Head teacher diary management

[kaphc]

Hi - wonder if anyone can help with this.

We are looking at our headteacher moving away from a paper diary to something in electronic format so that it can be more easily shared with office / teaching staff.

It needs to be something portable so that she can take it to meetings, and book appointments there and then. Then I envisage that she could bring the device back to school and upload it onto the network. In an ideal world, I guess this would be to our Learning Platform calendar, or if not, to something like Outlook.

Just wondering in the first instance what other schools do, whether there is anything that works well that you would recommend?

Many thanks

[p858snake]

Exchange server + outlook for the clients maybe?

[Number6]

Outlook shared calendars.

[Ric_]

Exchange server + outlook for the clients maybe?

Plus Windows Mobile when out and about?

[Number6]

Google calendars?

[Sylv3r]

Our head syncs her calendar with her PDA and outlook which also allows her PA access to her up-to-date calendar at all times.

[round2it]

+1 for exchange and outlook

[EduTech]

Exchange and Outlook Shared Calendars we use this for the SLT, as for us getting the Heads Diary on there.. only just got him reading his email. might be pushing him a bit at the moment.. somthing for the new yr i should imagine lol

[ful56_uk]

Exchange and outlook all the way plus iPhones when there not in school

[synaesthesia]

Also if it's just a few machines you can do it entirely without Exchange too thanks to the built in Windows Messaging stuff.

[MatthewL]

Exchange, Outlook, Blackberry/iPhone.

[mb2k01]

Another vote for Exchange and Shared Calendar / Public Calendar.
iPhone, Blackberry or PDA to enhance it + external access with OWA.
Go for Exchange 2010 if you are starting from scratch - much better bit of kit!

Our Head was once someone who was quite worried about technology - took quite a bit of convincing to "go there", but now he does everything in Outlook/Exchange and pushes for other staff to check/do the same!

[plexer]

Our head has a dell axim pda to take to meetings and this is synced to his secretarys outlook.

[bossman]

Zimbra shared Calendars:

Zimbra Calendar
Sharing your Calendars with Zimbra | Zimbra tips, examples & hosting blog.
Zimbra Calendar is an open source group calendar with Linux and Mac OS X server


Just depends what your email setup is?

Also as already stated on here Google calendars

[kaphc]

Thanks for all the replies, v interesting to see how it works well in other schools.

We're on Windows Server 2003 so not sure how the newest version of Exchange would be compatible. Also, it's really just the head's diary (and possibly the deputy head's) which would need to be on there .... I prob should have added the size of our school being a small primary with 150 pupils and approx 20 staff! So am not sure if setting up Exchange would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut if you see what I mean.

synaesthesia - can you expand a bit on the "Built-in Windows Messaging stuff" ... where can I find out more about this?

Our e-mail set up is very basic, it's hosted by the LA and we have to log in via a portal to access messages. They provide a kind of slimmed down screen and you can choose to launch the full Outlook client from this if you want - this then shows a calendar etc too. Not sure whether I will be able to get this to sync with anything though as it's all configured and set up externally.