Shout-out Wall for Q1 2021

Shout-out Recipients
January 1, 2021 - March 31, 2021 (Q1)

Arsenio H

nominated on 3/12/2021

Arsenio helped Procurement put together an automatic process and file naming convention where documents we put into a drop-off folder are picked up and scanned into OnBase. The files in OnBase are then automatically populated with keywords which are taken from CFS.

Jeff M, Liandra N, and Michelle M

nominated on 3/12/2021

The team identified a pattern of compromised student accounts where many of them had suspicious secondary email accounts on file. Looking into the issue further, it was discovered that over 700 student accounts (all CEL students) in ServiceNow also had suspicious email accounts associated with them and this was reported to Information Security. CEL was notified and investigated. It was discovered there were actually over 11,000 accounts that matched the suspicious email account criteria. They also identified the root cause of the fake student accounts stemmed from their online “quick admit” process. Kudos to Liandra, Jeff and Michelle for having a keen nose and identifying student accounts that didn’t pass the smell test and significantly reduce risks associated with compromised student accounts!

Calvin K

nominated on 3/11/2021

Calvin worked for several months straight to help ensure the success of the StarRez Cloud Migration project. His dedication and insight were crucial to help Housing, Dining, & Conference Services ensure a smooth transition from on the prem solution to the cloud with no major interruptions.

Michelle M

nominated on 3/12/2021

Michelle continues to collect accolades from the customers she supports, all while playing a key role in several critical projects including 2FA for Faculty, ServiceNow for Procurement, and Unified Communication. Michelle is always looking to help, and was critical to the success of the previously mentioned projects. Well done and thank you Michelle!

Liandra N

nominated on 3/12/2021

Liandra continues to actively mentor and support our Service Desk students. She routinely provides phone coverage as backup support for the Service Desk and Campus Operator line, as well as password reset line. She was a key team member in 2FA for Faculty and Unified Communication projects. She actively engages in complex technical discussions around Service Now and UC ACD. Amazing contributions to ITS and the campus and really cares about making things better. Thank you Liandra!! Awesome work!!

Arsenio H

nominated on 3/11/2021

For the past 6 months, Arsenio has helped us tremendously to resolve issues with People Soft Common Financial System(CFS). He is the liaison between SFSU and the Chancellor’s Office and is the only person in ITS that has extensive knowledge of CFS relating to our AP processes. He has been able to assist us in resolving many issues that Accounts Payable has encountered. On many occasions, we have had to work after working hours to resolve critical issues with the Chancellor’s Office. He is highly knowledgeable with the CFS system and deserves recognition for his outstanding work. These are some of the issues within that Arsenio has helped us resolve!

Michelle M

nominated on 3/11/2021

For three full months, Michelle provided regular reports out of the Duo Admin portal ensuring that team members had accurate data on which faculty members had completed Duo enrollment. Further, as faculty requested help understanding the tools and process, Michelle patiently walked them through and helped them meet our goals. No support personnel were scorched by dragon fire under her watch (though a bit of a slight singe now and then might have occurred.)

Joey D

nominated on 3/11/2021

Joey provided reliable, timely, and precise support for the 2FA Faculty project. Requests for changing a faculty member's 2FA status or looking up a problem were completed minutes from being requested. When performing customer service, speed is highly valuable and Joey was reliably fast.

Arsenio H

nominated on 3/11/2021

Arsenio has been assisting Accounting to resolve a CFS bank file processing issue resulted from the setup changes of the payment check. He is very patient and always provides extensive explanation on the status of our open ticket. We appreciate his willingness to help and be able to answer call after the hours.

