[Acocoops] Rollover offering for 2024

Fri Feb 2 09:05:19 EST 2024

Is there a copy of the rubric used for last year that I can review and use as a guide for this years?

Thanks,

Jameson Schildroth
Information Technology Specialist
Arts Computing Office
University of Waterloo
PAS 2081D
Office: 519-888-4567  x41275
[university-of-waterloo-logo-esig]
How was my service today?  Please fill out the survey and let us know!<https://uwaterloo.ca/arts-computing/feedback-form>

From: Bill Baer <bill.baer at uwaterloo.ca>
Sent: Friday, February 2, 2024 8:41 AM
To: Sean Speers <sean at uwaterloo.ca>; Spencer Chen <acocoop1 at uwaterloo.ca>; Jameson Schildroth <jschildroth at uwaterloo.ca>; acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca; acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca; Camille Graham <camille.graham at uwaterloo.ca>; Jason Greatrex <jgreatrex at uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Re: Rollover offering for 2024
Importance: High

Morning all,

We should incorporate the questions and responses (others can add into as well) into a knowledge base article, and rise and repeat each rollover year. Hopefully everyone can take some time to review the response. I will ask Jameson’s team to see if we could get an interested co-op to convert questions and responses to an interesting knowledge base we can hopefully share more widely.

  *   When reviewing product selection, does budget play a factor?  I touched base with Camille, who mentioned that approved budget lines aren't formalized until late March/early April. This might be important to consider as fiscal restraints will be very heavy this fiscal year (therefore, it might not model the previous year's budget) and impact product selection.
Essentially we offer 16GB & 512GB laptops and to a lesser extend lower level specs for tablets. Dependent on what we receive from WStore on prices, we do an analysis to have the annual amortized costs in and around $350 or less. This annual cost help create the life cycle, 4-year or 5-year. Remember, data shows faculty are leaning towards the higher (advanced) devices so reducing the specs would change the dynamics too much. Would like to get through these first 3 years of rollover with similar approach.
Approved budget lines are typically in May, and we put forward the suggested overall budget line for rollover usually including a unit cost only. However, we also include FPER contributions and resell contributions. However, we have to balance reselling and offer older laptops to other groups, BUT would prefer assets that are in use are still under warranty. Again, past experiences have shown we can waste value time (away from clients) trying to fix assets, which is low value at high salary costs.
Fiscal constraints this year will have impacts, but only area I see an option to reduce specs is for staff units. This would affect all staff, those in data areas, IT and multi-media staff. Should we then offer the 13” screens again? This adds additional complexity into the order process. Recently I asked and almost everyone agreed to drop the 13” screen sizes since wasn’t really of interest. Yes, will need new laptop cases, but we are running out of the 13” sleeves (we could use a prizes). Feedback also showed we should provide a laptop case with additional pockets for power supple and mini-hubs.
Of note, this current fiscal year’s rollover budget estimate is under budget by roughly 30%, thus significantly impacting the 2024-2025 budget is already built in. And that doesn’t include the FPER or resales. We could try to reduce the rollover count and/or reduce the specs, but I believe we are best to continue offering similar models (at least for a few years for data collection and analysis).
Again, getting data from our clients is important and the plan is to share this offering so they can select and we can order more accurately this time around. We should reach back to rollover clients over the past two years to capture feedback, and with a price point (now that we have the algorithm), ask if they would be interested in purchasing their rollover devices (at the appropriate time).
Finally, want to support the new rollover program, lots of strategic outcomes can be achieved.

  *   Can you shed any light on the criteria you used to select these products? Was a rubric used?  I'm trying to understand why these were selected over others.
The selection process has been based on following: 16GB & 512GB for laptops (less for tablets); tablets include keyboard and pen; annual costs in the $300 range; Microsoft (MS) and Apple only (4-year warrant); basic model (staff & new faculty); advanced model with video card (MS) & MacBook Pro; ultra-model  if needed; purchasing in June to leverage MS sales & have time to process (deliver) before fall term.
With this narrow view on specs, I’m open to additional input, I just asked Jameson to align to previous years approach to laptop devices. And asked for an Apple Tablet option (to align to the MS Tablet offering).

