Resource guide for new IT staff - UW–⁠Madison Information Technology

15 minutes to read | Last updated August 18, 2022

The University of Wisconsin‑Madison is committed to supporting new employees in successfully transitioning to our workplace, as well as supporting the university’s need to quickly enable new employees to achieve high levels of proficiency. Work with your local onboarding coordinator to get started.

This guide is designed for IT staff who are just beginning their career or changing roles at UW‑Madison. We can help get you connected to the IT tips and resources you need to be successful on campus. Welcome to UW-Madison!

During your...

First week

Get a peer partner

If your manager or supervisor hasn’t paired you with a peer partner, ask them to do so.

A peer partner is a fellow employee, other than the manager or supervisor, who supports you during your first months on the job. Their role is to offer advice and guidance regarding the day-to-day aspects of working at UW-Madison.

Get support

Familiarize yourself with your IT support options. They may include:

Your unit’s own local IT staff and local resources or documentation.
If you’re interested in learning more about DoIT Departmental Support and how DoIT can help support your unit, you can submit an inquiry.
The DoIT Help Desk. You can also find technology support and information in the UW-Madison KnowledgeBase.
Visit it.wisc.edu for guides, service information and other helpful resources

Get software

UW-Madison provides no-charge software through our Campus Software Library. Contact your local IT support for assistance installing software on your UW managed system.

Understand your unit’s preferred communication paths

Check with your colleagues regarding what their preferred communication technologies are. UW-Madison offers a number of different communication tools centrally as well:

First month

Meet with your peer partner

Plan a meeting with your Peer Partner. You may want to keep a list of questions that come up in your first weeks on the job to ask your Peer Partner during your first meeting.

Get security advice

The Office of Cybersecurity provides guides on many topics. Familiarize your self with them.

Familiarize yourself with IT Policies

These are the IT policies you’ll need to know and abide by at the UW-Madison.

First year

Attend a conference

People in Information Technology at the UW-Madison enjoy access conferences that are free or inexpensive to attend, some of which provide Continuing Education Units. These include Cybersecurity Forward, the IT Professionals Conference and Information & Technology Leadership Conference.

Learn about your professional development opportunities

The Chief Information Office (CIO) sponsors a number of training, development and presentation opportunities for UW-Madison staff. For more information on these, or to recommend or request CIO support for others, contact cio@wisc.edu.

Development programs, such as those offered by Educause & Mor Associates
IT training for faculty and staff
UW–Madison employee have access to thousands of courses, seminars, conferences, online trainings, and events every year through the Office of Human Resources’ Professional Development website.

Get involved

Committees and governance groups provide the chance to contribute to improving the landscape of IT on campus. User groups and other bodies help you make connections with your campus IT colleagues.

IT committees & groups

Some IT committees and groups recommend policy and advise the administration on community needs or concerns, while others foster subject matter expertise and networking opportunities.

Governance

Governance is an important aspect of UW-Madison leadership and planning. Campus governance and advisory groups provide advice and guidance on various aspects of campus technology. Find out what they’re doing and how to get involved.

User groups

To better represent our core missions of teaching and learning, research, and service, UW-Madison’s IT community engages with a variety of organizations and user groups.

Communities of Practice

Communities of practice (CoP) are groups of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or an interest in a topic and who come together to fulfill both individual and group goals.

Mentoring

If you’re interested in making a new IT contact and beginning to build your professional network you can contact the UW IT Mentoring program. There’s no obligation to join the program!

Others

Information Technology Management Council (ITMC) considers information technology matters of common interest among UW institutions and addresses System-wide issues.
HIPAA local security coordinator — learn who the coordinators are in your unit.

At any time

Build your campus IT network

If you’re interested in making a new IT contact and beginning to build your professional network you can contact the UW IT Mentoring program. There’s no obligation to join the program! Instead, the Mentoring program will pair you with another IT professional on campus who can answer your questions and help you begin to navigate UW-Madison’s complex IT landscape. Complete this form to begin.
If you’re interested in learning more about UW-Madison’s central IT services and how DoIT Departmental Support can help support your unit, you can reach out here.

Familiarize yourself with guidelines and best practices

Teams of IT professionals from across campus came together to compose, review and revised the guide Guidelines, best practices, and advice for UW-Madison IT professionals, recognizing that having a shared set of guidelines, best practices, and advice helps us to better serve our people, our units, and the institution. If you identify as an IT professional, this guide is for you.

Additional Resources & Information

Depending on your role in IT you may need access to additional resources and information at various times in your career.

Purchasing

Purchasing services

Purchasing services provides the University with effective and responsive life cycle procurement practices. They will purchase professionally and redistribute, or dispose of property in the best interest of the University. Purchasing, materials distribution, and SWAP (Surplus With a Purpose) are all run through this office.

You can also search existing contracts at Campus purchasing.

For additional how-to information related to campus business processes, see Business Services’ help documents.

Shop@UW+

For office supplies, lab supplies, laptop and desktop computers, and other general needs, use ShopUW+, a pre-approved IT vendor.