Wilbur L

nominated on 3/11/2021

Many campus departments use ITS managed Twilio 'CloudACD' to remotely serve students and others while working away from campus. Over the past year this has allowed Advising, SAEM, Financial Aid, Registrar, Bursars, Counselling, EOP, Graduate Services, Veterans Services, SOS, Academic Technology and others to be reached via their Campus phone numbers and provide service. However, up till now, CloudACD could not display the CallerID phone number to agents. It was a noticeable lack. Wilbur presented a unique option to provide these campus departments the CallerID number following implementation of the new IP Flex AT&T service installed for the new UC Phone system, which Wilbur also oversaw. Wilbur guided the implementation and testing of this update for Twilio and it was a success. This should provide better service to the callers and the campus staff supporting them. Hooray for Wilbur!

Sandy S

nominated on 3/11/2021

We're really lucky to have Sandy on our team. Sandy is always here to help in whatever capacity she can. If anyone needs anything, Sandy always gets it. Sandy is always so much fun to talk to and share a smile with. She continuously comes to campus over and over to pick up and return items. Thank you for everything, Sandy!

Lori B

nominated on 3/11/2021

From day one Lori has been such an incredible resource and mentor to me. She welcomed me in with open arms and offered to help me grown in any way she could. She has taken the time to help me even when she didn't have to. Lori works extremely hard. She cares a lot about doing things the RIGHT way and not just taking the easy way out. I have learned so much from Lori and know I will continue to. I'm lucky to have her in ITS and in life. Thank you, Lori!

Arsenio H

nominated on 3/10/2021

Arsenio has developed an automated staging script to scan documents into Onbase. This is very helpful for our department to avoid the extra scanning work. Although the scripts had some issues at the beginning, Arsenio was very responsive and resolved them quickly. Thank you!

John G

nominated on 3/10/2021

John has become a bastion of Service Desk knowledge in his time as Student Manager and he uses that knowledge to support his team members and our customers. He has resolved issues more quickly than others may have, and he continually educates his team members so they can solve those problems in the future.

Douglas A

nominated on 3/10/2021

Douglas is committed to great customer service and it shows. He has provided phone support for the 2FA for Faculty project and more. Through those customer interactions, he has demonstrated his patience and dedication to fix customer problems.

Anthony S

nominated on 3/10/2021

Anthony has provided excellent phone support through the 2FA for Faculty roll-out and beyond. I consistently hear positive remarks from our customers about his service.

Rebecca D

nominated on 3/9/2021

Rebecca Diaz is taking on a lot more responsibility, she manages and behind the success of several projects including 2FA Bypass code, Security Questions Reset, Mobile Update, and the upcoming refresh of SF State Gateway. She manages all the aspects of the project so that developers can just focus on development and don't have to worry about everything else.

Andrea G

nominated on 3/9/2021

Andrea has been with ITS a bit over a year now, and her never-ending positive outlook and desire to help us all have made ITS a better place. She cares deeply about the work that we do, supporting the department, doing great work, and helping to make ITS the best department it can be. She is upbeat, creative, smart, and embraces learning new skills. We can all thank Andrea for so much! I am so grateful that she is here.

Qun L

nominated on 3/8/2021

Qun is always willing to put the time in for after hours and weekend project work. He does a tremendous job and does some great work that keeps our remote running smoothly. He deserves huge KUDOS!!!

Cynthia H

nominated on 3/8/2021

Cynthia has been a communications marvel for the UC project. Not only has she expertly handled drafting the multitude of communications to groups being onboarded, she has also gathered the targeted email lists needed for each group, diligently worked to get everything scheduled with the ITS Communication Coordinator. In addition, Cynthia has created multiple web guides in Drupal for the UC project. She has diligently worked with the ITS Communication Coordinator to review and edit everything before the guides were published. All of this work is on top of Cynthia's regular job responsibilities on the Network team in ITS. The UC project is a tremendous amount of work and with Cynthia's contributions as noted above, there is consistency and movement forward with this project in areas of great importance and value. She deserves recognition for taking all of this on and doing such a fantastic job with it all!

Pushpa K

nominated on 3/8/2021

Pushpa has brought to ITS an incredible skillset in project management, and an extremely positive attitude. Because of Pushpa, the UC project has been making tremendous progress moving forward, and she has maintained her upbeat outlook in spite of the many challenges of this project. She is an absolute delight to work with, and I trust her implicitly as a project manager who 100% knows her stuff. We are so lucky to have her in ITS!

