This page is to provide answers to questions asked regarding the Digital Transformation Plan.
Does the digital transformation plan scope 'users' as include applicants? As a recruitment process this seems key.
Yes, anyone who interacts with our digital facilities, including applicants, should benefit from a new approach and focus on the user experience. Discussions have already started with Marketing colleagues on how we can make our applicants experience better and an aim of the Digital Transformation Plan is to be able to support those innovations.
Why is the university introducing a significant change such as transitioning to Microsoft in a time of already increased workloads and stress?
Our current environment is complex, inefficient, difficult to operate, and increasingly unaffordable. In line with the University reset initiative now is exactly the right time to fix these issues and to move us to a single platform which will simplify our environment, provide better features, increase our efficiency, and reduce our costs. A large focus of the change will be on supporting staff and students with the move across to Microsoft 365 and more information regarding this will be provided over the coming months.
With the recent decline in international students applying to study at UoP and students overall, is it anticipated the Digital Transformation Plan will encourage students to want to come and study here?
The Digital Transformation Plan will ensure there is a focus on making digital a distinct feature of the University and this will include developing an outstanding and high-quality digital environment that is easy to interact with. In addition, we should be working on the digital interaction's applicants have when they engage with us and make that more aligned and a better single and common user experience. There are also parts of the world where accessing our facilities is difficult, including our Google tools so moving to Microsoft 365 and improving our other digital services should make a positive impact here including better AI chatbot services which can provide 24-hour responses to applicant’s queries.
The last time the university went through a big digital transformation was SITS which was poorly implemented and had a negative impact on staff. How will this digital transformation be delivered differently?
There are several areas where we are planning to and are working differently now. User involvement in the new digital implementation is key to better outcomes and has been overlooked in the past. We want user representation early on, to actively engage with projects, to guide and advise on the approaches and developments required.
This approach has been started with the launch of the new Digital Superheroes Network which met for the first time in January. They will act as champions for the digital changes within their areas but also as a critical friend to advise and highlight any issues and challenges. This will also drive one of our important impact areas where we need to focus much more on the user experience. This will hopefully lead us to a digital workplace where we can perform most of our daily tasks via the workplace rather than having to interact directly with a multitude of vastly different systems.
Secondly, we need to start with the processes not with the system or technology, a common reason why digital projects fail is ignoring the need to review and improve the underlying processes. Systems tend to get implemented and corrupted by forcing them over the top of poorly designed processes, so we need to get the processes right first.
Thirdly, we need to continue to improve data quality and reportability. We often do not focus enough on improving data quality when implementing new systems resulting in rubbish in, rubbish out, which then degrades the trust in the new system.
Finally, we are continuing to mature our project management processes with improved governance but also adopting innovative approaches such as Agile development and Minimum Viable Product delivery. This enables us to develop solutions more quickly with some but not all of the requirements delivered early so it can be put in front of users more quickly, this allows better and quicker feedback to be obtained to allow the solution to be refined and developed. Currently most of our new system implementations take a rigid and inflexible approach trying to develop the whole solution before it is released. This means it takes much longer before users get to see the system, its often much more difficult to change and adapt it at that point, and it often ends up being delivered much later than planned.
Since the implementation of SITS, our professional support teams have faced increased challenges in tracking interactions with students across different departments, often depending on email correspondences. Given the recent changes in student and academic support services, these challenges are likely to intensify further, affecting both our workload and the quality of student experience. I recall there was an initiative to enhance our use of Salesforce and a CRM project in development last year. While I recognise that budget constraints might have impacted these plans, having an efficient CRM system is crucial for streamlined processes and improved cross-departmental communication, which in turn benefits student experience. Could you please provide an update on the status of this project and any progress made?
Work has continued on the Salesforce CRM system over the past few years but primarily focused on the applicant journeys and improving data integrations from systems such as SITS. We are about to re-launch the CRM steering board with Chris Chang taking over the chair of that group. We want to review the CRM Strategy and roadmap and make sure we are maximising the potential of this resource.
