Table of Contents
Introduction
My name is Noah Guta and I am currently in my third year of my Software Engineering degree, with a minor in Geomatics. This is my work term report for the Winter and Summer semesters of 2023 in which I worked at the University of Guelph. In this report, I hope you will learn about my placement and the many skills I gained while working here.
Information about the Employer
During my 8-month work term, I worked with the Web Solutions team within CCS at the University of Guelph. Most of our team is located on campus, on the 3rd floor of the University Centre in CCS’s main office. There were a few members of our team in other parts of campus though. We had two members who were also a part of UoG’s OVC college, and a couple members also within Communications and Marketing. Our team’s main task was the creation and management of most of the University’s websites. This meant that we worked with all aspects of the Web Development Stack and with many different technologies. Some of the main ones include Drupal, SharePoint, and Gatsby. We also helped with the creation of CampusPress sites for professors and would handle any request tickets that came in. Our team wouldn’t actually create every website under the University of Guelph umbrella however, we were mostly in charge of managing the content management systems. New features and widgets were always being developed. The colleges within the university would manage their own websites, and that’s where my job comes in.
Job Description
My position with the Web Solutions Team in CCS was the Website Training and Support Specialist. My main task was to provide training and support for the content management systems(CMS) we use for any employee at the University of Guelph.
The clients requesting training were usually administrators within each college who were in charge of their websites. The CMSs I trained them with are SharePoint, Drupal 7, and Drupal 9. After training, I would let the clients know that they can reach out to me if they need help.
This meant that my days were unpredictable, with some days having a few training sessions and people asking for support, and then other days with no training and maybe one or two support requests.
Besides the training and support, I also assisted the team in other ways. For instance, in the spring when our sprint lead was on vacation, I took over their duties and led the daily stand-ups. Our team also had a ticketing system, where clients could email us or the IT help desk and we would provide them with assistance.
One member of our team would be the ticket lead, for usually two sprints, or four weeks, at a time. Whenever I wasn’t too busy I would assist the ticket lead with any I could handle. Sometimes this would even mean watching tickets with them, at times when they were really busy. I also took the ticket lead role a few times, usually when we had team members sick or on vacation.
This was challenging because tickets were very unpredictable. Some days there would be none that come in and others we would have 10 to 20. The tickets’ requests were also inconsistent, with most being rather easy requests that I could handle, while others being huge tasks that required multiple days of work or even me asking the team for help.
One type of ticket that I learned a lot from was the CampusPress site request tickets. Clients from the university could fill out a form requesting a CampusPress site, and then I would create it for them. This included creating the site through CampusPress, setting up the mapping of a sub-domain for the site (including creating the DNS record), and setting up an SSL Certificate.
In addition to these tasks, I also had a few projects during my time with CCS. One project that I was tasked with was the migration of the FRS Training Site. It was previously a ColdFusion site, but the server it was on was decommissioned. My job was to migrate all of the information on this site to a new SharePoint site.
The site (FRS Training) can be accessed if you have a University of Guelph login. Another migration I was given was the Economic Impact Report. It was one of the first sites that moved to the Content Hub, but it had to be hard-coded when it was created. This is because there were barely any widgets created at the time. Now that there are plenty of widgets, I was able to create this site on Drupal 9.
I was also given chances to make smaller changes to sites, like creating the navigation for the Strategic Procurement Services site. I also met in-person with the director for Guelph's Campus Safety Office. We went over their current Drupal 7 website, and he hightlighted some changes he wanted me to make. After making the initial changes, and doing some additional ones he requested after, the CSO site looked much more professional.
Another project I had was to create a survey for the OVC team in Qualtrics. They needed to survey clients about whether they would like a CampusPress site, so I built one using the complex branching in Qualtrics.
The FRS Training Site Main Page
The final, and main overarching project I had was migrating CCS’s Drupal 7 forms to Microsoft Forms. CCS had around 70 forms in Drupal 7, but support for D7 was ending, so I was tasked with migrating those forms to MS Forms. First I had to migrate all the questions from the old Drupal forms to MS Forms. I then created corresponding Power Automate runs for each form, so emails would be sent every time the form was filled out. Most of the forms sent emails to footprints(our ticketing system) but a few were directly to someone's email. After these steps were completed, we contacted the owners of each form, confirming the details were correct, and seeing if they would like any changes. Finally, we did one final check, and then set up re-directs from the old forms to the new ones.