Alex K

nominated on 3/8/2021

Executing the Campus Telecom UC project initial migrations and developing and sharing processes for the team. Working through rollout issues with our vendor and becoming independent for pending migrations.

Shawn H

nominated on 3/4/2021

I do not like awards that single out individuals as collaboration and team work are harder and often leave many unsung contributors left out of deserved recognition. But, in that spirit, I'd like to call out Shawn H’s contribution to the 2FA for Faculty project. Shawn worked tirelessly on various aspects of the project in his role as PM as well as operationally contributing by providing direct support to faculty, wrangling and articulating disparate data sources, contending with data/identity pitfalls, and a sundry of other tasks. More importantly, Shawn's demeanor and presence helped ground a project that was challenging in and of itself but also saw an embedded collaboration between AT and ITS teams and operations. The combination of his detailed PM skills and the soft skills (maintaining focus, personability, humility, flexibility, and openness) created a wrapper for the project that significantly contributed to the success of a project that required constant coordination and communication. In the world of work and of IT, not everyone deserves and award and not everyone who deserves a reward gets one. But, from time-to-time, it is worthwhile to distinguish an individual effort and Shawn's support of the 2FA for Faculty effort is without qualification, deserving.

Michelle M and Shawn H

nominated on 3/4/2021

Thank you very much, Michelle and Shawn, for assisting our faculty resolving DUO related connection problems. I must echo the admiration: you are super helpful! I had a similar experience with Michelle early in February and got great help with the transition via a zoom meeting as well as helping me book an appointment with Academic Service for my notebook. All got resolved quickly and professionally! My appreciation is beyond words. Hope you all stay healthy and safe!

Sterling S

nominated on 3/3/2021

Sterling Shanks recently helped me tremendously via a call.

Casey J

nominated on 3/3/2021

I am a person with a very high standard. But this time I really have to tell you how impressed I am by Casey J from your department. My laptop was not able to log into Teams from yesterday on. I was so struggled because of this. Teams is one of the most important tools I use every day to keep my team as a team. Casey quickly identified issues with Teams and other issues associated with my laptop. Now I am back to Teams!

Michelle M

nominated on 2/22/2021

Michelle M went above and beyond to assist with updating the IX Workplace installation guide for Macintosh computers. She was responsive and supportive, working through lunch to meet a tight deadline.

Joseph S

nominated on 2/17/2021

I want to say what a great help Joseph Solanoy has been this week. I have had a large number of random requests from contractors & CPDC for the new LCA building and he has been very quick to review and approve the changes needed to bring the building online.

Krzysztof K

nominated on 2/10/2021

Krzysztof K has been wildly helpful in getting me set up and quickly troubleshooting issues that come up. I appreciate your team’s support as I’ve been onboarding.

UC Project Team - Alex K, Casey J, Cynthia H, Chu C, Felix K, Greg S, James T, James L, John W, Liandra N, Lori B, Matthew Y, Paul J, Pushpa, K, Ryan K, Michelle M, Sandy S, Wilbur L

nominated on 2/9/2021

Subject: Re: Migration Complete: Echoing gratitude and adding thanks for the standby Zoom help session that was offered yesterday. It was very convenient to be able to hop on to a zoom session in the moment and talk to knowledgeable people to troubleshoot and get some quick resolution.

UC Project Team - Alex K, Casey J, Cynthia H, Chu C, Felix K, Greg S, James T, James L, John W, Liandra N, Lori B, Matthew Y, Paul J, Pushpa, K, Ryan K, Michelle M, Sandy S, Wilbur L

nominated on 2/9/2021

Subject: Re: Migration Complete: Campus Phone lines migrated to Avaya system. Thank you for picking us at the EOS Center @ RTC as a pilot-user group. Love this new telecom sys., especially during this remote work.A huge thank you to UC team for seeing this migration through smoothly. The communications during the migration have been outstanding.

