Continuity Plan Topics

Please find below a list of topics covered by the College of Computing business continuity plan. As we continue to move forward in the coming days, we will update this page with new information. You can find links to Institute resources and a digest of the dean's daily e-mails at the right. 

RECENT UPDATES: Instructions for hiring in OneUSG Connect, under "Hiring" below.

Building access

CCB and Klaus now restricted to card access, the same way it normally is after hours, but all day.

Check Requests

Please turn in your GTF check requests to the College Financial Services Office as normal.  They will be signed and delivered to the Foundation Office on Fridays (starting the week of March 30) for processing. You will be notified to come and pick up checks on a given Friday.​

Cybersecurity

FOR DEVICES: The best thing you can do to keep your computer and other devices safe is to make sure you have completed all available software updates. You should turn on automatic updates whether you use a Windows machine or a Mac. If you are sharing a computer with others in your home, you should set up unique logins or accounts for each person who uses the machine.

FOR PEOPLE: We know that there has been a rise in phishing and other malicious impersonations. You may receive deceptive texts, calls and e-mails from people claiming to be Institute, college or school leadership. If you are in doubt, please forward the e-mail to phishing@gatech.edu. We also recommend contacting the person who supposedly sent the message via the contact information *you already have* for them – do not use any new numbers, addresses, etc. that are in the body of the e-mail itself. Also, do not share your GT password or your two-factor authentication device with anyone

Deliveries (Campus)

There will be one Facilities FTE employee and one (possible) student employee onsite in CCB, M-F 10am - 2pm. 

For existing orders delivered to CCB or Klaus, packages will be stored in CCB.  Facilities will not deliver to individual offices or labs. Facilities will communicate via RT (you can contact Facilities RT via building@cc.gatech.edu) and packages may be scheduled for pickup from CCB Suite 033A. In order to adhere to the social distancing guidelines, scheduled pickups are imperative so that packages can be placed through the facilities shipping and receiving window.

If you are expecting packages estimated to be 100 lbs or over, please let facilities know in advance of potential delivery dates.

For Coda and TSRB, please redirect future orders and packages to the address below:

College of Computing, 801 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0280

Panchita Smith in Financial Services will be using CCB as the shipping address for all college and school purchases, effective immediately.

Deliveries (Home)

  1. Shipments to a home address must have PRIOR approval:
    1. For PCard: approved by the supervisor and SAO or CoC Financial Director.  The SAO/CoC Financial Director will make the request to the PCard office via pcard.ask@business.gatech.edu (response within 24hrs).  Must also include approved PCard requisition form.
    2. For Personal Reimbursement up to $1,000: approved by supervisor and SAO or CoC Financial Director prior to the purchase.
  2. Purchasing requirements:
    1. Personal Reimbursement up to $1,000 (only when Workday and PCard are not an option)
    2. For IT purchases requiring technical support, TSO must be consulted via helpdesk@cc.gatech.edu
  3. Approval documentation:
    1. For PCard: in the PCard request form
    2. For Personal Reimbursement up to $1,000: in the expense reimbursement and an attached copy of signed equipment loan form in the request.
  4. Equipment Loan Form
    1. Use the equipment loan form below to track and insure any equipment valued at $99 or above http://policies.gatech.edu/files/Equipment%20Loan%20Agreement.pdf
    2. Students and faculty, please work with a staff member to complete the above form.  Staff should work with their supervisor. Pictures, serial numbers, and other identifying marks should be listed on the form.  The form should be signed and submitted to your School SAO and building@cc.gatech.edu.  
    3. Email approval from supervisor or staff member is acceptable and will be attached to the completed form.

Equipment

Use the equipment loan form below to track and insure any equipment valued at  $99 or more that is being taken off campus. You must have prior approval before doing so. (Monitors are equipment. If in doubt, please complete the form.)

http://policies.gatech.edu/files/Equipment%20Loan%20Agreement.pdf

Students and faculty, please work with a staff member to complete the above form.  Staff should work with their supervisor. Pictures, serial numbers, and other identifying marks should be listed on the form.  The form should be signed and submitted to your School SAO and building@cc.gatech.edu.  

 Email approval from supervisor or staff member is acceptable and will be attached to the completed form.

Faculty who agree to allow their students to take equipment off campus will be responsible if the equipment is lost or damaged. Faculty must complete the form on behalf of the student.

Facilities

There will be one Facilities FTE employee and one (possible) student employee onsite in CCB, M-F 10am - 2pm.

Please continue to use building@cc.gatech.edu to request service.

Hiring

We are not only changing our systems with the move to OneUSG, we are changing our processes as well. The Board of Regents – and therefore Georgia Tech — have placed more responsibility in the hands of managers, including faculty who manage student workers.

