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MONICA OLSSON: 
Alright, good morning everyone! Thank you for joining us today on this sunny Tuesday. Welcome to July's edition of the ctcLink Accessibility Open Forum. We are recording as of now, my name is Monica Olsson, on the policy associate for accessibility at the state board. I am one of your co-moderators at this monthly open forum with my colleagues Sandy Main and Josh Giha who will introduce themselves when I handed over to them in just a few minutes. 
 
Before we dive into the contents of today's conversation and presentation, a few things I want to make sure everyone is aware of. We do have a professional life captioner here with us today, so if you would like to turn on your life captioning, please select the CC button at the bottom of your zoom screen. 
 
If you don't see the CC for closed caption button, you will need to take on the 3 dot ellipses at the bottom and click show transcript, and you will be able to view the subtitles that way. And Chris Thorne who is usually here with us at the state board services team is on a much deserved vacation so he won't be here to talk with us today, but he should be back for August. 
 
As always, feel free to put comments or questions in the chat, you can raise your hand or unmute yourself. We welcome discussion back and forth during these open forms, we do have several updates to share with you today, and with that I think of said what I need to. I will go and handed over to my colleague, Sandy, and to Josh as well. 
 
SANDY MAIN: 
Good morning everybody, this is Sandy Main, Director of registration services, and I'm going to let Josh introduce himself, because he's going to be doing some speaking and a little bit. Josh, go ahead. 
 
JOSH GIHA: 
Hi I'm Josh Giha with SBCTC, I'm a support engineer, and one of my main area of works is accessibility within the PeopleSoft system, so glad to be here with you all. 
 
MONICA OLSSON: 
Thanks, Josh. Sandy, you are on mute. 
 
SANDY MAIN: 
Hit the button but I think I got a little trigger-happy. Thank you, Monica, mute, mute, mute back-and-forth. Today's agenda is what we just went through with the welcomes, but we kind of jumped ahead. We are going to go through some general updates. Overall we have kind of a good list, which is nice. 
 
After that, Josh will be giving an update surprise to any service desk tickets, that has changed since the last time we met together, last month. And then we will go and leave it open to if there's any feedback from the colleges and you want to share some ideas or ask questions. So we will go ahead and get started. 
 
Monica, I will let you kind of go through since I think the majority of these are yours. Go for it! 
 
MONICA OLSSON: 
Thank you Sandy, yes this is Monica, I see my name all over these general updates slides. The first thing I want to share with everyone is something I mentioned before, but it's worth shooting and salivating yet again, I am right now actively in the process of recruiting and hiring a full-time web accessibility specialist. This position will report to me within the education division of the state board, and I am now officially a part of the education technology department, reporting to Mr Michael Brown. 
 
So, the new web access abilities specialist and tester will be part of that group as well. And the position has closed, so we received all of our applications, and we are in the process of scheduling first round of interviews. In terms of timeline, I am very hopeful we will have someone in this position by late September, early October, and they will spend the first several weeks on boarding, getting to know the landscape, etc. 
 
But a percentage of their job duties, or portfolio if you will, will be to be a part of the ctcLink accessibility advocacy with Oracle supporting the app services team such as Josh Giha on, Padma, and in some test work and assisting technology, attending these meetings in open forms along with myself, etc. 
 
They certainly are not solely focused on ctcLink accessibility, but it will be a part of their portfolio. The other update I have for you is the how to submit a ticket guy that I've been working on, which also includes information about accessible alternative ways to submit ticket information if solar winds is an issue for someone, plus concrete information of what to include in an accessibility related ticket is published and available for people to see and use online. 
 
I will put a link in the chat to that guide, so you can bookmark it or share it with whom you see fit, I will work on that in just a second. Let me see... The other update I have with you is that I've been having a couple of meetings with Gretchen Fullman here on the board to see how to consistently improve the accessibility of PDF documents that are ctcLink training guides, and as some of you or most of you will fully know, we do have a quick reference guide center. 
 
Am I saying that right, Sandy? What is that space, the official name of that space while the guides live? 
 
SANDY MAIN: 
Is the ctcLink reference center. 
 