Shawn H

nominated on 1/29/2021

Subject: RE: Two Factor Authentication - Qualtrics Survey I’m writing this note to express my deep gratitude to one of your staff (Shawn H) who today helped me with my 2F Authentication for the faculty. He was extremely helpful, incredibly polite, and immensely professional in the way he guided me through this process. Working with Tech guys like Shawn renders life much pleasant at a time when we are all struggling to adjust ourselves and our life-styles to the COVID-19 pandemic & cybersecurity uncertainties/insecurities. I was particularly impressed with Shawn’s professional attitude toward me. I’m sure my colleagues in IR Dept. will be thankful for his assistance. Consider this a note of sincere appreciation for the job you and your competent staff are doing for the SFSU community writ large.

Conrad P, John S, and Jaime G

nominated on 1/22/2021

Assisting the Graduate College of Education, and Dr. Deborah Curtis, with moving all our Signature Assignments into CS. This took a lot of patience and insight about how the system needed to work, and will greatly support our accreditation.

Anthony S

nominated on 1/4/2021

In early December 2020 I had a computer email problem which was way beyond my capacity to solve, and in fact derived from a deeper problem in the SFSU server, a problem that turned out quite difficult to diagnose, let alone solve. I called IT, and worked for hours with both Douglas and Anthony on separate occasions. Each of them was patient beyond the call of duty, clever, willing to try one thing after another, careful and caring, respectful and brilliant. As a professor for over three decades, I have had many fine students, and these two each have the qualities I have most valued. When students and staff respond in this excellent manner, they deserve recognition for their outstanding work, recognition which should stand them in good stead for their future work and lives.

Douglas H

nominated on 1/4/2021

In early December 2020 I had a computer email problem which was way beyond my capacity to solve, and in fact derived from a deeper problem in the SFSU server, a problem that turned out quite difficult to diagnose, let alone solve. I called IT, and worked for hours with both Douglas and Anthony on separate occasions. Each of them was patient beyond the call of duty, clever, willing to try one thing after another, careful and caring, respectful and brilliant. As a professor for over three decades, I have had many fine students, and these two each have the qualities I have most valued. When students and staff respond in this excellent manner, they deserve recognition for their outstanding work, recognition which should stand them in good stead for their future work and lives.

Ivan W and Andy W

nominated on 12/1/2020

Kindly be informed Ivan and Andy helped us tremendously to resolve one issue in CS. yesterday , even post working hour. We would like to give our sincere special recognition to both of them. Without their expertise and willingness to help this communication would not be going out today. I appreciate their efforts more than I can say.

Andrea G

nominated on 11/17/2020

Andrea has been a member of the ITS team for almost a year, however she hit the ground running. From the start Andrea has been a true asset to the department. During this time of working from home, her contributions have only increased. Andrea is a true gem.

WIlliam M

nominated on 11/17/2020

William has shown exceptional leadership skills in the last quarter. He has constantly volunteered to take on tough challenges. I would like to specifically highlight the Quickbuild Automation server upgrade. This project had several roadblocks (both technical and process related) and was going on for over 7 months when William offered to tackle it. He single-highhandedly tackled both the process roadblock on getting this going and the technical blocks. Within weeks, he updated our automation scripts and added several new scripts to help us scale better. He persistently pushed through all the external dependencies and blocks to get us off of the old server. This tremendously improved our ability to roll out new Drupal 8 development sites and also removed the developer dependencies on things like provisioning a new site, creating security groups and assigning members, pushing a site to production, rolling out new code changes and rolling out security patches. There were several other instances that highlighted William's growing leadership qualities such as automating QuickStart template for Drupal 8 and automating Sub-site feature creation which directly lead to efficiency improvement for the team and website owners. However, the QuickBuild server upgrade takes the cake purely based on the number of roadblocks and the complexities it presented.