CSCF New Employee Guide

These notes are intended to document the process of hiring a new full-time staff person, getting them started, assigning duties, reporting procedures and other related issues.

See also the New Employee Guides heading for sections that may be relevant for particular kinds of new CSCF Employees, such as co-ops.

Preparing for Their Arrival

Depending upon startup arrangements. Some of the steps after these steps may be more appropriately done before the new employee arrives, e.g. mailing lists and access to documents.

Create an RT to document all the items needing to be done:

To Do list for RT summary field:

 - create WatIam account
 - Send instructions on setting up 2FA and using UW email: https://uwaterloo.ca/microsoft-365/about/accessing-your-microsoft-365-account
 - determine desk location
 - get keys and fob
 - provide information about new Connect account and how to access, setup redirect
 - determine equipment needs and get something requested
 - create CS core accounts
 - add to CS accounts - CSCF Technicians
 - set CS-General and CS-Teaching passwords
 - request RT access
 - add user to Inventory
 - add user to Twiki (https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/view/TWiki/TWikiRegistration)
 - request access to https://ipam.private.uwaterloo.ca/  and Netmon if needed
 - request access to Unit4 if needed
 - add to CSCF Team and other relevant Teams
 - request a Yubikey if root access required
 - add to relevant mailing lists, eg: cs-rsg@uwaterloo.ca
 - provide access to the cscf-away calendar
 - Apply for Alliance/ComputeCanada/SHARCNET account: https://ccdb.alliancecan.ca/account_application Get John Morton to sponsor
 - Add ssh key at https://authman.uwaterloo.ca
 - Request LEARN account: learnhelp@uwaterloo.ca
 - Add to SAT: RT for drallen
 - Apply for Parking Permit: https://uwaterloo.ca/parking/stafffaculty-parking
 - add any more here ...

Announcements

The director or the new employee's manager should announce in advance to the existing employees that the new person arrives on such and such a date. Included should be some background information -- who the new person will work for, what their particular job is, where they came from, for example.

Office

• Make sure there are basic supplies (paper, pens, pencils, etc.)
• Determine if specialized furniture (e.g. seating) or lighting will be required, and obtain it.
• Arrange for the door sign.
• Have the campus phonebook updated in time.

Personal Workstation

• Determine what equipment will be appropriate.
• Create an ST item and assign it to Phil to request the equipment.
• When a machine is available, make sure it is setup with their login.
• Configure their mail so that they can read and send mail (suggestion: use Thunderbird with Imap)
• Make sure they can login to the CSCF and CS core environments

WatIAM entry

If they do not already have a WatIAM ID, Adrian Pepper can get that setup. Their SIN and birth date will be needed.

Picture

If an appropriate picture isn't available, make an appoint with Graphic Services to have one taken. Or consider simply using the CSCF camera.

Access Privileges

Accounts

Created needed accounts beforehand, there's actually a good list (ironically enough) under DepartingEmployees. We should check that as well. Certainly on the cs-xh-admin.cs.private.uwaterloo.ca and the cs-general environment, and if at all needed, on the cs-teaching environment. Make sure that all but their "home" accounts have mail forwarded to their home account, e.g. by forwarding to @uwaterloo.ca, and having that forward to their home account.

ST and RT and time-tracking tool

See STAddingStaffMember for information on adding a staff member to ST (or ask Stephen Nickerson or Daniel Allen). This access must be granted for them to be looked up using the CSCF Time Tracking Tool

RT access is granted by sending a request to RT-help@rt.uwaterloo.ca - typically done once a term to update the temporary staff group.

cscf-staff@cs

See MailManCSlists

Twiki

1. Fill out the TWikiRegistration form on their behalf; they will receive an email from twiki.
2. They should be added to the CF (CSCF and MFCF) list of users. To do so, update https://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/view/Main/CFStaffGroup
   • test their access: have them click the "Edit" button on any twiki page; which should require CAS login. Then have them follow the link to "CFPrivate" in the left-hand bar.

Internal WWW Pages

Most of the .htaccess files for internal WWW pages are maintained in www.cs:/var/www/cs/cscf/internal/htaccess/ - update staff_all

• also used for access to the ST-time-tracking app.

Test: https://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/internal/edocs

External WWW Pages

Write access to WWW pages is determined by group membership in various groups, not all of which are predictable. For CS WWW pages, membership in group www_cscf is a good start. Depending upon the nature of the work to be done, membership in group www_cs is the next step. Membership in group www_cf on general.math is required to update WWW pages shared with MFCF.

Test:

ssh www.cs.uwaterloo.ca
grep newstaffid /etc/group
The following groups should be listed:
newuserid
www_cscf
www_cf
meeting (?)
source (?)

Connect

Send an email to request@ist to create an entry

• Outlook Web Access: https://connect.uwaterloo.ca/owa

Inventory System

They will need to be added to the users table for the inventory database. Ask any of the managers, who have access to the Administrative tab in Inventory; or Daniel Allen.

• Test: https://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/internal/inventory/search.php
• Make sure they have read & write access

Paper Mail

Allocate a slot in the mailroom (ask the School Secretary).

