Services

A list of minimum support requirements is below. Additional teaching, scholarship, or service responsibilities will most likely require more capable configurations. Software used by faculty or staff will have their own minimum and suggested specifications for hardware which may cause the need for newer equipment.  This list can be used to determine when computers are no longer usable and should be sent to surplus.  Please coordinate all technology purchases with your local CAS-IT representative.

Computers that do not meet the following specifications (and cannot be easily upgraded to do so) are not supported by CAS-IT and should be decommissioned (last updated 07/23/2021):

• i-series encryption capable processor
• 8 gigabytes RAM
• 160-gigabyte hard drive
• 64-bit Windows 10 version 1909
• Mac OS 11 Big Sur, 10.15 Catalina, and 10.14 Mojave supported, older versions not supported
• All devices that can store data must be encryption capable

A standard exception to this policy is any computer hardware necessary for specific equipment that would impose an extensive financial or functional hardship to replace. For example, computers connected to scientific, or a/v distribution equipment will be supported to the best of CAS-IT’s ability.

According to University policies requests for access to services or data must be approved by Unit Security Liaisons (USL). In CAS the USL is the Dean for college-wide services or for CAS Dean's Office functions, a department chair or unit directors for their departments or units. This responsibility may not be delegated.

This is the general process for requesting access:

1. Requester submits a Detailed Request at https://help.IllinoisState.edu/get-it-help
• Login
• Click 'Submit Detailed Request'
• Click 'Accounts and Security'
• Click 'Request or Change Access'
• Requests that fall on a weekend, university holiday, or administrative closure day will be processed the following business day
2. The appropriate CAS-IT support person will get approval from the USL
3. The USL indicates "approve" or "deny" in a reply-to-all email
• The address supportcenter@ilstu.edu should be included
• The subject of the email and the embedded CID code must not change
4. CAS-IT support staff fulfills the request if approved

Exceptions to the general policy in the case of:

• instructor "lab folders" access requests may be approved by the instructor owner
• group or organization websites may have requests approved or denied by the director or faculty advisor of such group or organization

Under no circumstances can a student approve or deny access requests.

Getting Started

Employees who are new to the University or newly serving in a role, like an Assistant/Associate Director, should be onboarded to CAS-IT services.  A ULID is not needed to initially inform us.  To begin the CAS-IT onboarding process:

1. Go to https://help.IllinoisState.edu/get-it-help
   1. Under the heading of "Requests" click, "Submit Detailed Request"
   2. Log in with your ULID and ULID password
   3. Click 'Onboard an Employee'
   4. Provide all requested information
      1. The date on which access should be granted should be entered in the "When is the employee's first day of work?" field which does not need to be the employees' actual start date.  
   5. Click 'Save'
   6. Click 'Ok'

Requests that fall on a weekend, university holiday, or administrative closure day will be processed the following business day.

Equipment

Equipment should be ordered by the school/department that will keep the equipment in inventory and should be available for deployment by the faculty member's start date or another agreed-upon date. New faculty may be allotted a specific dollar amount for startup equipment or may have negotiated for an amount needed to begin their research.  CAS-IT maintains a list of recommended equipment at "Buying Computers". Please always consult with your local CAS-IT representative before ordering equipment.  

Role Based Access Permissions

As much as possible, CAS-IT applies permissions to a CAS Role Group instead of an individual's ULID.  Other IT teams and other ISU systems may also be able to utilize CAS Role Groups; CAS-IT encourages requesting permissions be applied to CAS Role Groups instead of ULIDs when possible.  This helps for a smoother transition and more consistent experience when an employee's responsibilities change.  A single person may fulfil multiple roles and can be a member of multiple CAS Role Groups. Many people may also fulfil a single role. CAS-IT can create as many CAS Role Groups as needed. 

To request onboarding to a particular role, simply submit a typical onboarding request and specify in the ticket description the role that should be applied.  

