Vice President for Information Technology Status and Activity Report for August 2025
Prepared by Timothy M. Chester, Vice President for Information Technology (VPIT)
1. Key Items for Faculty and Staff Meetings
• New Interim Director for Office of Institutional Research Named: Kelly Slaton has been named interim senior director for the Office of Institutional Research, effective December 1, 2025, following the retirement of Allan Aycock. To support a smooth transition, Slaton will shadow Aycock and become familiar with his responsibilities in the coming months. The Office of Institutional Research plays a vital role in the university’s decision-support framework. Slaton’s appointment reflects a strong record of performance in progressively responsible roles, and close collaboration with her in this new capacity is anticipated. Thanks are extended to the many stakeholders who participated in the interview process.
• Unified ERP Update: The Unified Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Project intends to replace the current institutional systems for human capital management, financials, and student information, improving the experience for students, faculty, and staff; streamlining core business processes; and unifying technology into a single, Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. To prepare for the upcoming project activities this semester and to provide additional awareness to the UGA campus community, there are a series of activities occurring in the Fall 2025 Semester. Updates and information about semester activities will be shared on the UGA Project Website: UGA Project Website. For more information, contact Lynn Wilson at llatimer@uga.edu or Shawn Hill at shawnh@uga.edu.
• Ransomware Tabletop Exercise Planned for September: Ransomware is one of the top business risks facing any large, distributed organization. To proactively raise awareness and improve our continuity planning, EITS will host a Ransomware Tabletop Exercise at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education on September 29-30, 2205. UGA has partnered with a leading cybersecurity firm to deliver both operational and executive leadership tabletop exercises at UGA. For more information, contact Ben Myers at bmyers@uga.edu.
• New Duo Step for Microsoft 365 Coming in September: Beginning in September, users will encounter a new step when logging in to Microsoft 365 services such as UGAMail, Teams, Office, and OneDrive. The update will be introduced in phases. Retirees will see the change on September 9, 2025, followed by departmental MyID accounts on September 16, 2025. All remaining users, including students, faculty, and staff, will experience the update on September 23, 2025. After entering a MyID@uga.edu email address and password, users will be prompted to click “Approve with UGA ArchPass Duo” before completing their Duo authentication. All users will need to reauthenticate on each device, including web browsers, desktop apps, and mobile mail apps on Apple and Android devices. In most cases, this new step will only need to be completed once per device. After that, the usual Duo prompt frequency will resume. This change is required by Microsoft for all customers using third-party multi-factor authentication systems, like UGA’s ArchPass Duo. For more information, visit https://eits.uga.edu/stories/newduostepformicrosoftservicesstartingseptember23/ or contact Justin Sackett at justin.sackett@uga.edu
• Qualtrics Cost-Sharing Program Planning Underway: To support departments interested in continued use of Qualtrics after December 2025, EITS has instituted a costsharing program. The deadline to opt-in to the cost-sharing program was May 1, 2025 Participants in the program have received recommendations for survey clean-up efforts Beginning January 2026, access to Qualtrics will be limited to cost-sharing program participants only, and UGA Single Sign-On will be required. Current faculty and staff who are not part of the program will retain Qualtrics access through December 2025 and have received guidance on transitioning to alternative survey tools. Students had access to Qualtrics until August 1, 2025, and have been advised to use QuestionPro as their primary survey tool moving forward. For more information, contact surveytools@uga.edu.
• Alchemer Survey Tool Now Available: For units and departments who need additional survey tools, EITS offers Alchemer on a cost-recovery basis. Once purchased, Alchemer may be used by faculty and staff for survey research and administrative use when alternative tools are not sufficient to meet the unit's needs. Units purchasing Alchemer licenses are responsible for setting up UGA Single Sign-On (UGA SSO) for their instance. Licenses can be purchased through UGAmart. For more information, visit https://www.alchemer.com/education/, or contact UGA Procurement at procure@uga.edu.
• OIR to Launch New Website: The Office of Institutional Research (OIR) will soon launch a redesigned website featuring a modern interface, enhanced functionality, and interactive data visualizations powered by Power BI. This upgrade is designed to improve the usability, accessibility, and presentation of institutional data, making it easier for the UGA IT community to explore and leverage key insights. The new site will launch with Tableau reports, with Power BI reports added as they are developed. An official launch date and access information will be shared later this fall. For more information, contact Allan Aycock at aaycock@uga.edu.
2. Services for Researchers:
• GACRC Teaching Cluster Available for Fall 2025: A small high-performance computing cluster devoted exclusively to teaching duties is available for use during the Fall 2025 semester. This cluster includes high-memory nodes and GPU-enabled nodes. The cluster, which is supported by the Georgia Advanced Computing Resource Center (GACRC), was also in use during the spring. Faculty members interested in discussing the capabilities of the teaching cluster and how it might integrate with their coursework should contact the GACRC. For more information, contact Dr. Guy Cormier at gcormier@uga.edu.
3. Other General Services
• Boyd Data Center Electrical Upgrade Planned for the Fall 2025 Semester: This fall, EITS will continue upgrades to the Boyd Data Center’s electrical systems, replacing outdated, lower capacity circuit breaker panel boards with new high-density panels. These upgrades build on the work completed in 2024, which increased capacity on the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) capacity from two 500 kVA systems to two 750 kVA
systems. The first phase of the maintenance is scheduled for the week of August 25, with the second phase tentatively planned for September 20, 2025. This upgrade will utilize the increased UPS capacity to better support the data center’s growing power demands. No impact to campus is expected; however, some servers in the data center will temporarily lose backup power while EITS safely installs new wiring and circuit breakers. For more information, contact Chris Fleming at cfleming@uga.edu.
