Project Brief

MVM512: CMVM Space Management IT Development

1. Overview

Background

Managing building and room occupancy in the Bio-Quarter Campus is a complex task which will increase in complexity over the next 5-10 years as new buildings are commissioned and staff are relocated between the new builds. Auditing of what rooms are occupied, how many people are in a room and who they are, is a big administrative overhead. Thereare different buildings and disparate ad-hoc solutions in recording this occupancy data, from word files to excel spreadsheets. This proves to be a very inefficient, inaccurate, and time consuming set-up which will hamper planning both within areas of buildings and the Campus as a whole when it expands.

Therefore a system is required to look at the wholebuildings management and occupancy problem with a holistic approach. Being able to better utilise the space and manage it in an effective, more transparent and accurate way is a key requirement in dealing with the continued growth at the Bio-Quarter as a whole and within discrete areas of individual buildings.The Easter Bush campus team have developed an in house software solution to this issue, it has the ability to take feeds from HR and other sources and help automate the process. This project will look to adapt that system so it can be utilised to manage building, room and people occupancy in a more streamlined, efficient and scalable manner at the Bio-Quarter Campus. The ability to takes feeds from HR systems and other sources is desirable in the medium term but in the first instance there is a realisation that the set-up of the system with accurate floor plans and incorporation of existing data should form the early milestone.

Scope:

QMRI, Chancellors, Building 9, SCRM (BioQuarter)

Not In Scope:

Lecture Theatres, Seminar Rooms, Coms and Server Rooms

COMMS:

E-mails, Meetings, Training sessions

Objectives

  • Accurate big picture of space and occupancy levels
  • Maximise people and space efficiencies in BioQuarter(the objective is not to remove space from Centres but to give a more transparent record of use)
  • Accurate, up to date digitised floor plans and location of staff.
  • Automation from HR, VRS, UCLID feeds – giving details of new arrivals is desirable

Deliverables

  • Virtualised box for hosting
  • SQL backend test and live database
  • Front Facing Access Interface
  • Populated records with floor plans and occupancy
  • Training and documentation

Benefits

  • Better management and auditing of space and occupancy.
  • Accurate forward planning and growth prediction
  • Quality control and less fragmentation of information
  • Automation from HR and easier look up and search abilities.

Success, Criteria

  • System delivered and adopted
  • Improved management and auditing of Occupancy and space usage
  • Capacity to plan and budget for growth in the future.
  • Old disparate and fragmented systems retired

Project Milestones

  • Virtual infrastructure setup
  • MSSQl database setup with tables imported, test and live one
  • Tables populated with accurate data and plans, HR, VRS, UCLID
  • Access front end adapted for Bio-Quarter
  • Web integration for floor plans and zoom functionality
  • Testing
  • Training and Delivery

2. Impact

Project Risks

  • Single Point of failure (Software Developer)
  • Lack of stake holder by in
  • HR Compliance
  • Quality of HR Feed
  • SQL Management
  • Adaptability of System
  • Workloads
  • Inaccurate building plans
  • Manual input – Resource required.

3.Organization
Work Task Breakdown

  1. Purchase and set up of VM Environment
  2. Installation of server software
  3. SQL setup and configuration
  4. Creation of Test and Live Databases
  5. Engagement on getting feeds from HR, VRS, UCLID
  6. Copies of exiting spreadsheets and data etc.
  7. Populate tables
  8. Updated Maps of Buildings
  9. Web Team engagement for zoom/blow up function etc.
  10. Access front end adaption and rollout
  11. Training, documentation and delivery to user base
  12. Backend technical administration guide lines, and training/responsibility

Resources Skills and Cost

Stake Holders:

Project lead – Sarfraz Mohammed

Technical Lead – Colin Simpson

Infrastructure – APPs

Support Team: IS US BioQuarter and Central MVM Support

Team Leads – Mark Hay, Anthony Davie

Campus Officers – Val White

Customers:

Sharon Hannah

Space/Centre/Building Managers Bio-Quarter

CommunicationPlan

  • Kick of meeting with Space/Centre/Building Managers
  • E-mails – milestone updates and progress
  • Progress update meetings