Application Development & Support Services

ITSS provides professional services to design, develop, and maintain web applications that meet the specific business needs of academic and administrative units at UMD.

Service Offerings

The full lifecycle of a web application project includes:

Project Intake & Prioritization: All requests undergo a formalized evaluation process. Projects are prioritized and approved based on institutional impact, team capacity, and technical alignment.
Discovery & Scoping: A collaborative process with the department to define project goals, user needs, and functional requirements.
Application Design & Development: The creation and coding of a secure, functional, and user-friendly web application based on the approved scope.
Testing and Quality Assurance: The definition and execution of test cases to ensure the application meets all requirements and functions as intended.
Deployment and Environment Setup: The configuration and launch of development, staging, and production environments for the application.
Ongoing Maintenance and Support: Continuous support to ensure the application remains secure, up-to-date, and fully functional, in compliance with the University of Minnesota Information Security Policy.
Future Enhancements: Requests for new features or changes outside of the original project scope are treated as new requests and will go through a separate scoping and project prioritization process.

Exclusions

ITSS provides technical design, development, and ongoing maintenance for web applications. The following areas fall outside the scope of this service:

Content Management and Data Entry: Writing application content, uploading text/images, and ongoing operational data entry remain the responsibility of the Application Owner.
Third-Party Software/API Licensing: ITSS support covers development labor. Any licensing fees for specialized third-party software, premium plug-ins, custom domains, or external API access required for the application must be funded by the requesting unit.
Private-Highly Restricted Data Hosting: ITSS-developed web applications are not permitted to store or process Payment Card Industry (PCI), Protected Health Information (PHI), Social Security numbers, or other private highly-restricted data as defined by the University of Minnesota.

User Eligibility

This service is available to the following groups with a legitimate business need. A legitimate business need is defined as a person's necessity to access data, a system, or a service in their capacity as a School Official.

UMD academic and administrative units

Service Availability

ITSS is committed to providing timely and effective support during normal working hours.

Normal Working Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. CST, excluding University holidays.
Service Requests and Issues: All incoming requests and support tickets will be acknowledged and receive an initial response within 2 business days.
Planned Outages: Application owners will be notified of all planned maintenance and service outages in advance via email.

Roles and Responsibilities

This section defines the responsibilities of both ITSS and the Application Owner to ensure a successful partnership.

ITSS is responsible for:

Providing an accurate project plan and timeline following the initial consultation.
Delivering high-quality, secure, and functional web applications within the agreed-upon project scope.
Communicating project status, timelines, and any potential delays in a timely manner.
Providing ongoing maintenance and support for the application.

The Application Owner is responsible for:

Clearly communicating business needs and requirements during the discovery phase.
Providing timely feedback, content, and approvals during the development process.
Testing the application and reporting issues or bugs promptly.

Request Support

To initiate a project or request support for an existing application, please complete the Project Intake Form for Application Development and Integrations.

For general inquiries, you can also contact the Enterprise Systems Team directly at [email protected].