Anyone Using Frog?

[garkunkel]

I don;t want to assume that the bulk of the contributors to this discussion are technical, but I wonder what school administrators think of this issue. Me, I'm not too clever on technical (I pick up on conversations, do some reading and then try and add my bit!) and so that's why I prefer to avoid systems that look like hard work in administration of the basics (like setting up users, which I would suggest ought to be a simple and automated task). Anyway, I can't say I have been instilled with confidence with this Frog situation - chiefly as it seems some are getting little in terms of response to their problems! Hope I'm wrong!

[frogdude]

I think what clareq is referring to is storage for their "Home Drives" spread over three servers. This is common practise especially in a RM CC3/CC4 network. The Home drives are normally split down into year group for server load balancing. So Server1: Year 7, 8 and staff. Server2: Year 9, 10 and 11. Server3: Year 12 and 13.

I strongly agree with clareq that this functionality is sadly lacking in Frog user import and the only workaround is a CSV or manually change each user that comes to you.

I have a third party AD SIMS import tool that has this functionality and creates the users "Home Drives" in Active Directory on the correct server (when the student starts) based on year group. This like Frog is an overnight import from SIMS. So why can’t Frog be a bit more flexible to soot a common school scenario.
!

I see your point regarding this issue - Frog takes the user information from your MIS, but does not create the network paths automatically - this is something that you can do with a CSV import/export. I think what you are suggesting is to be able to select all users from an MIS year and say "Use this path '//server/share/%username%/My Documents' as their home drives, rather than the added step of the export import.

You do have to do it a lot more than once a year. What about starters during the academic year? That 5 minutes flat than starts to add up. Also how often do Network admins get passed the information that you have a new starter/s. I can tell you almost never.....

How many additional users join in a year? Network admin's must be told at some point otherwise they would never have network accounts created for them!

that's why I prefer to avoid systems that look like hard work in administration of the basics (like setting up users, which I would suggest ought to be a simple and automated task

In my opinion it is a very simple process. The Frog Extractor is installed on your MIS server, it pulls the data out on a nightly schedule - imports that into Frog which create the user-names based on a very customisable set of rules. The users are automatically linked to their AD accounts and can then login without any intervention from you. You can then add their home drives at any time, either with a CSV for bulk or one at a time for a couple for example.

I think that any system, such as a network or VLE is going to require some amount of administration, this is unavoidable. The people at Frog do their best to minimise this whilst catering for all system types. Don't forget that it is a constantly evolving product and things are always improving



Lastly:

Anyway, I can't say I have been instilled with confidence with this Frog situation - chiefly as it seems some are getting little in terms of response to their problems! Hope I'm wrong!

I tend to find that people are very quick to condemn, and slow to thank - people are more likely to want to post a rant rather than something positive, so I hope that such cases would be a tiny minority.

Phew, sorry about the long post!

[edsa]

We are just about to implement Frog at our school, but we are also looking at email systems. Is anyone using the Frog email system either for Staff of Students?

cheers

Ed

[clareq]

I see your point regarding this issue - Frog takes the user information from your MIS, but does not create the network paths automatically - this is something that you can do with a CSV import/export. I think what you are suggesting is to be able to select all users from an MIS year and say "Use this path '//server/share/%username%/My Documents' as their home drives, rather than the added step of the export import.

Frog does claim to do this automatically - there is an option in the location where you set username format to automate home drive location. However, I can only put details in for one server.

How many additional users join in a year? Network admin's must be told at some point otherwise they would never have network accounts created for them!

Two or three a week - we are told by having them wander into our room with "I'm new I need to log on" We then need to drop whatever we are doing to add them. Sometimes they have beaten Admin, and they are not yet in SIMS, so we can't just edit the data already in Frog.

In my opinion it is a very simple process. The Frog Extractor is installed on your MIS server, it pulls the data out on a nightly schedule - imports that into Frog which create the user-names based on a very customisable set of rules. The users are automatically linked to their AD accounts and can then login without any intervention from you. You can then add their home drives at any time, either with a CSV for bulk or one at a time for a couple for example.

Not customisable enough, obviously, else we wouldn't be complaining! We do have to intervene, far to often!

[john316]

We use the FROG email as a separate sand boxed email system for staff and students - the staff still have their regular separate Exchange accounts but use the FROG email to contact pupils. Our pupils don't have 'proper' email accounts so the FROG email system works great for them.

[themightymrp]

Would it not be possible to specify somewhere that the path for the users homeshare is just %homeshare% ?? Surely that would accomodate users folders being located on different servers as it would be able to pull the correct location from the AD?

[mthomas08]

Well it is done, we are getting frog. I asked about the importing of users and apparently you should only have to run the import once. Their importer does allow you to configure how your users are setup before importing but I guess I will see how that goes. In about two weeks they will be in to install it.

I have noticed people not happy with the customising of Frog are php lovers

We have produced a huge list of what we want on Frog and hope to develope as time goes by and all that is a yes, I am sure people will ask for other things and get a no but then that is some thing for the future. I am just going through filling out the Pre Install sheet and awaiting for our service provider (EIS) to get back to me about the final sections

After testing the Demo with several staff/Students I must say it is much easier then a a lot of other VLEs I have tested. And everyone seemed very happy with the looks and feel of it all. Afterall they are the ones who the VLE is for