Join NCSA and LAS for a chat on lessons we can learn on the interplay between climate and human health in the wake of the COVID-19 shutdowns. These findings could potentially help improve air quality and health in areas of poor air quality. Larry DiGirolamo, Don Wuebbles, and Ashish Sharma will cover current observations and review the challenges involved in approaching this research. 

May 19, 12 PM • Tuesday, Noon Central Daylight Time Barbara Jewett • National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

COVID-19, Climate Change and Health: A Webinar May 19 at Noon CDT

The main purpose to transition to iBuy is it will promote a sustainable process (e.g. no more paper, toner, postage, delivery, etc). Purchase Orders (PO) through Banner have historically been printed and mailed to vendors. For scope, here are Banner PO number over the last four fiscal years FY17 = 7,804, FY18 = 7,368, FY19 = 7,537, and FY20 = 5,669 (2 months remain in the fiscal year). In a conservative estimation, say each PO is 10 pages. This alone would have been 75,370 sheets of paper. This doesn’t consider the toner, postage or delivery emissions. In comparison, iBuy POs FY17 = 2,785, FY18 = 2,618, FY19 = 2,843, and FY20 = 3,179. Years FY17-FY19 were a 74% to 26% ratio. The efforts purchasing has made this year has shown positive movement towards higher utilization of this system as the current ratio for FY20 is 64% to 36%. Putting an exact percentage is difficult because we’re dependent on the systems abilities and the modifications Jaggaer can implement for us. Historically we have been limited in our abilities to work towards a transition to iBuy because of software limitations. 

We are currently in the process of updating functionality which will enable higher system utilization. Here are some of the updates currently being worked on: 

·       Addition of Contracts Plus. Historically, purchase orders which were tied to a contract or solicitation had to be submitted through Banner. The addition of Contracts Plus will eventually replace iCS and everything will be housed in the same system which would eliminate this limitation.

·       We’ve also been limited on a method that clearly allows us to process a Standing PO in iBuy. It is technically possible; however, the process is convoluted. We anticipate having the ability to process standing POs by FY21. In FY19, we processed over 3,000 standing POs in Banner. Not all of these will transition to iBuy immediately, but we could potentially see a large reduction here in FY21.

·       We’re also in the process of implementing the America To Go  punchout catalog in iBuy which will reduce the amount of restaurant and catering order that will come through Banner. For scope, UIUC spends about $12 million dollars in this market.

Join the Institute for its seventh annual fall conference. This year, our modified “teach-in” event will introduce the Illinois campus and community to cutting-edge thinking from highly influential scholars on topics ranging from drought, to the global politics of water, to pollution, public health and biodiversity. Read more and register via the link!

October 5–6 • National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Auditorium Tony Mancuso • Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE)

Registration Open for iSEE Congress 2020, "The Future of Water"

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the April 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 2,418.2 Megawatt hours. See attached file.

SSC funded the Campus Bike Parking Overhaul, Phase 1 project in FY12 for $225,000. Please see attached the final report pertaining to this project.

Attached are the meeting minutes from the iWG meeting on 4/27/20. The focus of this meeting was to discuss the SWATeam recommendations that were submitted to the iWG by April 3, 2020.

The Purchase Order to purchase the Community-Plan of the Project 529's bicycle registration system was approved and the contract was sent to the vendor via email (due to the pandemic) on May 1, 2020. The contract would begin on July 1, 2020 and end on June 30, 2021. Sarthak Prasad will work with the F&S IT department to plan and prepare to use the new system and the bicycle registration fee.

The trial period for the Project 529 system will end on June 30, 2020.

Please see attached the slides from the April 27th meeting.