What will be the low hanging fruit delivery for the digital transformation at Portsmouth campus?
Some early impact areas we can make includes starting to deploy and use the Microsoft Power BI reporting platform more widely as our sole source of the truth, a common reporting platform for us all to us. This will over time give us better and quicker access to all our reports and dashboards in one place and eventually allow us to build our own reports and dashboards based on sanitised data within the data warehouse enabling us to unlock the power of the data we hold.
Another impact area is starting to simplify our digital environment, reducing the diversity of systems and software, and moving towards more standard tools (how many video conferencing systems do we really need?) whilst trying to support innovation where appropriate.
Finally, the move to Microsoft 365 will allow us to take that first step to simplifying our setup whilst also providing a toolbox of tools that will help us build a more modern digital environment with AI built in.
What support will there be for students joining the university during the transition included in the digital transformation plan?
The move of students over to Microsoft 365 will be planned out in more detail over the coming months. Support will be provided in terms of guidance, training materials, support via the IT support desks and the central IS Service Desk along with other engagement events we will look to plan. We will work closely with colleagues and the Students Union to ensure there is strong collaborative approach. There are several different approaches other Universities have taken with regards to how and when students are moved from Google to Microsoft 365 and one area that we are working on now is interoperability so that the two environments can coexist for a brief period (e.g. calendars and email are synchronised between the environments). This will help us avoid the undesirable big bang switch over and allow us to plan and manage a more progressive move to Microsoft 365. It is though likely and depending on the time of year and the phase of the move, that new students would be setup in Microsoft 365 from the start of their time with us and not have access to a Google user account.
Has the scope of current pedagogical usage of Google products by teaching staff been analysed? What reassurance can be offered that suitable alternatives have been identified within the M365 infrastructure, and that time and training has been factored into the transition period?
We should continue to use our existing tools until the Microsoft 365 environment is properly setup and the plan will be to migrate departments in a managed way across to Microsoft 365. We will, over time though, start to see more use of the Microsoft tools including Teams for video calls and Microsoft Forms even when we may still be using Google as our main platform until we are moved. An early phase of the programme, which has commenced, is user engagement to fully understand the use of Google. This will assess what is being used and what is still needed. This is a chance to tidy up and cleanse the environment - we know for example there are thousands of Google forms but many of them have not been used for a considerable period. Parts of Google may not be able to be migrated and therefore we need to understand how that can be reproduced in Microsoft 365. The primary focus of the programme though will be on support and training to assist with the move to Microsoft 365.
Why is AI left off of the transformation plan for several years yet? We need to be embedding this within all of our curricula and workflows as soon as possible. Staff would like further guidance on this. / Copilot is available now within the Microsoft Suite - will we be able to use it, and if so when?
The Digital Transformation Plan timeline was originally created approximately 1 year ago. As technology advances and our needs change the plan will be updated. The plan is regularly reviewed and adjusted where required based on need and affordability. The year 4 AI item presented specifically relates to the Information Management Improvement programme where there is still a great deal of improvement work to be done around data management and data quality before we can start to truly benefit from AI insights and Analytics.
However, those timescales are flexible and will be adjusted as progress is made. In terms of the University making use of AI more generally we must remember that AI has only started to become widely available and more mainstream in the past 12 months or so (Chat GPT launched in November 2022 and Copilot in February 2023). We also did not decide about moving to Microsoft 365 until towards the end of 2023 and Microsoft has only relatively recently started to embed Copilot within that environment. However, recognising the potential, colleagues are working together to start to identify use cases for AI, including: user support, content generation, recruitment support and academic and research opportunities. We are also working on some guidelines and guard rails for the use of AI and will need to be mindful of governance and emerging regulation around the use of AI and our any potential liabilities.
As Microsoft 365 begins to roll out we will immediately be able to access AI facilities within the tools to help us manage our working lives and to start to provide us data insights into reports and dashboards produced within Power BI.
