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Email, Personal Organization, Calendar, Collaboration, and Communication Systems

Research, Evaluation, Selection, and Implementation

As you may have read in the Spring 2004 UVM IT Newsletter, UVM has been evaluating responses to a request for proposals for an email system, which may include related systems for personal organization, calendars, collaboration, and other communication tools such as instant messaging. 

Email System Enhancements Proceed; No Major Calendar or Email Changes Imminent

This spring, the Calendar and Email Advisory Committee completed its work and issued a report describing three options for meeting the University's calendar, email, and collaboration needs.  For several reasons, including the ongoing search for a Chief Information Officer, a final decision on the committee's recommendations is being postponed.  Work is proceeding on key performance, reliability, and usability enhancements to the current email system. 

Writing to the advisory committee, Chief Information Officer Mara Saule and Vice President for Finance and Administration Michael Gower said, "We should be considering the integration of calendar and email tools with a University portal, and we should be exploring document management needs and options. A document management project, lead by Al Turgeon, is currently underway, and we expect to pursue a portal in the near future. The choices we make in those areas can have significant implications for our calendar and email systems, both in terms of our needs and in areas of system compatibility. At the same time, we are searching for a Chief Information Officer, and we are reluctant to make major infrastructure decisions before that person is on board. We simply need to have more open questions answered -- more pieces of the puzzle on the table -- before it's appropriate or wise to make a multimillion-dollar commitment to calendar and email systems." 

Progress on Current Email System

Over the summer, CIT is moving ahead with updates to the current email system, as recommended in the advisory committee's report, including more reliable storage, a new web email interface and the Cyrus email server software. These enhancements will make the current system more reliable, more functional, and faster.

Many of the documents on this site are restricted to current UVM students, faculty, and staff; your Network ID and password will be required.

June 24, 2005: Notice to Bidders 
 
April 20, 2005: Recommendations offered in committee's report

February 24, 2005: Fill out online evaluation

February 1, 2005: Agenda and functional scenarios for vendor demostrations, focusing on end-user calendar and email features 

February 1, 2005: Tentative new time line:

Down select to 2-3 proposals	Oct. 22, 2004
Finalist presentations & usability tests, site visits, ref calls	February - April, 2005
Complete Q&A & negotiations	February - April, 2005
Select vendor	February - April, 2005
Board of Trustee approval (if needed)	May, 2005
Begin implementation	June 1, 2005

November 15, 2004: Reference checking material (sites, questions, responses)

November 11, 2004: Summary of project

November 3, 2004: Email, Calendar, and Collaboration Tools Selection Focusing on Four Products  

September 27, 2004: Our analyses of the proposals

August 20, 2004: Proposals received

July 23, 2004: Request for Proposals 03-07-05 issued to vendors

• Request for Proposals (html version)
  
• Pricing spreadsheet (html version) 
  
• For the Word and Excel versions of the above, and earlier drafts, click on Documents then on uvmrfp. 
  

Last modified June 29 2005 10:23 AM