• Biannual UGA SSO Upgrade Planned for September 19, 2025: UGA’s single sign-on service, UGA SSO, is scheduled for maintenance on September 19, 2025. This upgrade will move the service to the latest version and apply current security patches. To prepare, EITS will pause the deployment of any new applications to production UGA SSO after August 15, 2025, until the upgrade is complete. EITS performs updates to UGA SSO twice a year, in February and September. For more information, contact Kristi Wall at kristi.wall@uga.edu.
• Employee and Affiliate Clean-up Planned for September: EITS will run its automated clean-up process for employee and affiliate MyIDs this fall. The process targets accounts belonging to individuals who have left the university but whose MyIDs or UGAMail mailboxes have not yet been disabled or removed. Accounts flagged for disablement and deletion will receive two automated email notifications sent to the user’s UGAMail address. These messages will alert account holders that their access will be disabled and deleted soon. Accounts belonging to individuals currently enrolled in a UGA degree program will not be removed. Retired employees are still eligible to retain their UGAMail addresses. Affected users will receive two email notices in September. Account disablement is scheduled for late September. For more information, contact Kristi Wall at kristi.wall@uga.edu.
• QuestionPro Survey Research Tool Now Available: QuestionPro is the new enterprise survey research tool available to students, faculty, and staff free of charge. This platform includes tools for creating, distributing, and analyzing surveys, along with tablet-based mobile research and data visualization tools. There will be two migration and training sessions this fall, on September 4, 2025, and October 6, 2025. Registration links are available at https://eits.uga.edu/about/initiatives/survey_tool/migrationworkshops/. Recordings from the spring migration and training sessions are also available at the same link. For more information, visit questionpro.uga.edu or contact surveytools@uga.edu.
• Fall Biannual Network Maintenance Scheduled for November 2, 2025: EITS plans to conduct its fall biannual network maintenance on Sunday, November 2, 2025. EITS conducts biannual network maintenance in the fall and spring each year to support the network and provide ample bandwidth and internet capacity to the university. The maintenance will result in intermittent outages of campus Internet access, telephone services, and various UGA information systems, including UGA Single Sign-On, UGA websites, and wireless networks. For more information, contact Rayid Tartir at rayid@uga.edu.
• Teams Phone Available for Campus Units: EITS now offers Teams Phone, Microsoft's cloud-based, next-generation phone system. Teams Phone allows UGA employees to communicate and collaborate anytime, anywhere, on any device. It integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft Teams application on laptops, tablets, or mobile devices, allowing employees to access all calls, chats, calendar invites, and meetings in one place. EITS
Telephone Services will transition all phone lines off the legacy PBX and onto Teams Phone by March 2026. Approximately 2,300 phone extensions have been migrated as of this summer. The EITS Telephone Services team is coordinating with all remaining departments to schedule their transitions to Teams Phone. Departmental Telephone Representatives (DTRs) should fill out a Teams Phone Onboarding Request for their unit at https://uga.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/3190/eitsclientportal/Requests/ServiceDet?ID =54344 as soon as possible. Upon receiving the onboarding request, approximately six weeks prior to the port date, EITS Telephone Services will schedule a large group meeting to address any concerns and answer questions. The Teams Phone transition does not affect AT&T Centrex/HVS users or phone lines outside of the Athens area. For more information, contact Steven Duffee at sduffee@uga.edu.
• Transition from Omni CMS to Kaptiv8 WordPress by December 2025: Effective December 2025, Omni CMS (formerly OmniUpdate) will no longer be offered as a content management system for university websites. EITS recommends WordPress provided by Kaptiv8 as an alternative solution for content management and website hosting. All university websites using Omni CMS must migrate to WordPress or another website hosting platform by the end of 2025. The transition from Omni CMS to WordPress was announced in 2023 and began in early 2024. To learn more about options for transitioning to WordPress, visithttps://uga.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/3190/eitsclientportal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=1 58743. For more information, contact David Crouch at dave@uga.edu.
4. Did you Know?
• Fall Help Desk Hours: The EITS Help Desk will return to its normal operating hours on August 4, 2025. The hours are as follows:
o Sunday: 1:30 - 6:30 p.m.
o Monday - Friday: 7:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. (Note: The Help Desk will close at 5:00 p.m. on Fridays when there is a UGA home football game.)
o Saturdays: CLOSED
The EITS Help Desk operates from 101 Cedar Street and can be reached by phone at 706542-3106, by email at helpdesk@uga.edu or via our chat service at hd.support.uga.edu. For assistance outside of our operating hours, please visit the EITS Knowledge Base at eitshelpdesk.uga.edu to access self-service tech tips.
• AI Tools to Start the Semester Strong: UGA students, faculty, and staff have access to three powerful AI tools through their UGA accounts: Microsoft Copilot, and Google’s Gemini and NotebookLM. These tools can help streamline tasks, summarize readings, create study materials, and organize projects. When used with your MyID, your data stays protected under UGA’s privacy policies, unlike with personal accounts. To explore these tools, log in with your MyID (myid@uga.edu) and password, just like you would for UGAMail. For more information on AI initiatives, resources, and tools at UGA, visit https://aihub.uga.edu.
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