  *   For the iPad Pro offering,  I can say that it isn't a very good laptop replacement.  It also requires expensive add-ins (Pencil $159 and Magic Keyboard $369) to function as a laptop.  I suspect most faculty will want to use it as a companion device for their existing laptop (and cause barriers to returning the older laptop to ACO)
Given we have always offered a tablet in the Surface class, it would only be fair to those Apple users to have the same. I don’t see much uptake on this, however we should offer within the rollover data capturing process and determine if actually viable. As suggested above looking for input and suggested options.
Agreed, the tablet should include keyboard and pen, similar to the Surface tablet offering.
Agreed, many would want as a companion, and they should have the choice. We should make clear, as we have done with previous faculty that wanted to shift to a tablet (2 or 3 come to mind) they don’t keep what they have. But, no one should expect to keep older devices, however many have gotten away with this in past. This is a common theme with all faculty, need to keep more than one device, but with FPER front end and resell back end, we can accommodate their needs by purchasing.

  *   Apple will very likely be refreshing the MacBook Air and iPad line (likely a completely redesigned iPad Pro, and much more expensive with an OLED display) this spring with the updated M3 chips, so the timing of purchase should be factored in.
Yes, timing is critical and so is a shorter turnaround from form and delivery. Ordering of MS surface family should be at year end (early June) and Apple even earlier. With the form and how it will be automated, we should start ordering as soon as possible, possibly in 5-packs as the data is collected. The newer models M3 will be more costly and data collection should happen before we see Apple offerings. However, we can’t predict what, when and at what cost Apple will have to offer, but given we’re ordering this year models for Windows, should be a comparable process and offering with the Apple devices.
Thus ACO will have full control over the entire process, we can’t off-load to other departments to deploy. That has been a disaster, there are still devices yet to be deployed and FPER was collected last year.

  *   The Logitech MK295 device lacks Bluetooth connectivity.  This means the Nano USB receiver must be used, and our hub monitors only have 4 available USB ports, which can quickly be used up by other devices (webcam, printers, headset, phone chargers, scanners, etc.).
A perfect suggestion, data is needed to determine how many ports should be offered with this year’s monitors (and/or mini-hubs). Wondering, if we could collect list of users with hub-monitors and survey how many devices they have and if they could support another USB-A device. These keyboards were based on quick delivery given some are asking for keyboards with numeric pads. This would be typically staff, faculty only have mini-hubs, but similar survey should be offered to faculty. I suspect very few will be coming close to the limit of ports and if that’s the case, we don’t want to develop solutions for 10% of the clients, aim at 80% of the clients and develop solutions for those others use cases.
With this data we need to determine hub-monitors (staff) and mini-hubs (faculty). As some have suggested, we need data on how clients have welcomed the change to the laptop program which is part of the rollover program. This should hopefully be done before we send out the form to this year (2024) rollover candidates.
This would also mean we may have additional rollover packages for co-ops (30 in Arts typically each term); sessional staff (could be older devices, those not resold); high-end users (media rich workloads; data-scientist, IT staff as examples).

All this means is more work is needed to better fine tone the offerings, determine where we can reduce costs (staff and co-ops most likely)d. More information is needed on existing inventory available (monitors, etc.) but most importantly how many are eligible for a rollover this year. I’ve asked Nevil to look into (with consultation with Sean and Jameson). Finally, we have to review how many faculty (& to lesser degree staff) decline each year to help guide those interested this year.