New Employee Access Permissions

New employees will be given access to the following CAS-IT services as a part of the onboarding process, without further approval:

• Watermark Faculty Success (formerly known as Digital Measures Activity Insight)
• The department share on the Office Files (formerly known as the Shared) drive
• The root department Teams site
• Subscribed to cas-faculty or cas-staff listserv appropriately
• PaperCut Managed Printer Access (if applicable) 

Any additional access may be requested by adding specific systems to the 'Description/Additional Comments' field in the onboarding request form or by following the 'Requesting new access or changes to existing access' process.  CAS-IT staff does not model access from other employees as this typically results in unnecessary access to systems or requests for access to systems not managed by CAS-IT.  Additional access requests will require Unit Security Liaison approval.  CAS-IT does not have the ability to grant access to campus-wide systems like Campus Solutions, iPeople, ReggieNet, etc.  Separate access requests must be submitted for non-CAS-IT supported systems as the request likely will be processed by different IT teams across campus.  

• The appropriate CAS-IT support person(s) provisions access 

• CAS-IT Local support person owns the request until all work is completed and:
  • Collects any needed approvals for requested access (if applicable)
  • Adds the new employee to any other local security group as needed
  • Runs the Cherwell One-Step called "CAS-IT General On Boarding"
  • Coordinates any computer hardware or software requirements with the department designee
  • Provides a brief overview of CAS-IT services to the new employee (does not need to be completed before the request is closed)
• A CAS-IT server team member:
  • Assigns the task for the Server Team to themselves
  • Adds the new employee to department "people" groups
  • Adds the new employee to cas-faculty or cas-staff listserv
  • Fulfills any other requested access as appropriate, if approved by the USL
  • Marks the task completed
• A CAS-IT Training and Advanced projects staff person:
  • Assigns the task for the Training and Advanced Projects to themselves
  • Adds the employee to the Department/Schools primary Teams/SharePoint Site with Member permissions
  • Creates a Basecamp to-do for the Digital Measures GA to add the new employee and offer them training
  • Provisions requested web-based resources as appropriate
  • Marks the task completed

• The requester is informed that all work is completed by a CAS-IT support person setting the request as 'fulfilled pending confirmation'

Employees who no longer serve in a role, like an Assistant/Associate Director, are offboarded from the role only.  They maintain the IT permissions associated to any remaining role(s) and lose IT permissions associated with the role(s) they no longer serve.  When submitting a ticket indicate if the employee should be removed from a specific role only. 

Off Boarding from all roles is necessary when an employee is no longer actively teaching, researching, or otherwise providing service to their hiring department.  There are many people or groups to notify when an employee leaves your department or school.  The HR web page "When an Employee Leaves" is a great guide.  The "Department Separation Responsibilities" document guides departments to contact their IT support.  During the "CAS-IT All Roles Off Boarding" process we generally:

• Disable their Watermark Faculty Success (formerly Digital Measures) profile (entered productivity information is not deleted)
• Remove access to shared department resources like the Office Files Drive, websites, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint sites
• Delete any CAS-IT hosted web presence the employee may have had including removing their profile on a department website
• Remove the employee from the CAS faculty or staff listserv

Department chairs/directors/executive directors may initiate the off-boarding process by notifying CAS-IT of an employee's change of status. If someone other than the chair/director/executive director notifies CAS-IT of the separation the appropriate department chair/director/executive director (the Unit Security Liaison or USL) will be contacted for confirmation of the change in status. This process may be requested for a future date, and it is not necessary to wait until the offboarding date.  If there are any confidential or special circumstances regarding offboarding, the chair/director should contact the CAS-IT Director to discuss. 

1. Visit http://help.illinoisstate.edu/get-it-help
2. Click 'Submit Detailed Request'
3. Click 'Accounts and Access'
4. Click 'Offboard an Employee'
5. Provide all the requested information
6. Click 'Save'
7. Click 'Ok'

Requests that fall on a weekend, university holiday, or administrative closure day will be processed the following business day.  The following roles have the described responsibility in the offboarding process:

