could save users hours or days, as admins previously had to enter everything manually.

The project to require modern authentication for Microsoft 365 is progressing well, and 10 units across campus now require their employees to use modern authentication. These moves alone reduced the potential password-based attack surface against our Exchange environment by over 88%. All other campus units will transition to modern authentication on July 19.

The IT Accessibility team continues to hold training sessions for EIR Procurement and Accessibility Compliance Reviews. Training is designed to help identify the importance of accessibility compliance, define the Voluntary Accessibility Template (VPAT), list steps in the accessibility conformance review process and summarize exception workflows and processes. To schedule a session, email itaccessibility@tamu.edu.

To enhance security, Texas A&M Qualtrics now requires SSO to log in. The service page at qualtrics.tamu.edu was redesigned to support the new login process.

CONTACT US

Please send feedback and questions to the Division of IT at tamu-it-coms@tamu.edu.