Goals
While completing my two co-op work terms with CCS I came up with a total of 9 goals. 5 for the winter term and another 4 for the summer. These goals were thought up at the beginning of their respective terms and were developed related to my position’s tasks.
Winter 2023
To improve my oral communication skills, especially my presentation skills and ability to communicate about technically specific topics.
A large part of my job at CCS was to provide training to clients on our content management systems. Coming into the job I had not much experience in this field. I was always not too thrilled to do presentations and found that this was one of my weak points. I knew that this position would challenge my communication skills. I would need to present information about technical topics, while also being able to simplify it for people with less of a tech background. With lots of practice, and after some stumbles, I can confidently say that my oral communication skills have vastly improved during my two terms in this position. I am much more comfortable conducting the training and even successfully completed a few training sessions with a larger number of clients.
To learn how to work in an agile/scrum software development team.
The agile development process is an integral part of most software development processes today and CCS is no different from that. Right from my first day with CCS, I was a part of the daily stand-ups, and sprint planning/review meetings. Before my work terms, I had learned about agile development in my software design courses, but I never had real-world experience with it. During these last few months, I’ve developed a lot of experience with the process. I was given the opportunity to lead the daily stand-up meetings a few times, while our scrum leader was on vacation. I also presented my projects a couple of times during our sprint review meetings. I can safely say that my understanding and experience with the agile development process have improved during my time at CCS.
To learn to efficiently create a complex and operational website using Drupal, Content Hub, SharePoint, and Gatsby.
Improving my software development skills is invaluable in my development as a software engineer. Another main task I had to do as a part of the CCS team was to provide support for our content management systems. Sometimes this was to provide simple solutions to problems clients have, but in a few cases, I had to make huge changes to their websites. This required knowledge of HTML and CSS, as well as the experience I gained with the particular CMS. One example is when I met with a manager within the Payment Services department. They were looking to create a SharePoint site but didn’t have the time to set it up. They requested that I create the Strategic Procurement Services site, and then create the navigation and sub-pages. They would then be able to enter all the information they needed. Another instance where I worked with CCS’s content management systems was during projects. For example, my two migration projects talked about above, FRS Training and Economic Impact Report, both required extensive knowledge in SharePoint and Content Hub respectively. One thing I didn’t get a chance to do during my work term was to develop with Gatsby. I did however get a chance to attend a training session with it and learned more about the software.
To improve my organizational skills and manage my time better.
Time management is an important skill for me both as a student and as a software developer. This is something I was hoping to improve while completing my work term. The job required me to schedule training sessions and meetings well, while also giving me time to work on other projects. This is something I succeeded in doing, as I did not run into any scheduling problems. I also made sure I was available when clients needed help, or tickets needed to be done.
To improve my creative thinking and the way I present information to other people.
For the final goal of my first term with CCS, I chose to focus on improving my creative thinking. This is not something that would directly help my future in software engineering, but it’s a weakness that I would like to strengthen. The Content Hub is constantly being updated by the CCS web development team and that means that my training also has to be updated. Throughout my 8 months at CCS, I have updated the training documents a lot. I added a few new widgets and information on a new preview button.
Summer 2023
To learn more about Content Hub development, to learn how to work with Gatsby and Drupal 9 to contribute to the backend of the Content Hub, and to continue to contribute to my team's software projects.
At the beginning of my second term with CCS, I had talked to my team members about potentially contributing to the Content Hub code base. Unfortunately, with other projects coming up, I did not get the time to do so. I did get a chance to learn more about Content Hub development though, as I got a chance to attend a training session provided by one of the analysts on my team. I also learned more about Gatsby and was given access to the Gatsby Cloud and the code base. I spent some time looking through both and learned a lot about web, and specifically Gatsby, development.
To learn about and participate in the hiring process of the next co-op student.