1. The USL:
   • Inform this leaving employee that access will be removed according to the CAS-IT Data Retention Policy and that they should immediately make any personal backups of files as they wish to keep
   • Indicates "approve" or "deny" in a reply-to-all email
     • Include any changes in Rank (ex: Professor to Emeritus or Professor to Retired, etc.)
     • The address supportcenter@ilstu.edu should be included in the reply
     • The subject of the email and the embedded "CID" code must not change
2. CAS-IT support staff:
   • CAS-IT local support person owns the Cherwell request until all work is completed and:
     • In Cherwell:
       • Change the Customer field to the person being offboarded
       • Open the Approvals page in the arrangement, click "New Approval", enter the USL in the "Approver Name" filed, Save the Request record (do not click the Approve button)
       • Run the Cherwell One-Step called "CAS-IT All Roles Off Boarding - Step 1"
         • Properly categorizes the Record Type as Service Request, Service as Accounts and Security, Category as Onboarding/Offboarding, subcategory as Offboard an Employee
         • Emails the employee's name, effective offboarding date, and a link to the CAS-IT web page that describes the off-boarding procedure to the USL and asks them to approve or deny
         • Occasionally check the request record for an unread mail or approval status to change to "approved" then proceed if approved
         • If denied, close the request with this as a resolution
       • Run the Cherwell One-Step called "CAS-IT All Roles Off Boarding - Step 2"
         • Creates tasks for Server Admins, Training and Advanced Projects, and local support staff
         • Auto-populates the resolution field
     • Removes access to any department-specific resources as necessary
     • Disables automated folder sync redirections (ex: My Documents to Private Drive)
     • Coordinates any computer hardware moves with the department's inventory steward
     • Coordinates any computer software changes with the department's fiscal agent
     • When all tasks are complete set the Cherwell record to "fulfill pending confirmation"
   • A CAS-IT Server Team member will
     • Take ownership of the task
     • Remove the employee from:
       • CAS related AD Groups, including the "people" groups
       • Cas-faculty and Cas-staff listservs
     • Mark the task completed
3. The requester is informed that all work is complete by a CAS-IT support person setting the request as 'fulfilled pending confirmation' 

As approved by the CAS Technology Advisory Committee on 02/13/2015, data associated to a specific employee as the data owner will be deleted no sooner than 6 months after that person is no longer an active employee. For example a faculty member that takes employment elsewhere is no longer an active employee. The 'Private Drive' and a faculty member's personal website are examples of data that belong to a specific employee. Retirees or emeriti faculty can be considered active if their ULID is still active and they still teach, conduct research, or otherwise provide service to CAS. Exceptions may be requested to the Director of CAS-IT before the deletion occurs as outlined. Data that does not have a specific owner, but is shared between multiple people may be retained while it serves a purpose or as other factors dictate. The 'Shared Drive', organization websites, or SharePoint collaboration sites are examples of data that shared between multiple employees.

CAS-IT strives to keep all of our services up-to-date and free of any disruptions or unscheduled downtime. To facilitate this, we implement a planned maintenance window in which we might take some to all of our services off-line to perform maintenance or upgrades. Most Maintenance Windows will begin on the 3rd Friday of each month at 7 p.m. (Friday) – and end at 7 a.m. (Saturday). Planned outages will be rescheduled when they fall on the first week, last week, finals week, or the time between finals week and the time grade submission are due during the Spring or Fall semester.  An extended maintenance window will be scheduled each May beginning the day after grades are due through 5 pm the following day.  An extended maintenance window will be scheduled each December beginning the day after grades are due through 5 pm two days later.  Click here for the scheduled maintenance dates.

The following services may not be available or may be degraded (slow) during this time:

• CAS-IT server shares including CAS Private Drive (FKA R: Drive), CAS Office Files Drive (FKA S: Drive), CAS Project Drive for temporary projects, CAS-Lab for research labs, and others
• Printing to CAS network printers and print management with PaperCut
• License servers for MATLAB, Maple, Intergraph, GE Healthcare, FlexNet, Texas Instruments, Harris Geospatial, WinEdt, EViews, Excelis, Bruker Top Spin
• CAS-IT hosted websites including department websites, CAS Budget system, CAS Syllabus Database, CAS Collaboration System, CAS Internship Posting system, Mind Project, WZND, Water Research, etc.
• All other CAS-IT hosted servers or services including Noah, CAS-IT remote application server, Inception, etc.
• Some functions of the CAS Chemical Inventory System

Please Note - Computers may restart as a result of installed updates. Logging in to Windows computers maintained by CAS-IT will take longer than usual.