HUNTER WALTON: 
Thank you, the ctcLink reference center is where all of these different guides and things exist as HTML pages and there's an option to download into PDF. Anyway, Gretchen and I are looking at the excitability of those PDF documents together to make some improvements. Now, I think I will invite Josh to join me in conversation, since he and I have been working together little bit around some excess abilities with us with TAM. 
 
JOSH GIHA: 
Sure. So backtracking a little bit, going to the web accessibility's specialist recruitment position, it kind of opened up some areas that we hadn't really paid attention to. This sounds really bad but I don't know any other way to say it bluntly, but it was overlooked, and the TAM system where we post our job applications, we didn't do a full excess ability review of that and going through this job posting we encountered some vulnerabilities-- not vulnerabilities but areas we can improve some. 
 
And in those areas, we are really-- the form controls, when you are applying for a job and submitting your application, there's a checkbox, and there is a switch control which is basically a checkbox, and the values are yes and no. 
 
The play PeopleSoft has defined their checkbox is not really best practice, and we've gone back and forth with them for several months now trying to explain, get them to see how it can cause problems later down the road when you pull stuff on top of it like a switch control, because the underlying code for a switch control is a checkbox. 
 
So, what happens with the checkbox is, it will read the question or the value that you are answering to. So let's say in this particular situation I agree to-- "yes or no, I agree to what I'm submitting", and it would read "I agree" and when you selected it would say checked, and when you unselect it with a unchecked, so when Oracle's eyes, it's reading the values back, but we would prefer, or the best practice would be, for it to tell you the full value that you are saying checked into unchecked to. Because what happens later when they do the yes/no switch control, it just reads it as checked unchecked, instead of yes, no, and the value you're saying yes or no to. 
 
Instead of saying "I agree", yes, when you select yes. And then when you hit know you would expect it to  "I agree/ no", or something to that effect. After talking to Oracle back-and-forth we've made them see that was an issue ends they've committed to a fix for us to be incremented within the people tools release in, I want to say the near future, probably next year would probably be the earliest we would see that fix come in. 
 
That was a little long-winded, but onto the next point. We have spun up a hybrid organization work group that I've been asked to be a part of, and as, you know, we've-- we are living in a post-covert world and a lot of the organization has switch to a hybrid organization with a lot of employees working from home, we want to make sure we are making equitable work environment for all employees. 
 
That includes-- not post COVID, post remote. Thank you, Marissa, we are still battling COVID. But yes, that includes making sure that our onboarding practices as well as our hiring practices following universal design and best WCAG practices as we go along with that. And Monica has been asked to be a part of that as well to submit best practices that she has to contribute as well. 
 
And I think we are ready to go to the next slide. 
 
MONICA OLSSON: 
Before-- this is Monica, before we go to the next slide, I realize I kind of threw the microphone at you and perhaps didn't give-- lay the ground super well for the TAM issue, for those of us in the audience who may not know what TAM is, and I can't recall if you specifically said this or not, Josh. TAM stands for talent acquisition manager, and it's in the ACM pillar, so it is an Oracle product, and it is what is used for applicants to view and vie for jobs. 
 
That's kind of the external facing role of it. And internally it's also where we would go to review applications. So Josh explained so well, there are some known accessibility issues with that-- with TAM, that we are working to document with Oracle, and then part of my work I will be documenting those issues with our HR so that they are aware as well of what are possible hiccups that could be experienced by jobseekers and potential future applicants who are navigating TAM using assistive technology. 
 
I'm sorry Josh, I probably should've said that before I handed it over to you to explain the technical things. 
 
JOSH GIHA: 
Thank you. 
 
MONICA OLSSON: 
So, are there any comments or questions? That was a lot of information, before going onto the next slide, any comments or questions from folks? 
 
SPEAKER: 
Monica, this is Sean from SFC Tse, I just want to clarify on the web accessibility specialist, is HR working to the applications now? I didn't hear that part. 
 
MONICA OLSSON: 
Yes, we are actively in the review stage, and HR should be contacting candidates in the near future to schedule first round of interviews, so that's where we are at in the timeline, anticipating a second round before the end of the summer, and decision in the fall. 
 
So, applicants should be hearing from HR within the next couple of weeks, yes, in terms of timeline. 
 
SPEAKER: 
Also great to hear about the TAM issue, because I talk to HR because it's so confusing, what was required and what wasn't. And I want to follow through on that because the application process sounded easy, but doing it through TAM was not easy. 
 