For general purchases under $5000 not available through ShopUW+, use your Purchasing Card (ProCard). Check to see if goods/services are on contract.
Complete an External Requisition using the External Requisition Generator (in the Requisition and Number Generator Module on the Services tab in My UW) if Shop@UW or the procurement card cannot be used or the items are over $5000.
Visit How to Purchase Goods and Services for a basic tutorial or contact a Purchasing Agent.

DoIT Numbers

Make your purchases using a single number assigned to account-specific funding information.

Account-specific numbers can be used if a DoIT number is not an option. For information, contact DoIT Billing.
Purchase orders for non UW-Madison departments, state agencies or other entities can be sent to: DoIT Billing, 1210 W. Dayton Street, Madison, WI 53706.

ProCards

Purchasing Card (ProCard): VISA card assigned to a UW employee and tied to University funding.

Technical training

Authorized Agent Network Tool Suite (AANTS) training
Firewall training
WiscIT Powered by Cherwell Training
JIRA training
Introduction to Request Tracker
KnowledgeBase training — The KnowledgeBase Team can work directly with the groups that host their own KB spaces to provide admin and author training when requested.

Crowdsourced Resources from the 2022 IT Professionals Conference

UW-Madison’s IT landscape can be a jumbled and confusing space. Over 50 members of the UW-Madison IT community participated in a series of breakout sessions at the 2022 IT Professionals Conference to answer the question “What resources (programs, activities, groups, web links; etc) did you find most valuable as you started your position at UW?” Their responses are below, organized by category, and ordered based on how often they were listed across all breakout groups.

Professional Development

LinkedIn Learning: The online training service provides access to LinkedIn Learning—a full library of self-study software tutorials available anytime, anywhere.
Professional development: UW–Madison employees have access to thousands of courses, seminars, conferences, online trainings, and events every year.
UW-Madison support: UW–Madison is committed to providing career management support through policies, online resources, and learning resources.
Peer partners: If your manager or supervisor hasn’t paired you with a peer partner, ask them to do so. A peer partner is a fellow employee, other than the manager or supervisor, who supports you during your first months on the job. Their role is to offer advice and guidance regarding the day-to-day aspects of working at UW-Madison.
IT Leadership Program: ITLP is a unique professional development opportunity and one that requires a high level of participation and engagement, both during and after the program.
IT Mentoring Program: UW-IT Mentoring connects newer UW-Madison employees with experienced colleagues in peer relationships that enhance skills, knowledge and experience.
Grants/funding: Financial resources for professional development offerings.
IT Professionals Conference: An annual conference by and for IT professionals at UW-Madison
Information & Technology Leadership Conference: The Information & Technology Leadership Conference aims to advance leadership on campus by bringing together professionals to learn, listen, and collaborate on leadership topics impacting UW–Madison and the higher education community.
Cybersecurity Forward: UW–Madison’s Cybersecurity Forward is here to help you grow as an IT and cybersecurity professional.
Improv!: Leadership Improv provides a safe space to practice leadership concepts based on fun, improvisational comedy routines.
Educause: Educause is a nonprofit association and the largest community of technology, academic, industry, and campus leaders advancing higher education through the use of IT.

General Resources

UW-Madison KnowledgeBase: The KnowledgeBase (KB) empowers you to easily locate information online. It also allows KnowledgeBase site owners and authors to easily create, categorize, maintain and present that information.
Microsoft Teams: Part of the Microsoft 365 family of products, Teams provides workspace chat and videoconferencing, file storage, and application integration.
Confluence Wiki: A team wiki available to all units that makes it easy for your team to find and contribute critical knowledge. See also the Confluence KnowledgeBase.
DoIT Help Desk: The Help Desk provides free tech support and troubleshooting help with your computing needs by phone, email, chat or in-person at 1210 W. Dayton Street.
HR new employee orientation: Connect with colleagues from across the institution, learn about UW–Madison, explore the campus community and get introduced to available tools and resources.
HR new employee benefits enrollment: Learn about your benefits, including the Wisconsin Retirement System.
MyUW: A platform providing applicants, students, faculty, staff, advisors and instructors with a suite of integrated information resources that are tailored to their roles and interests.
CIO Office Hours: An informal opportunity to engage with Chief Information Officer Lois Brooks and her guest speakers
Researcher toolkit: acronyms: A useful glossary of research related acronyms on campus, from ACI to WPT
DoIT glossary: A useful glossary of IT and IT adjacent terms, from AANTS to WSB
UW-Madison IT: UW–⁠Madison Information Technology, a website connecting & supporting our digital campus
Campus Software Library (licensing@doit): UW-Madison provides no-charge software through the Campus Software Library.
UW Bookstore: The University Book Store has served the University of Wisconsin and Madison since 1894.
UW Directory: An online look-up of individuals and departments at UW-Madison
Campus map: A searchable map of the the UW-Madison campus with information about housing, public parking, Madison B-Cycle, dining, libraries and gender inclusive restrooms
UW IT Outages: Timely information about outages and planned maintenance of IT services and related infrastructure at UW-Madison
Retirement planning classes/checkup: Resources to help you plan your retirement including “Ready to retire” sessions, benefits calculators and informational packets.
Americans with Disabilities Act information from the Office of Compliance: The University of Wisconsin, Madison is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive campus experience for all members of the campus community
Digital Accessibility program: The Digital Accessibility Program in the Center for User Experience supports University of Wisconsin–Madison in creating an accessible, usable and inclusive learning and working environment for all students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners of the university.
UW-Madison Libraries: UW-Madison Libraries provide many services for students, faculty and staff, including but not limited to subscription databases, spaces & equipment
Working @ UW: Working at UW is designed to be your employee home base, bringing together all of the resources you need in one place., offering information, news, tools, and services to help you be an effective, connected part of this amazing university. For example, see their list of employee discounts.
UW-Madison Policy Library: The UW–Madison Policy Library is the single, up-to-date resource for all university-level policies.

