GroupWise Consolidation Project

As ITS looks to the future, we would like to focus on services that advance the Department of Family Medicine mission areas. In order to do so, we've taken an introspective look to see how we can best achieve this goal. Our Novell services have grown over the past several years, and we are now at the point where we need additional resources, including personnel and hardware. The University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation also uses Novell products for email and file services and already has the resources in place to support a large number of users. Because of this, we have started a project to move our email and file services to the UWMF.

The benefits of moving our services to the UWMF are:

• Shared calendar and address books for GroupWise users between the DFM, the UWMF and the Hospital
  
  
• Reduction in the number of passwords, because GroupWise, Novell, Metaframe, and Epic accounts will all use the same username and password. We will also be upgrading to a newer version of GroupWise that has more features
  
  
• Free staff time to devote to other projects such as statewide videoconferencing and supporting additional software packages that are used in our Department

We will work hard to maintain a high level of service both during and upon completion of this project. This process will also be as invisible as possible. Your email address will not change, and email will still be accessed in the same manner it is now.

We are targeting a completion date of June 30. The first step is to synchronize current DFM usernames with the UWMF. If your username is in the old format (e.g., eschovil), it will be renamed to your initials plus three numbers (e.g., ERS808), which for many of you is the format that your UWMF username is in already. This will take place before March.

Eric Schoville and Kathy McCain are the primary ITS staff working on this project, and they are excited about completing this project and collaborating with the UWMF. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this project, please direct them to Eric Schoville.