Policy

Topic: Calendar Policy
Date: October 22, 2002

A. Rationale and Purpose of Policy:

The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) Calendaring System provides individual, group and resource scheduling capabilities for members of the University of Colorado at Boulder community. This policy addresses issues regarding use, security, availability, and operational support of the calendar product.

B. Policy and Scope

The Calendar policy provides guidelines about the following aspects of CU-Boulder Calendar:

• Account activation and deactivation;
• Authentication and authorization;
• Backup and restore strategies;
• Data capacity;
• PDA/Outlook synchronization;
• Resource creation and scheduling;
• Group creation and scheduling;
• Support plan;
• Documentation and communication;
• Training.

C. Policy

1. Account Activation and Deactivation

A phased approach is being used to grant Calendar access to the campus community. Any person in the Enterprise Directory is currently eligible to use the Calendar.

Once a user has begun using the Enterprise Calendar, the user, as long as he or she is actively affiliated with UCB, will not be deactivated, regardless of employment change. Complaints regarding inappropriate calendar use should be reported according to ITS Abuse Reporting Guidelines. Reference Responsibilities of UCB Computer and Network Users (www.colorado.edu/its/docs/policies/responsibilities.html) for appropriate computing use guidelines and www.colorado.edu/its/abuse.html for abuse reporting guidelines.

2. Authentication and Authorization

Authentication
Authentication is managed through IdentiKey accounts, i.e., a user must authenticate to the Calendar by entering their IdentiKey name and password.

Authorization
Use of the Calendar is authorized through the Calendar Directory. Currently all people deemed to be UCB members by the Enterprise Directory are established as authorized calendar users. Calendar authorization for 'sponsored' individuals will be granted upon request. Each individual requesting calendar access must be defined in the Enterprise Directory as currently affiliated with UCB.

3. Backup and Restore Strategies

Backups
ITS is responsible for making a complete copy of the Calendar's database daily. Incremented bi-hourly backups are also performed. This snapshot copy is written to disk the following day, then to tape; tapes are retained for forty days.

Individual backups of individual calendars must be handled by each Calendar user. (See www.colorado.edu/its/calendar for documentation regarding backups.)

Restoration
ITS is responsible for the recovery from catastrophic Calendar system failure.

ITS is responsible for maintaining a second server to be available as a "fail-over" option should the primary Calendar server become unavailable.
ITS will restore individual calendars, upon request, for a fee. Requests for restoration should be made through the IT Service Center (303-735-HELP).

4. Data Capacity

ITS has supplied ample disk space to allow all UCB faculty and staff up to 5 years of data (using an estimate of 1 MB of storage per-person, per-year). Disk usage, disk space, and capacity policy will be reevaluated as the Calendar is further implemented through the campus community.

5. PDA and Outlook Synchronization

A synchronization product is being tested and is not yet ready to be deployed across a wide audience; therefore, PDA and/or Outlook-Calendar synchronization is not formally supported. ITS is testing software that synchronizes calendars between the Enterprise Calendaring System and PDAs and/or Outlook. PDA/Outlook synchronization users within this test community must conform to best practices and protocols as established by ITS. (See www.colorado.edu/its/calendar)

ITS is continuing to evaluate the current synchronization product and to research alternative products with the goal of implementing a PDA/Outlook-Calendar synchronization tool for the campus in the future.

6. Resource Creation and Scheduling

Resources are non-human entities that are available for scheduling. Conference Rooms are a good example of a "resource." Requests to create new resources can only be made by a Departmental Calendar Representative; the request should be routed through the IT Service Center. Actual resource creation will be performed by an ITS Tier 4 expert. The Departmental Representative "owns" each resource created on his/her behalf. The resource owner is responsible for setting scheduling permissions on each resource in accordance with individual departmental policies. Users who wish to schedule resources (rooms, equipment, etc.) must conform to the Resource Management and Scheduling Best Practices. (www.colorado.edu/its/calendar)

7. Group Creation and Scheduling

Each Calendar user has the ability to build a calendar group out of individual calendars. These calendar groups can be used to evaluate schedules across multiple people or resources.

8. Support

Enterprise Calendaring support is offered through self-help utilities, the IT Service Center (303-735-HELP) and ITS core experts. See www.colorado.edu/its/calendar for details.

Each calendar user must assume some level of responsibility for his/her own calendar maintenance. Each user must plan for individual calendar backups in the event that an individual calendar might be lost and need to be restored. Backups can be made through calendar exports or by printing hardcopy versions of the calendar.

9. Documentation and Communication

ITS Tier 1 Support is responsible for providing and maintaining online Calendar documentation including overview documentation, Frequently Asked Questions, a Quick Reference Card, and Best Practices.

All calendar announcements must be handled through the ITS Public Relations Coordinator within ITS Tier 1 Support.

10. Training

In-depth calendar training for designated departmental calendar representatives is provided by ITS.

Ongoing, informal training (for example, "brown bags") is offered by ITS once per semester.

Training can also be requested on an as-needed basis; requests should be made through the IT Service Center (303-735-HELP).

D. Procedures

This policy will be reviewed by ITS, monthly during the first year of the Calendar's existence and at least yearly thereafter.

E. References
Features referenced throughout this policy are described in Calendar documentation found at:

University of Colorado at Boulder SunONE Calendar Express Project site (includes best practices, implementation plan, support contact numbers, etc: www.colorado.edu/its/calendar/

CU Webcal calendar software: docs.sun.com/db/prod/s1calsrv

F. Responsible Organization

Information Technology Services is responsible for the maintenance and enforcement of this policy.

Getting Help

Laura Appelhans
Information Technology Services
University of Colorado
laura.appelhans@colorado.edu
(303)492-1452

IT Service Center Calendar Support
(303) 735-HELP
help@colorado.edu