https://www.edugeek.net/rss/1-edugeeknet-whole-site.xml/Whole site feedenEvening, Hope you are all well. Have any of you had issues with google chrome and gmail specifically opening pdf attachments? Ones that have opened in the past now ask to be downloaded and do not open in preview in chrome. This is on google education workspace and chrome. The error seems to be the machine is offline. you download the pdf and it comes up corrupt. Sounds odd right? Hopefully someone has seen it. The machine does not drop off the internet nor is it online which makes this very odd. Could be chrome, workspace, or even adobe reader! going to be a tricky one by the fact that gmail says it is offline and try opening the pdf with a different applcation. Any ideas? Anyone seen this? Appreciate any info.. Take care. 5nowmanWed, 23 Sep 2026 20:17:55 +0000Hi all Does anyone here use both CPOMS and Arbor, and if so, what do you do about trainee teachers (ITTs)? Nowadays ITTs need access to many systems (for us that includes Flick Learning, CPOMS, ClassCharts, Google, Microsoft, iAM Compliant and potentially more!) and the burden on IT support staff is ever-increasing. It's made worse for us by the fact that we don't have them on Arbor, which creates additional workload and complications. I am not sure of the exact reasons they are not on Arbor, but I'm told something along the lines that only employees can be on Arbor and that if we add ITTs, it would skew statistics such as our stated number of employees; I'm not in a position to disagree on that, so we've tried our best to add the ITTs to various systems manually. There is no problem with, say, ClassCharts, as we can add additional users on top of those who have synced from Arbor. However, we don't know how to get CPOMS to work. My colleagues and I in our IT support team have no access to CPOMS (other than the most basic account possible, to create concerns; we can't even see anything we have created, other than very briefly) and therefore our Safeguarding team are the only ones with admin access to CPOMS. They have told me that CPOMS only seems to work with users who are synced from Arbor. They can create additional users, but once the overnight sync takes place, those users are immediately suspended. So, we seem to be stuck in a loop; I am told we can't add them in Arbor as there is apparently no provision for trainee teachers in Arbor (is that correct, does anyone know?) but if they aren't in Arbor, they can't be in CPOMS? I suspect that there may be some sort of workaround; if anyone has any suggestions, we would be very grateful. Just to add that CPOMS is an "approved app" in our "Partner Apps (API Users)" list, so there is no third party sync tool involved (i.e. we are not using Wonde, GroupCall etc for this particular sync) Many thanks in advance!Wed, 23 Sep 2026 19:40:21 +0000Hi there, Apologies if this is on the wrong thread. I am trying to block Ai within search engine like Google Overview or Bing's Ai - anyone got any ideas how they are blocking it on specifically iPads? We use Intune as our mdm Thank youWed, 23 Sep 2026 14:30:48 +0000Wed, 23 Sep 2026 13:55:45 +0000We have a number of students who have an 'Eligible for Free Meals' entry in SIMS. The FSM Category is 'Targeted FSM' and we have recently added a new entry for 'Expanded FSM' for many students. The Targeted FSM entry might have an end date of $date and the Expanded FSM might have a start date of $date + 1 day. There is apparently a bug in the Validate Membership procedure that sees these two entries, sees that the end date of one is consecutive with the start date of another and tries to merge them. Apparently patch 31462 resolves this. We haven't run Validate Membership but we are still seeing this issues, seemingly randomly, affecting a few students at a time. We ran patch 31462 last night but we are still getting new cases today. Is anyone else seeing this? It's possible you wouldn't notice, we only noticed because our Data Manager ran a report to check, saw some records that needed updating and when she run the report again saw some different records that needed updating.Wed, 23 Sep 2026 13:02:01 +0000Does anyone print their own ID/access cards using this printer? I use the manufacturer's colour ribbons, and the print quality is excellent initially. However, I've found that the cards fade quite noticeably after a year or two, even when they're kept in a lanyard holder and aren't subject to any significant wear or rubbing. For the cards themselves, I usually purchase unbranded MIFARE cards from Amazon. They all seem to be fairly similar in quality, regardless of supplier. Has anyone experienced the same issue or found a way to improve the longevity of their cards? Would switching to a different card type, overlay, laminate, or supplier help reduce fading and keep the print quality looking good for longer? Any recommendations would be appreciated.Wed, 23 Sep 2026 10:48:04 +0000*Pops head up from behind the shadows* Forum lurker here, I don't post because most of the time others have asked the question and gotten an answer already! Only this time something's come up that has me (and the boss) confused. We have one member of staff that can't logon to SIMs. Now with every other member of staff they use windows credentials. Select Current Windows User and away they go That doesn't happen with this user. Comes back with the good ol' "Invalid username/password" error. Only it's not. I've gone through his account in AD with a fine toothcomb, checked his user account in SIMs user manager and compared it to other accounts. Everything matches up perfectly. Only SIMs doesn't recognise the user or password. We tried deactivating and reactivating the account with SIMs to trigger it working again. No such luck. As a last ditch effort we changed his AD password, no