Absences Data

Add an entry for them in the absences data.

As They Arrive

Public Documentation

Update staff listings:

• https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/about/staff aka /software/odyssey-3_apache/data/vhosts/cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/about/staff.shtml
• https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/teaching/contact
• https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/research/contact

Update the campus phonebook.

Mailing Lists

Update appropriate mail aliases, e.g. cscf-staff, and any group specific aliases, e.g. one of cscf-core-support, cs-rsg, cscf-user-support.

• Test:

ssh mail.cs.uwaterloo.ca
grep newuserid /etc/aliases

See: EmailAliases for notes on updating those aliases

* cscf-staff

Announcements

If it hasn't already been announced, let the relevant people in CS know that the new person has arrived.

Your First Day(s)

There are a number of tasks that should be completed so that you can operate effectively within CSCF. They should be completed as soon as possible.

Orientation Tour

Your manager will take you on a tour of the physical premises, including

• the main CS office
• the mailroom
• printer rooms
• CSCF machine rooms, and perhaps others
• MC machine room and labs
• DC Food Services, MC C&D
• AED locations
  • DC 3840 corridor (pillar outside of CS lounge)
  • MC 3084 corridor (wall beside bridge to QNC)
  • MC 5829 corridor (wall outside of MC 5501 Colloquium Room)
  • M3 1813 corridor (wall next to elevators)

Your Colleagues

Your manager will introduce you to the rest of CSCF, and should you become a Point of Contact, to your clients. You can get an idea of CSCF structure by consulting the Organizational Chart and the Who Does What page. In addition, if at all involved with teaching support, you'll be introduced to relevant MFCF staff, in particular, the Client Support Supervisor.

Your Clients

Your manager will introduce you to your clients. It may take some time to visit them all. In general, the degree of communication one's predecessor enjoyed with a given client should be maintained by the new employee.

Keys

See the receptionist at the CS Office to request a key. You will most likely be given access to other keys; how that works will described by your manager.

A Picture

Your picture will be taken, usually by Graphic Services. The picture is used for the CS online photo gallery and the CSCF staff boards in the hallways outside the main CSCF offices.

The Point of Contact Model

The CSCF Point of Contact model is fundamental to how we operate; you're to become completely familiar with the approach. Read Problem Handling Guidelines for CSCF Points of Contact to learn all about it.

Work Tracking

We track our work in a database with a WWW front-end. You'll need to learn how it's used.

Documentation

Become familiar with both our client documentation and internal documentation (of which this is part). The description of CSCF policies and architectural decisions are of special interest, as are the CS Guides and Tutorials - especially the New User's Guide.

Become familiar with other WWW pages that can affect your work, e.g.

• the School of Computer Science
• IST
• the University

with special reference to

• Waterloo's Mission
• University policies
• University Procedures
• various official documents
• Human Resources
• the campus directory
• the Daily Bulletin
• the Undergraduate Academic Calendar
• the Graduate Calendar
• important dates for the undergraduate program
• campus holidays
• ...

Training

The following topics can be trained in short sessions, which can/should be spread amongst several staff:

1. UWdir/WatiIam: http://watiam.uwaterloo.ca/search/ (User Access) (first day - supervisor)
   • set password / update email redirect
2. Email (supervisor): Outlook
3. RT
4. Web
5. Imaging a system, see: ImageDeploymentGhost
6. EquipmentInventory - our Inventory system
7. Using Linux (Supervisor / Moving to Linux book)
8. Networking via ONA (supervisor)
9. DNS via Infoblox (supervisor)
10. Core environment, Samba
11. NewProgrammerGuide if relevant
12. Printing (setup current machine to print to Ricoh)
13. Administrative procedures
    • Time off for vacations, illness, etc
    • Professional development
    • CSCF staff meetings
    • Keys and the CSCF safe
    • Passwords and the password box

Additional Access Privileges

In addition to access mentioned above, new employees may, depending upon their duties, need

• a "key fob", typically used to gain access to various rooms (IST configures these)
• root access on cs-xh-admin.cs.private.uwaterloo.ca or the cs-general and cs-teaching environments
  • See: SuperUserAccess
• a two-factor fob, e.g. SecurID (See Guoxiang)
• cable lock combinations
• the standard CSCF workstation login (cscf-op)
• ONA access
• Infoblox access

Reporting Procedures

Ongoing

Your manager/supervisor will meet with you on a regular basis. In the beginning, it may be quite frequently. Eventually, the schedule will be determined to best suit your (and your manager's) working style and needs, typically ranging from bi-weekly to twice weekly. Even daily is a possibility.

Mid-term

Roughly half way through the year, a simplified staff review is done, to be sure that everyone understands current performance and goals.

Annual Review

A formal review of work is done every year, usually by March, covering the previous calendar year.

Insurance, Health & Safety

WHMIS

See: http://www.safetyoffice.uwaterloo.ca/hse/chemicals/whmis/whmis.htm

Reference materials

• NewCscfEmployeeGuideFAQ
• NewPartTimeEmployeeGuide
• old MFCF notes
• UW Daily Bulletin