We are also starting to look at AI chatbots for streamlining our support to staff and students and how AI could be used to help recruitment. AI will therefore very much become part of the Digitial experience at Portsmouth and much sooner than we originally anticipated.
Having an efficient CRM system is crucial for streamlined processes and improved cross-departmental communication, which in turn benefits student experience. Could you please provide an update on the status of this project and any progress made?
We are about to re-launch the CRM steering board with Chris Chang taking over the chair of that group. We want to review the CRM Strategy and roadmap and make sure we are maximising the potential of this resource.
Are there going to be Sharepoint hubs for managers to create spaces?
SharePoint is part of the Microsoft 365 and will be available for the University to use. During this first phase of the project, we will be looking at how best that can be used and deployed to ensure any use is managed and maintained appropriately. There are also other facilities within Microsoft 365 that might provide an alternative to SharePoint with more features or improved experience.
Will the new Microsoft system be able to support collaborative working in documents and multiple people editing the same document at one time, like Google Docs/Sheets etc. currently provides?
Yes, Microsoft 365 can do this now. Google used to lead the way in this online collaborative working but Microsoft implemented the same facilities several years ago and this works both within their web browser-based tools (like how Google works) but also in the desktop client versions of things like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There are also many other facilities in Microsoft to help with collaboration such as the use of Teams which Google does not replicate to the same level.
Will files currently stored on Google Drive be automatically copied over to Windows, or will this require staff to manually transfer these over?
This is something that we are investigating, and we need to look wider than Google drive and include H and N drives so we can try and simplify our storage environment and to further reduce costs by retiring these storage drives.
We hope there will be the option to help with migration but many Universities who have implemented the same change migrated email and calendar's across to Microsoft 365 and asked staff with support and training to migrate any other stored documents etc into the Microsoft 365 storage areas. This helped people as they knew where their items were placed as they had to put them there rather than some central system moving things and it not being clear where they end up. This is particularly important with things like shared drives and folders.
Finally, and probably the most important thing we all need to do is to start some housekeeping on our storage and emails. Several Universities we have spoken to have said when they did the tidy up 70% of the documents, emails, and data did not need to be migrated as it was either Redundant, Obsolete or Trivial (ROT). We need to remember that no storage is free, regardless of where it is hosted. Google is no longer free for example, so we need to manage our storage much more carefully than we did in the past, although our allocation from Microsoft will be slightly larger than what we get from Google now.
What is the cost of hosting services in the cloud?
There is not a single answer to this question as it relies on several factors. At the University we have three types of cloud hosted services. 1. Supplier hosted (iTrent, e5, Advanced). 2. Software as a Service (Salesforce, Google workspace). 3. Our own systems hosted in public and private cloud suppliers (Azure, AWS, Google etc). Each model has a quite different costing model. Supplier hosted charge for the complete hosting service which often includes managing the system and undertaking upgrades. It is related to the normal licence cost for that system and the number of users, plus the amount of storage and scope of the contract. SaaS cloud systems in a way are costed similarly, you are basically “leasing” the software and allowing the manufacturer to manage the entire system for you. Our own cloud-based systems tend to be costed on an as used basis, e.g. you are charged for any processor time you use and the amount of storage you consume. Most of the University’s main systems are now run under the supplier hosted model. There are a few SaaS systems of varying sizes although many of these are smaller software systems. We have few in our own cloud at this time. Some pilot work is being undertaken looking at creating virtual PC desktops in the cloud to provide better access to PCs and specialist software for our students. What the general move to cloud has enabled us to do is to diversify our system hosting. This has helped to improve security in certain areas and has allowed us to reduce the capital spend on servers and storage on campus. It has enabled us to consider shutting down one of our expensive data centres and move to a considerably smaller and more efficient data centre to replace it, reducing our carbon footprint and energy costs whilst continuing to provide resilience on campus for our networks and campus-based services.