The following services are not impacted by CAS-IT maintenance:

• Watermark Faculty Success (Formerly Digital Measures) will not be impacted by this planned outage and faculty may still enter productivity information at https://www.digitalmeasures.com/login/ilstu/faculty/
• Zoom, ReggieNet, Office 365, Qualtrics, About.IllinoisState.edu, Omni Update/OU Campus department websites, Proctor Track, or other University-wide services
• CAS Budget System, CAS Travel Funds System, Scientific Instrument Repair Request System, and School Psychology Annual Review System

We recommend that all Faculty and Staff computers are logged off, yet remain powered on, when not in use to help facilitate system updates.

A list of future CAS-IT scheduled maintenance windows is available at https://cas.illinoisstate.edu/downloads/CAS-IT%20Scheduled%20Maintenance%20Dates.pdf .

If you experience any trouble with these CAS-IT supported services after this maintenance window, please attempt to restart your computer and then report an issue on the IT Help website (https://help.illinoisstate.edu/) or by calling 438-HELP (4357).

Workarounds:

Move files from CAS-IT servers to OneDrive or Microsoft Teams ahead of the maintenance window. Websites might show a temporary page announcing that the servers are under maintenance.

Non-emergency, planned maintenance, planned degraded performance, or planned outages of any CAS-IT service will be posted on the Alerts website. CAS-IT highly recommends that all faculty and staff subscribe to Tech Alerts by clicking the “Subscribe to Updates” link on the Alerts website . 

Emergency maintenance, unplanned outages, and unplanned service degradations of CAS-IT services that affect multiple CAS departments will be posted to the Alerts website and emails will be sent to CAS Faculty and Staff list-servs.

Planned or unplanned events of single department services will be coordinated with their service owners and notifications may vary.

The following items are services that are no longer being offered but current users may be grandfathered use.

CAS Private Drive (login required)

• • Tutorial

In 2019 the CAS Private Drive was considered deprecated and as such current users could continue to use the service, but no new users would be added to the service. 

CAS URG System

In 2018 the CAS-IT custom developed URG system at https://casit.illinoisstate.edu/urg was decommissioned. URG applications were moved to Digital Measures at that time.

Select Survey

As of 12/19/2017, the CAS-IT hosted version of Select Survey at http://survey.lilt.ilstu.edu is no longer available.  Qualtrics Survey Platform is available as of May 17 th , 2017 to all Illinois State faculty, staff, and students.   Select Survey was outdated an no longer supported by the vendor. More information about Qualtrics and the Select Survey transition can be found at  https://about.illinoisstate.edu/qualtrics/ https://help.illinoisstate.edu/technology/support-topics/campus-applications-and-websites/qualtrics. 

Deprecated 12/19/2017.

CAS Open Journal Systems (OJS)

OJS was a journal hosting system used primarily by the SPORA journal, the Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology, and by the English Department's Publications Unit.  The system was outdated an no longer secure. Both SPORA and CeMaST began using BePress from Milner Library as an alternative.  

Deprecated 7/19/2016.

CAS Hand-in & Instructor Folders

Student Hand-in folder system link:
http://casit.illinoisstate.edu/handin/

Instructor Public Folder system link: https://cas.illinoisstate.edu/instructors

Student - Accessing Your Instructors Folder
Instructors - Adding Files to Instructor Folders

Deprecated 11/5/2015.

COINS

COINS (CAS Intranet) was a system that allows faculty and staff of CAS to keep an updated profile, store syllabi digitally, and securely distribute grades to students.

Deprecated 1/5/2015

WordPress Blog Hosting

Deprecated on 07/01/2014.

CAS Secure Folders

Deprecated on 03/01/2014.

Faculty HTML (non-cms) Website Development

Service replaced by About.IllinoisState.edu content management system (CMS).

Deprecated on 07/01/2014.

CAS Files Private and Shared Drives Web View

Deprecated on 6/23/15 due to a purchased product failure. This product was no longer supported, and a replacement was not available. The interface for this system was https://ca sit.illinoisstate.edu/casfiles/ .