One tradition for the Web Solutions team’s co-op is that we would help hire and train the next co-op. This means I helped out with selecting the candidates to be interviewed and conducted the interview with my manager. This was a great experience because I got to learn what interviews were like from the other side. I learned what employers look for in resumes and interviews and could even give my manager insights on school projects the potential candidates had on their resumes. I also got a chance to train the next co-op, which was a great experience.
To improve my problem-solving skills and how I approach new problems.
One thing I wanted to highlight and improve on in my second term was my problem-solving skills. I felt that these skills were essential to my development as a software engineer. To do this, during my term, I tried to take more tickets, especially ones I didn’t know the answer to right away. I would also try and spend some time working on these tickets, researching and trying different things before going to a team member for assistance. This helped improve my problem-solving skills and even helped me learn new things that I used to create this website.
To continue to improve upon my creative thinking and the way I present information to other people.
This is a continuation of a goal I had in my first term. Throughout my two terms, I had to continuously update the training modules and documentation, to match the ever-changing state of the Content Hub. During my second term, I had to add information on governance, and I even had to update the theme of every PowerPoint. This was near the end of my term and it was when CCS developed their own theme. My creative thinking skills have greatly improved during my 8 months in this position.
Conclusion
My Winter and Summer 2023 terms with CCS were a very positive experience. To conclude my report on my time with CCS, I would like to summarize what I’ve learned in the last 8 months. This conclusion, and report, can never wholly reflect how much I’ve learned and grown while working with such a fantastic team. I will do my best to highlight a few things I learned that will help me in my future endeavors. I learned many new skills, including how to work with Drupal, SharePoint, and CCS’s Content Hub. I also experienced creating new Campus Press sites. Some skills I've improved on include HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Working with the team utilizing the Agile development process was a great learning experience for me as well. I was also given more significant responsibilities, including running daily stand-ups and taking over Ticket Lead at some points during my work term.
Additionally, I learned some transferable skills during my work term. I mentioned teamwork above, but I also learned how to reach out to individuals on my team for assistance. My communication skills also vastly improved, from both conducting trainings, and giving support. Many times I had to simplify hard software concepts for clients who had very little coding experience. The skills I’ve learned during this co-op term will help greatly with my future in software development.
Acknowledgements
There are a lot of people that helped me out during my time with CCS. This work term was my first, so I started out not knowing much about the real software development world. I’d like to acknowledge just some of the people that helped me do the best that I could, in the limited time I was with them. I’d like to thank the Web Solutions Team for welcoming me into their team. Every member of the team gave me support during my time with them, always helping me out when they had the chance.
I would like to first acknowledge Vinod Varughese, who was our Sprint Lead, and my manager. He was the one who conducted my interview and he gave me the opportunity to work on this amazing team. Vinod also assigned me many interesting projects that went beyond the initial job description. I also learned all about Agile development thanks to Vinod. He always gave me the support I needed to succeed in this position.
I’d also like to thank our team’s manager, Craig Hyatt. He was always helping me connect with clients who needed help and along with Vinod, was constantly giving me new ways to contribute to the team.
I’d like to thank our product owner Miranda Mafe, who was always available and ready for my many questions. She taught me how to solve many technical problems, working with both Drupal 7 and the Content Hub. If there was something I had no idea how to solve, she was always one call or message away.
I would like to thank the analysts of the web development solutions team, Tanya Qureshi, Lalit Jairath, Joy Banerji, David Wood, and Scott Schau. I know I reached out to every one of them with lots of questions and problems to solve. Thank you for never hesitating to help and supporting me in my work.
I’d also like to thank my co-op counselors Laura Gatto and Kate McRoberts. They helped me numerous times through my co-op job-hunting process and supported me during my time with CCS. I had some trouble finding my first co-op, but Kate and Laura were always there to help me.
Finally, I would like to thank Greg Klotz for taking the time to read my work term report. I appreciate how long it must take to read all of our reports, especially when he has advising and teaching duties as well. I’d also like to thank Greg for helping me with my school-related questions and advising me to stay in co-op. I would’ve missed out on lots of learning and experience if I had given up on it.