As we continue on our Grouper journey here at University of Michigan, we’re faced with a number of questions.  With a large number of groups across campus for a wide range of uses, we’re working to better understand the various needs and what that means as we make decisions about our Grouper deployment.  

Currently being explored are folder structure and security within Grouper.  We want something that fits both our “new” offering of departmental data-driven groups but that will also make sense to users of our existing groups system and allow us to transition other use-cases to Grouper in the future.  Our initial pilot case is to use reference groups created from HR data to build an “All Staff” group for our Business and Finance department that’s primarily used for email and collaboration within Google. We’re planning on using a folder hierarchy using our department structure to manage access to the department based groups.

We’re looking forward to engaging more with our CSP partners as well as reaching out to other seasoned Grouper schools to hopefully gather some lessons learned and practical advice to consider along with the great guidance we’ve gotten so far.  

Having made progress on the technical and logistical issues related to getting Grouper up and running in our environment, it’s onto identifying and working toward the improvements that are meaningful to our users.  Our upcoming cohort discussion takes place Thursday, March 22 at 10AM ET and will focus on these topics and give us a chance to learn more about how other schools are organizing and managing access to Grouper. (https://bluejeans.com/7347095462)