Having seen 1st hand the exciting developements of the new GO Portal (due for release in September) it has made me think of the improvments we can be making to the Identity Management system and single sign on currently being deployed at Edge Hill so that the two compliment each other nicely.
For the past year all student accounts have been created automatically using Novell’s Identity manager software. Course end dates are sourced from our Student Information System to dynamically set account expiration. Network accounts now even disable themselves as if by magic when they are no longer needed, all this and without any help from Derren Brown! It just works!
This sounds somewhat a simple ask for any IT system running in the year 2007 but being one of the select few who had to manually create, update and delete and generally troubleshoot network account problems by hand a few years back, this (simple ask) is a god send let me tell you! 
Joking apart, I hope users, currently the students are seeing the difference in the stability and reliability of such account management.
But this is still the beginning of a long and prosperous journey….
Things we can (and will) be looking into in the very near future will be authorisation to portal content and web and thin-client applications based on student course and faculty enrollments, and employee job roles and departments.
This will include the automatic creation of Staff network accounts using the Human Resouce system database, intergration with the VOIP telephone system, 24/7 Door access systems, Library management systems for both staff and students, Single Sign On for electronic resources, Athens etc, and a whole host of other exciting intergration possibilities (some we havn’t even thought up yet!)
In true Blue Peter fashion, answers on a postcard….I mean comments always welcomed!
BTW, this can only be made possible with the introduction of the new and improved resilient IT Services coffee making infrastrucuture
I’d love to have an excuse to play with VoIP phones again. At my last job we had a small Asterisk system and had the phone accessible from desktop PCs so you could dial from Outlook. It would be cool to be able to access the staff directory via GO, click a button and have it connect the call via the closest telephone to the PC you’re logged in at.
On a slightly more realistic note, why isn’t voicemail delivered by email and accessible through GO? How about missed call logs?
I agree, the integration possibilities with the VoIP phones are interesting. I’d like to see my voicemail in the GO portal. This kind of IDM work should allow for phone extensions to be asssigned to new employees, which in turn should filter back and populate the staff directory and the HR system.
Also, another interesting thing I saw at the demo of the SUN Ray thin client kit in Manchester was the possibility of taking not just your desktop session but your phone extension with when you move between terminals…
Some people have done some modifications to Asterisk to hook up a mesh of bluetooth receivers. As you walk around an office building it detects where you are by looking for your mobile phone and rings the nearest phone, as soon as you walk off site it forwards calls to the mobile.