IT Services Internal Communication

An interesting thing happened at the end of the Two-Factor Authentication project: the team didn’t want to disband. Instead, they asked to work on another project, one that could add value in a short time. The result: an Agile-style project to implement recommendations for improving the tools and documentation used to control access or change the configuration of an application at Miami.

Maybe you aren’t familiar with AuthMan (Miami’s internally developed solution for managing authorization to applications) or ConfigMgr (Miami’s internally developed solution for managing configurable elements of an application external to the code of the application.)

But most of us can quickly grasp the nature of problems that arise from inconsistent practices and processes. Both AuthMan and ConfigMgr offer a way to standardize practices across applications.

Unfortunately, AuthMan and ConfigMgr also need a major user interface update to lower the barrier to entry. After reviewing the prioritized issues and recommendations identified by an AAS ad-hoc team, we quickly realized that merging AuthMan and ConfigMgr was the best solution.

That brings us to our current effort to design and launch appBuilder: a new, more flexible solution that will improve IT Services’ ability to reduce the time lost to code changes while simultaneously increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of our development processes. At the same time, we are developing documentation to support use of the new tool.

Before the start of fall semester, appBuilder will be a reality. Right now, the team is designing the interface, building the infrastructure, and working to address the features that add the most value.

It’s an ambitious task, to be sure. Stay tuned–we’ll be testing our new user interface soon. If you want to learn more, let us know in the comments below.