dCal Departmental Support Guide
Departmental dCal Roles
If your department adopts dCal, you will need to assign several roles: a dCal coordinator, a dCal Resource Manager, and IT support for dCal.
dCal Migration Coordinator
The adoption of dCal by your group requires communication within your group and coordination between your group and the Office of Information Technology (OIT). Groups who use dCal should identify a dCal coordinator, who can assist the group by:
- Serving as project manager for your group's implementation of dCal, including any data migration from an existing group calendaring system.
- Implementing dCal in a planned and coordinated way, which may include: discussing, agreeing, and communicating a local dCal policy and etiquette; giving advice and arranging training; and educating new staff members.
- Integrating or replacing existing procedures for recording schedules and booking resources with new dCal procedures.
- Helping resolve difficulties that arise, for instance, taking appropriate action if individuals or groups breach policy, guidelines, and etiquette in a way that adversely affects others.
We suggest that the departmental dCal coordinator be a person with influence in the group, able to speak at staff meetings, and able to help recommend and uphold a group's local dCal policy and etiquette. To assist you in planning and communicating how your group will use dCal, we have drafted some sample policy documents:
dCal Resource Manager
A dCal Resource Manager administratively manages resources in dCal and is usually the resource owner. Groups who use dCal must identify one or more dCal resource managers to:
- Assist the dCal Coordinator with establishing policy and etiquette for the use of collaborative resources.
- Help with the use and maintenance of assigned resources.
The group may appoint different Resource Managers for different sets of resources. Each Resource Manager should be able to perform the above duties and may be from any part or level of the group.
In connection with the above, OIT will assist by providing targeted training and opportunities for ongoing learning.
Departmental IT support
Your group may have its own IT support staff, it may contract with an outside service organization, the users may be self-supporting, or any combination of these three support scenarios may exist. This is your "local IT support," and is distinguished from OIT, the university's central IT organization.
The role of local IT support in supporting dCal for your group should be similar to that for supporting any other centrally provisioned enterprise-wide service, such as DukeMail, SAP R/3, PARIS, and SISS.
Local IT support is responsible for installing and configuring dCal client software, troubleshooting problems, and serving as the technical liaison to OIT. Your group may also choose to involve local IT support in training and functional use of dCal.
dCal services and support available from OIT
If your group migrates to dCal, your dCal Coordinator, resource manager, and IT support will communicate directly with OIT staff.
Support for the departmental dCal roles
If your group elects to adopt dCal, OIT will provide the following:
- A designated OIT liaison for the adoption and migration process
- Advanced assistance for local technical support
- A train-the-trainer program for local technical support
- An on-site dCal demo, highlighting the features of the system for a small group of support staff and/or other stakeholders
- Suggested usage and configuration policies
User support
Preferably, users should get help with dCal using the following resources:
- dCal desktop client Help
- dCal Web site: http://dcal.duke.edu/
- Other users, particularly those who have been trained and are willing to act as "expert users"
- dCal Coordinator (particularly for issues regarding guidelines, etiquette, and procedures)
- Group's IT support (particularly for technical issues or installation of software)
- OIT Help Desk (684-2200) or https://www.dunk.duke.edu/secure/submit/index.htm
- E-mail to dcal-questions@duke.edu for policy questions and other non-critical issues