I’m nearly complete with my current stint of streamlining our Desktop Support operations.
High Points:
- Munki auto-updates
- PDR flow & communication
- Lab Re-imaging
- Reorganization (starting soon)
- Purging Windows XP
- Team building
What I really want to talk about is the lab re-imaging process.
First, my rock stars:
- Lori Burgeson (builds & uploads images, licensing)
- Megan Eichler (imaging, QA, efficiency)
- John Rushing (imaging, QA)
Lori has been building images since at least August. She has to coordinate with faculty, Tricia (for new hardware, software, etc…), John, Megan, the techs and me. And I can be a pill 😉 She’s been burning it at both ends, and going the extra mile to make sure we get things done by tomorrow.
Megan has been balancing 3-4 priorities while driving the techs hard. She pushes harder than anyone and leads by example. She really tests each piece, so she finds the most details that need attention.
John is the new-comer. He barely knew the imaging a little while ago. Now he’s leading teams of students and working to get the labs imaged and then processed.
We have 2 labs left and we are still hopeful to close it all up tomorrow. Once that’s done on our end, we have to contact Faculty and have them sign off on their labs that everything works for them. I’ve been acting as a QA tester for each image before it goes out.
It’s a grueling 2-month process that we’ve tweaked along the way. We’ve adding tracking where we needed more accountability. Megan has been instrumental in finding areas to improve in the process.
We’ve all been working hard, trying to make things run smoothly, accurately and efficiently. I am looking forward to school starting and not having the stress of the imaging process. With everyone’s help we will make the process much better next year. Munki will be more mature. We ordered a new Mac imaging server with lots more space. I’m very hopeful about the future. This team has really come together to complete the mission. Just a few more day and we’ll be there.