MONICA OLSSON: 
Yep, and we are documenting what those issues are for HR and for Oracle. 
 
SPEAKER: 
Thank you, I appreciate that. Thanks for letting me get caught up. 
 
MONICA OLSSON: 
Of course, thanks Shaun. OK, I think we are probably good to go to the next slide now, Sandy. 
 
SANDY MAIN: 
Before I have you start again Josh, this is Sandy Main, speaker. If you could give an update on these two items, but if you have access to the slide deck there is a hyperlink on this page, but it will direct you to the end of the slide deck which has all of the open service desk tickets, or-- or, and Oracle support issues we're working on and kind of the current status, so I sharing your frustration that things don't move as fast as we would like, but I want to assure everyone that Christopher's team - Josh, Padma... - they're like a dog with a bone try to get Oracle to fix this process, and I admired their tenacity and even though it doesn't seem like there's a lot moving, there's a lot going on to get things moving on forward. I just want to share this before I turn over the Josh. 
 
JOSH GIHA: 
OK, an update on the tickets we shared last month, and finance, there's trouble authorizations, an attachment button on the grid does not have a label. A fix is coming in finance image 43. There's a patch to fix it but the patch did not initially fix. The Oracle first PRP shows that it does resolve the issue, and it will be implanted shortly, has not been implemented yet. 
 
And then, the switch control, which we spoke about at length earlier. The switch one control checkbox is identified as a noncompliant due to it using multiple labels, so that was going back to what I was saying about it saying checked and unchecked versus the actual value of the switch which could be yes or no or on or off. 
 
Oracle has wanted to close it, and we keep pushing back, the Vice President of HCM development at Oracle is working with the people tools team to try and address the problem with the design change, and our last open form with other Oracle customers, they made the commitments that they were going to give us a fix for this. 
 
So, we are waiting to schedule a follow-up meeting to discuss with the actual plans are for the fix, and we are waiting for a target date on that. That's about it. Want to go to the next one? Not sure if there's another. 
 
SANDY MAIN: 
That's all we have on those, those are the only two changes, Josh, that happened since the last meeting. We will turn back to you Monica to see if there's any questions or comments from the field. 
 
MONICA OLSSON: 
Thanks Sandy, thanks Josh, appreciate it. So as Sandy mentioned, Chris and Josh and their team are communicating regularly with Oracle and part of the work is to help Oracle understand and work with us when there's an issue that needs attention. 
 
Is there any question about the information Josh just shared about the two items on the screen about switch control accessibility and travel authorizations? Or any comments or questions around the previous slides as well? In the chat, this is Monica still speaking, and the chat I did put in two links, so if you do need direct access to the PowerPoint slide deck, there is a link there - Sandy was mentioning there - where you can view a full list of the issues, and you how to get ctcLink supporting ticket guide is the second link I put in the chat, so if you'd like to look at those feel free. 
 
But we have concluded the information that we have prepared for today. And our next open forum will be August 9, the second Tuesday of the month, from 11 to noon. Is always people are welcomed and encouraged to come if you have questions comments or concerns before the meeting, you can contact us by email or use the submission form on the ctcLink accessibility webpage. 
 
We are hoping to have additional updates for you regarding our conversations with Oracle and HR regarding TAM by August. And hopefully I will have other updates for you regarding the web accessibility specialist hiring timeline as well. 
 
Alright, it's a quiet crowd today, and that's OK. OK, well, Josh and Sandy, I think if there aren't any questions for us and we've concluded our presentation, I can go ahead and sign us off. Are there any lingering thoughts either one of us have to share? 
 
SANDY MAIN: 
This is-- go ahead, Josh. 
 
JOSH GIHA: 
I'm OK, thank you. 
 
SANDY MAIN: 
This is Sandy, thanks everybody I appreciate you attending. Pretty quiet during the summer, we know. And I hope everybody is taking time to relax and enjoy family, friends, everything during the summer. So important for us to do that. 
 
MONICA OLSSON: 
Might be part of the reason why we are quiet at these meetings. We are all a little tired, we are all in summer. Thanks for your attendance, we really appreciate you being here, and we will see you next month, August 9. And feel free to reach out directly with questions if you want to. OK, bye everybody! 
 
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