[2101] in Enterprise Print Delivery Team
Re: Accout Information Page
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Huxley, Bil)
Tue Dec 18 13:25:29 2001
Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.2.20011218121230.03075960@po9.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 13:27:00 -0500
To: printdel@MIT.EDU, "Emmons, Gillian C" <gemmons@MIT.EDU>,
"Regan, Theresa M" <tregan@MIT.EDU>, "Roach, Roger A" <rar@MIT.EDU>
From: "Huxley, Bil" <huxley@MIT.EDU>
Cc: Tech Support within MIT CAO <CAOTECH@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.2.20011217130107.00ae82d8@hesiod>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Hi PrintDel,
As you know, we received the request below from Lynne yesterday for address
and accounting information for all CAO IPM users. Upon reading this I had
concerns. I've discussed this request with Gill along with general issues
both her team and my team have been having since the IPM Service went to
"production" by the fact that EP1 was migrated from Athena Print Services
to IPM.
I believe that IS needs to have documented and accessible policies and
procedures in place before you even consider asking anyone for a Cost
Object that you can charge to. Going to the web page specified I did not
find any such documentation. At present I can put any Cost Object at all
on the web page provided. This includes not only malformed and
non-existent Cost Objects (e.g. 999999999) but also Cost Objects which I am
not authorized to spend against (e.g. 1639502). What's the process for
validating the client for spending authorization?
As part of the policy for charging against client specified Cost Objects I
believe you'll need to state what the current rates are for various
services that the client may incur as well as specifying the mechanisms and
extent of advance notice for changes to your pricing structure. For
instance, the current rate for EP1 might be $0.00 per page with a six month
notice to all clients prior to a rate change. CAO does not wish to be
surprised by either the $ for services we've been using for the last two
and a half years or by unauthorized individuals charging their services
against our Cost Objects.
I believe you should also consider that the clients did not need to be
responsible for maintaining such information when EP1 was on an Athena
Print Queue. Perhaps the address could be defaulted to the client's
primary office address? Perhaps the Cost Object information should only be
accepted from the Cost Object Supervisor or Addressee?
I respectfully request that this should be coming from the on-going
'service' team rather than a 'delivery' team. Indeed, before IPM went in
to production service a permanent mailing list and contact info should have
been set forth to the production customers. Even if the team hasn't been
established giving the customers a permanent mailing address rather than
forcing them to transition at some undefined later time would be really
easily accomplished.
Dave will recall that he and Tom Dalton did a presentation to the available
direct reports of Jim Morgan's at one of Jim's weekly meetings on
6-June-2001 here in E19. At that time it was explicitly stated that "cost
will hit the IS bottom line for now". Dave and Lynne will also recall
meeting with CAOTech in E19 on 20-August-2001. At that meeting it was
stated that charges may be a future consideration but would not be part any
near term implementation. So this request for Cost Objects comes as a
surprise of some concern to all of us. Now it would appear that you're not
only talking about moving this service from E19 to W91, but also preparing
to charge for the reduced level of service.
I hope I am mistaken in my interpretation of the minimal data that I have
available to me, and if so that will be readily rectified by documentation
:) I hope you find these comments constructive and helpful.
Please let us know how you wish to proceed on these matters
Thanks,
Bil
At 12/17/2001 01:04 PM -0500, Lynne E. Durland wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>As part of the move from Athena to IPM for the hp8100 EP1 printer, the end
>users also do need to go to the following web page:
>
>https://pillage.mit.edu/accountinfo/accountinfo.html
>
>and enter the cost object and building and room number information.
>
>We are currently checking to be sure the information is there, but will
>eventually be changing this to reject print from users that have not
>entered this information.
>
>We need this information for two primary reasons, print going to the IBM
>printers will use this information for the cover sheet to mail printouts
>through the campus mail, and for monthly accounting and reporting purposes.
>
>Thanks
>
>Lynne
>
>Lynne E. Durland
>Information Systems
>Database Services
>W91-109
>O: 617-258-5857
>C: 617-293-8091
>H: KB1FEM
>
>"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so
>long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened
>for us."
>
> --Helen Keller