@Sean Speers<mailto:sean at uwaterloo.ca> can you review last year’s analysis and share the annual costs from previous year and share for each device? I would suggest we put into a table for ease of review.
@Camille Graham<mailto:camille.graham at uwaterloo.ca> can you reach out to WStore (John?) and ask anticipated funds from FPER and resales (over x number of devices)? Just need an estimate to return on investment.
@Jameson Schildroth<mailto:jschildroth at uwaterloo.ca> could we ask co-op leads develop rubric as suggested?
@Jason Greatrex<mailto:jgreatrex at uwaterloo.ca> seems like we’ll need some survey data and thus related questions (not too many) to help guide us.

Thanks in advance, Bill

--
William R Baer, BASc (Systems Design)
Director IT - Arts Computing Office (ACO)
Bill.Baer @ uwaterloo.ca
Cell: 905-320-0483
Home: 905-481-2986
Fongo: 289-619-3650
Bill.Baer @ gmail.com

From: Acostaff <acostaff-bounces at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acostaff-bounces at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>> on behalf of Sean Speers <sean at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:sean at uwaterloo.ca>>
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 2:46 PM
To: Spencer Chen <acocoop1 at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acocoop1 at uwaterloo.ca>>, Jameson Schildroth <jschildroth at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:jschildroth at uwaterloo.ca>>, acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca> <acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>>, acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca> <acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>>
Subject: Re: Rollover offering for 2024
Hello,

Feedback and thoughts as requested:

  *   When reviewing product selection, does budget play a factor?  I touched base with Camille, who mentioned that approved budget lines aren't formalized until late March/early April. This might be important to consider as fiscal restraints will be very heavy this fiscal year (therefore, it might not model the previous year's budget) and impact product selection.

  *   Can you shed any light on the criteria you used to select these products? Was a rubric used?  I'm trying to understand why these were selected over others.

  *   For the iPad Pro offering,  I can say that it isn't a very good laptop replacement.  It also requires expensive add-ins (Pencil $159 and Magic Keyboard $369) to function as a laptop.  I suspect most faculty will want to use it as a companion device for their existing laptop (and cause barriers to returning the older laptop to ACO)

  *   Apple will very likely be refreshing the MacBook Air and iPad line (likely a completely redesigned iPad Pro, and much more expensive with an OLED display) this spring with the updated M3 chips, so the timing of purchase should be factored in.

  *   The Logitech MK295 device lacks Bluetooth connectivity.  This means the Nano USB receiver must be used, and our hub monitors only have 4 available USB ports, which can quickly be used up by other devices (webcam, printers, headset, phone chargers, scanners, etc.).

--
Sean Speers
Information Technology Specialist
Arts Computing Office
https://uwaterloo.ca/arts-computing/

________________________________
From: Acostaff <acostaff-bounces at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acostaff-bounces at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>> on behalf of Spencer Chen <acocoop1 at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acocoop1 at uwaterloo.ca>>
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2024 3:09 PM
To: Jameson Schildroth <jschildroth at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:jschildroth at uwaterloo.ca>>; acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca> <acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>>; acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca> <acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>>
Subject: RE: Rollover offering for 2024

Dear Jameson

The list looks great! I like how we’re offering tablet options. One main concern that I have are the sizes. Our old laptop sleeves won’t be able to accommodate the 15-inch length. Would we have to preorder more of the Kensington cases?

Spencer

From: Acocoops <acocoops-bounces at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acocoops-bounces at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>> On Behalf Of Jameson Schildroth
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2024 1:44 PM
To: acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acostaff at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>; acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:acocoops at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: [Acocoops] Rollover offering for 2024

Hello Everyone,

We are starting to get information on what models will be offered for the 2024 rollover and are seeking your feedback on what we should offer. We are thinking about dropping the 13” models in favour of just offering the 15” models as they seemed to be more popular.

Please see attached PDF and provide any feedback or thoughts.

Thanks,

Jameson Schildroth

Information Technology Specialist

Arts Computing Office

University of Waterloo

PAS 2081D

Office: 519-888-4567  x41275

[university-of-waterloo-logo-esig]

How was my service today?  Please fill out the survey and let us know!<https://uwaterloo.ca/arts-computing/feedback-form>

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