luck. Finally we created a SIMs username and Password manually and would you believe that did work! It's an ugly work around though and all other staff can just sail on by with Windows User. Anyone have any ideas as to why just one user would have this trouble?Wed, 23 Sep 2026 10:41:58 +0000A problem has developed on all PCs that we have Creative Cloud installed on (device based licenses). Essentially, the PC freezes for about 30 secs and then the screen goes blank and then seems to sort itself out. Initially was happening when users first logged in, and I narrowed it down to the Creative Cloud App that was starting automatically at logon. I've disabled that initially (as an admin locally, still trying to sort out a reg hack for this) so now that doesn't start, but when a user tries to start Photoshop they are directed to the licensing login page and then the freeze will happen again. When the PC comes back it all seems useable. Any thoughts? This and other stuff going at the moment is the last thing I need right now. PeteWed, 23 Sep 2026 09:00:27 +0000Salary: NJC14 – 19 (£30,515 - £33,119) Hours: 37 hours per week, full-time (Monday to Friday). Start Date: ASAP We're looking for an IT / AV technician (AV is both classroom and live event) We're an oversubscribed 11-18 CofE Single Academy in Blackburn, Lancashire. The job is usual IT support, but with AV to cover events/concerts etc, as well as classroom AV. Knowledge of Live event sound and lighting is what we'd ideally like, so I can leave happy next Summer and they can then replace me with just IT! Decent equipment, a very knowledgeable long served Network Manager and myself too until next Summer, so plenty of support in the role. We're a 1:1 iPad school, but everything else is standard Microsoft really. REWARDS AND BENEFITS - Salary: NJC14 – 19 (£30,515 - £33,119) - Local Government pension scheme. - Access to Employee Assistance programme offering free confidential support on a range of issues such as work, wellbeing, money, health and legal advice. - Excellent opportunities for continuous professional development and support to develop your career. -Cycle to Work scheme - Free EV Charging (The last chap moved house to Yorkshire! To be fair, I've been here 34 years, and the NM nearly 30, so can't be that bad....) Ask away for any questions or queries. Closing Date: 5th October, 2026 Job Description attached IT-AV-Technician-2026.pdfWed, 23 Sep 2026 07:55:53 +0000https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2026/09/study-notebooks-in-gemini-are-now-available-for-Google-Workspace-accounts.htmlWed, 23 Sep 2026 07:12:32 +0000Hi, We are currently moving away from Hybrid AD setup via intune and autopilot and moving to Entra only I have one user device on entra only where the inventory shortcut opens then crashes it happens regardless if the user or an admin account is logged in it affects one user no other user has this problem on hybrid AD devices has anyone encountered this or have a fix?Wed, 23 Sep 2026 00:23:10 +0000Tue, 22 Sep 2026 22:58:56 +0000I am not sure how many of you have seen the email from LGfL regarding the passing of John Jackson, but thought it might be an idea to post a thread in memory of him. He was quite simply one of the most energetic and capable people I have ever met. The LGfL events were always so memorable entirely because of John's enthusism. He really helped bring school connectivity and infrastructure into the 21st century, driving massive initiatives like SuperCloud broadband, securing dedicated national fibre infrastructure, and championing essential tools like safeguarding packages, the Free School Meals checker, and mass device procurement that made a tangible difference to schools daily. I am deeply saddened to hear this news. My thoughts are with his family and all his LGfL colleauges. A great loss for so many. 😭Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:44:13 +0000https://googlebook.google/intl/en_uk/ They look nice, they looks like they interact with Android Phone's well, they look powerful, they look like they run a pretty good desktop android operating system. They LOOK like a proper rival to the Macbook Neo, but they also look expensive... Plus they're categorically not replacing Chromebooks, so no need to worry about Chrome OS vanishing as the new Aluminium OS is introduced.Tue, 22 Sep 2026 09:42:29 +0000Hello, Just looking at our phone system contracts and i think its up for renewal soon, We still have cooper coming in to feed the phone lines. (Yes i know its getting switch off next year but no-one hasn't done anything about it before i started) Our current system is IPEC's on-prem and i think its around 10 years old. I've emailed Focus about our phone system and moving to a SIP line, just waiting to hear back (our current support contract is with them) Is there any other suppliers that anyone would recommend? Thanks in advance.Tue, 22 Sep 2026 09:14:33 +0000Has anyone deployed AI tools for staff across their school? We currently have Microsoft Copilot, but staff are increasingly asking for something closer to the ChatGPT like being able to easily group chats into projects, keep related work together, and generate images etc The problem I’m finding is that ChatGPT becomes very expensive once you move into the versions with proper management and security controls. ChatGPT Business/Teams seems more affordable, but from an IT admin point of view the controls still feel quite limited. For example, I can't seem to centrally/bulk disable plugins or properly lock down some of the features I wouldn't want staff using. I'm interested to know what others have deployed for staff if any ? or if you using Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or something you've built yourselves using an API?Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:59:27 +0000A few devices which weren't used for several months seemed to have gone from Intune, is there anyway to get these back other than flattening them? They're also not in Entra. (Ps. I don't know the local Admin password for these devices!, so i cant local in locally and re add) Thanks in advanceTue, 22 Sep 2026 08:59:03 +0000Some context first. I'm just getting the presenters laptop ready for the conf. It's a 2015 Dell XPS 13 9350, but there are often updated drivers around still for the Intel parts, and it only comes out to play for conferences these days as it only has 8GB RAM and an 2c\4t i7 in there. It did need a bit of TLC, and I cleaned out the fan and re-pasted the cpu, which actually made it very happy indeed! After this I did a quick search to see if a new BIOS had been released (slim chance as the last one was circa 2021) and lo and behold, there was one listed for this year. Given Microsoft's secure boot certificates requirements, I didn't think this was too out of the ordinary and it could just be an 'emergency' release to let it comply. So I asked AI to provide me with a link to it as I couldn't find it on the site, and it did indeed give me one for the new 9350 BIOS: Happy happy joy joy I thought, only to be rewarded with this when I tried to install it: It was at this point I went to bed.Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:51:00 +0000Just wondering if anyone else is currently unable to use image generation using Microsoft Copilot Chat? Image Generation is enabled for our Tenant, but keep getting: And there doesn't appear to be a status page to check for this either. Thanks,Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:33:56 +0000Just out of curiosity I'm investigating how hard it is to get data out of iSams. I can use the export to excel functions pretty easily but things like the linked documents, Sen data seem more difficult. Anyone moved away from iSams?Mon, 21 Sep 2026 22:10:22 +0000I've been building this for months, mostly evenings and weekends, and I've got to the point where I can't usefully test it on my own any more. Disclosure first - this is mine, I built it, it's called Passbeam. Not a company with a sales team, just me. One thing to get out of the way early, because it will decide whether the rest is any use to you: it works off Entra ID and Intune. If your estate is Google Workspace and Chromebooks, this won't help you today and I'd rather say so now than waste your time. What it does. It's cloud RADIUS with a separate certificate authority per site or trust, Cloud PKI. You connect it to your Entra tenant, it provisions your CA, and it gives you an SCEP profile and the Wi-Fi and wired profiles to paste into Intune. Devices enrol themselves from there. If you're still running NPS on a Windows VM with a certificate template nobody remembers setting up, that's the thing this is meant to replace. The bit I think matters most: at authentication time it checks the certificate and then checks Entra. So if you disable the user or the device in Entra, they stop getting on the network. You're not waiting on a CRL or a certificate expiry. You can also choose to deny access to devices when they are marked non-compliant within Intune. Wired, wireless and VPN all go through the same endpoint. RADSec where the equipment supports it, plain RADIUS where it doesn't. There's a sessions view built on RADIUS accounting, so you can see who is actually connected right now, which access point or switch port they're on, and what address they hold. You can also knock a device off a live session. Kinda neat when a trust has 30 schools and you can just pop in the device name and it will show you the site the device is connected at, its session and a little "disconnect" button. There's also a path for printers, CCTV, desk phones, door access control, BMS and so on, for the things with no user and no MDM behind them. Any device that supports 802.1X. You request a certificate for the device by hand and it authenticates to the network like anything else. Useful for a port in a corridor that is only ever meant to have a camera on it, or the MFP in reception. I've tested it on my own kit - APs and switches, iPhone, Android, Windows, a printer - and nearly every problem I've fixed came from actually using it rather than from the test suite. There are a number of small users on it now who have been invaluable in finding bugs and asking for features. Which is why I want people with real networks pointing real devices at it, and school networks are their own thing - term-time load, shared iPads, kit that has been in a cupboard since 2014, and a summer holiday to do the risky work in. I'd love people who will tell me what's broken, what's missing or what could be improved. https://passbeam.co.uk Happy to answer anything technical in the comments 😄 Thanks, Scott.Mon, 21 Sep 2026 21:45:02 +0000Mon, 21 Sep 2026 16:09:00 +0000Our SLT have just started using Google NotebookLM via the LGFL who syncs us into Google Workspace via USO AutoUpdate. We should have a slides deck when working on a notebook but this seems to be missing for us. From looking online, you need to verify your age for this to appear potentially. However, when trying to do this with my own LGFL synced Google Workspace account that is also missing the slides deck, I hit the attached error message. Has anyone had the same issue and found a way to make the slides deck appear for them? LGFL isn't a 100% sure on what the cause could be - I'm feeling it will be more Google related and just something we need to fiddle with in Google Workspace itself potentially. Thanks in advance!Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:49:45 +0000Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:36:55 +0000Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:24:11 +0000