In the past, faculty were largely able submit a spreadsheet or some basic information and let their administrators handle the technical details of student hiring. Now, faculty must go into the system and complete the hiring process themselves for each student hired. For more information on how to complete the process please visit our hiring page.

Mail (Campus and USPS)

Due to the variability of departmental operating hours and the majority of campus working remotely, campus mail delivery has been suspended until further notice. During this time, faculty and staff who have critical time-sensitive material can pick up mail and packages Monday-Friday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. from the Mail Processing Center (MPC) located at 711 Marietta Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30332 (next door to Business Services). We are requesting that everyone call ahead at 404.385.4174 before picking up any parcels. Mail and packages will be delivered to recipients outside the entrance to the MPC to limit contact.

Visit the Post Office website for additional details regarding faculty and staff mail services at this time. For alternate arrangements or questions pertaining to mail or packages, please email postofficeask@po.gatech.edu.

Purchasing

The Institute has a protocol that requires purchasing via Workday first; when that is not possible the PCard is the next required method; and if both of those are not sufficient (need justification to gain approvals), then employee reimbursement.

Note: Unfortunately, the rules do NOT allow home delivery for Workday purchases. It is still the required purchasing method, when possible. 

Research labs and servers

There is no intent to shut down servers, whether research, instructional or administrative, nor disrupt computational research. The institute is restricting physical access to lab space, however. The Institute's concern, with regards to shutting down research labs, is one of social distancing.  This is a prudent step to prevent more than one person from being in close proximity.  Per the instructions,  please feel free to apply for an exception through your school chair.

Software for teamwork

We will all need additional software tools to keep our teams and our workload running smoothly.

The standard Georgia tech voice/videoconferencing software is BlueJeans. If you haven’t used it before, you may consult these helpful instructions. 

For real-time text and file collaboration, the Institute uses Microsoft Teams. You may find instructions for using Teams here. 

For a productive teleworking experience, please verify that you have a working GT-owned mobile device (laptop, tablet, etc.) and that you are able to successfully login to campus resources (Office 365, Techworks, Passport, etc.). Make sure you are saving files to adminfs.cc.gatech.edu (the College’s administrative fileshare) and/or the GT Dropbox service, instead of locally on your desktop or laptop.

Finally, we recommend you verify that the software listed below, along with any additional software that you use on a regular basis, is installed and working. 

Tech Support

STAFFING PLAN: All TSO employees will telework. 

SUPPORT PLAN, MONDAY-FRIDAY, 8 AM - 5 PM:

  • All requests for technical assistance should be emailed to helpdesk@cc.gatech.edu. TSO is closely monitoring the queue. The main help desk phone will not be manned.
  • Remote support to CoC faculty, staff and graduate students
  • If hands-on assistance is required, TSO will schedule an on-site campus visit and adhere to the social distancing guidelines.
  • For a critical service outage (i.e., www.cc.gatech.edu, building-wide wired network, data center electrical and cooling problems), TSO staff will come on campus as needed.
  • For Academic Continuity resources, please visit https://gatech.service-now.com/continuity.

Teleworking

The Institute has created a webpage with tips for teleworking for supervisors and staff members.

We must staff some essential operations, but our goal is to protect the staff members who must come to campus by clearing out as many other folks as possible. To be clear, all staff members are permitted on campus, but if you can work at home we would prefer you to do so. You should expect to hear specifics from your supervisor.

If you are in an at-risk group for coronavirus, and your supervisor asks you to come in, please let them know that you cannot. To be clear: you are not required to disclose the medical condition that puts you at risk, and supervisors are not allowed to ask for that information. We just need to have a clear picture of our staff availability.

Timesheets

All biweekly time-sheets that were turned in during the week March 8thor afterwards will be processed/entered into the system on Friday (03/20) for processing.  

  • College employees: Ben Powell will send an email to bi-weekly College (360 employees) staff members on Monday, March 16 asking them to submit their hours worked via email, CC’ing their supervisor. Please submit your hours to Brian Boddy, Connie Irish and Ben Powell for processing prior to the 03/20 time-entry day. For students, we will process all timesheets that were turned in prior to them leaving for spring break.
  • School employees: Biweekly staff and student workers in the schools should take direction from their SAO.
  • NOTE: Starting March 23rd, there will no longer be paper time sheets. This biweekly pay period starts the new OneUSG connect payroll system.  Financial Services will no longer be processing pay for hourly biweekly and student workers. The employee and supervisor are required to do their part in the new system. Any retroactive pay for late timesheets must go through the opening of a ticket in https://gatech.service-now.com/home.

Workload

We expect everyone in the college to complete their normal workload, or the closest approximation possible under the circumstances. Please work with your supervisor to explicitly plan your workload, and please plan to be creative about the videoconferencing, shared chatrooms, and other technical tools you need to organize and share your work during this time. If you do have extra time because of canceled events, please plan to fill that time productively, with a project or with online training approved by your supervisor.