Tools

AANTS/WiscNIC: Documentation of the Authorized Agent Network Tooks Suite (AANTS) and associated tools such as WiscNIC
Eloqua (for mass communication): Eloqua is software for email marketing (simple mass email sends) and marketing automation (multistep, automated marketing workflows).
WiscMail Service Accounts: Shared email accounts, accessible by multiple team members, used to provide support for services
Qualtrics: Qualtrics Survey Hosting Service allows UW-Madison faculty, staff and students to easily create surveys, collect and store data and produce reports.

Communities

Tech Partners: Tech Partners is an Office 365 Group that is meant to help members of the UW-Madison community keep up with campus technology.
UW IT Connects: UW IT Connects recognizes that people are the highest value of a successful information and technology organization, and given that the information and technology community at UW-Madison is highly distributed, UW IT Connects and the individual groups therein provide diverse engagement, leadership, relationship building, and professional development opportunities for our community to learn and grow together.
Professional Development: Communities of Practice: Communities of practice are groups of people who interact regularly to develop their skills.
CommunITea: A weekly event for IT and IT-adjacent folks to socialize with peers and connect in a relaxed, introvert-friendly atmosphere (web cam not necessary to participate and listen in).
MIST: The UW-Madison Information Security Team (MIST) is collaborative group of campus IT staff and management with a common interest in promoting information security at UW Madison.
ITG (Instructional Technologists Group): The mission of the Instructional Technologists Group (ITG) is to bring together instructional technologists, designers, and support specialists from across campus to provide input, guidance, and support to the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning and other governance groups as requested in fulfilling the academic mission of the University.
Distributed Developers: The Distributed Developers Community of Practice is intended to provide those of us who handle developmental/tracking apps/bolt on or shadow systems/custom reporting and data responsibilities an opportunity to share best practices, learn, provide feedback, network, and collaboratively interact with campus peers.
More Communities of Practice: IT related Communities of Practice

Miscellaneous (everything else)

Going for walks – campus is beautiful!: Guided tours; Self-guided tours
Primate cam: The Wisconsin National Primate Research Center supports one of the largest colonies of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) in the United States. Through the Callicam, anyone with web access can observe one of the WNPRC’s common marmoset families.
Geology museum: Explore the Geology Museum and take a peek into Wisconsin’s deep history! On your visit you can touch rocks from a time when there were volcanoes in Wisconsin; see corals, jellyfish and other sea creatures that used to live and swim where we now walk; and stand under the tusks of a mastodon while imagining yourself in the Ice Age.
Wisconsin Hoofers: The Wisconsin Hoofers is one of UW-Madison’s oldest and largest student organizations, with more than 2,000 members. Since 1931, Hoofers has been building a community by providing instruction and excellence in outdoor recreation.
UW Mysteries, Secrets, and Hidden Places: A photographic tour of secluded spots on the UW_Madison campus that few have ever seen.
Music Library – unlimited classical listening under Naxos: The Naxos music library is “the most comprehensive classical music streaming platform. An invaluable resource for universities, public libraries, schools, music professionals and collectors.”
UW Arboretum: The Arboretum is a global source of knowledge of and a model for restoring ecologically sustainable relationships between people and the land through integrative, innovative, and collaborative approaches in science, stewardship, education, and public engagement.
UW Makerspace: UW Makerspace is a community of designers and builders at UW-Madison within the College of Engineering (CoE). The Makerspace facilities include 25,000 ft² of shop and flex space with a wide range of rapid prototyping equipment. Largely student run, the Makerspace strives to empower students by creating a community immersed in emerging technologies, focused on creating innovative products.
Chazen Museum of Art: The Chazen’s expansive two-building site holds the second-largest collection of art in Wisconsin, and is the largest collecting museum in the Big 10. Within its 176,000 square feet of museum space is a collection of approximately 23,000 works of art covering diverse historical periods, cultures and geographic locations, from ancient Greece, Western Europe and the Soviet Empire to Moghul India, 18th-century Japan and modern Africa.

Questions?

Email the DoIT Help Desk or call 608‑264‑HELP (4357).