Tall_Paul Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 Do you read junk email? Do you read marketing bumf? If you receive a communication from someone, and it is incomprehensible or irrelevant, how likely are you to ignore the next one or the one after that? If you received messages from the head of English dealing with the schools delivery of the curriculum (some might consider that at some level, that involves you!) and 99% of them were utterly irrelevant to you, would it really be your fault when you used the word "irregardless" to a student, despite it being banned by the English AUP? I delete emails all the time without even knowing what the content is. It's not about 'blame', BUT here is a thread in which people who want to communicate with people, KNOW that those people don't even bother to read the emails, but anyway, will send an email and then say "well, it's YOUR fault you didn't know that". Now, **don't get me wrong**, that might just be OK, depending on the consequences of that lack of knowledge. But even in a fairly benign situation where the patient doesn't die on the operating table because the firewall maintenance interrupted the live teleprescence link from the expert surgeon in South Africa, it might give a pretty poor impression to senior management when you know what you are doing is ineffective, but you do it anyway. If you *really* want people to know stuff, you need to do a little more than write a few words. The more you need them to really know stuff, the harder *you* need to work. I'm afraid we're going to have to agree to disagree. If someone can't be bothered to read a 'High Importance' email marked 'URGENT - Network Maintenance at 1600' then I have no sympathy (and neither would Senior Management). And if they dismiss such an email as junk or 'marketing bumf' then they need their heads looking at. I agree with you that methods of communication need to be looked at if there are real problems (like a constant deluge of emails, phone calls, whatever) but, in my experience, it only tends to be a tiny percentage of staff (if any at all) who say they didn't get the information. As a matter of courtesy, in a serious situation such as the above, I would walk around the staffrooms ten minutes before and check everyone was aware but I certainly wouldn't do that for every single ICT related problem (and wouldn't be expected to either).
synaesthesia Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I would of course hope we all put maximum effort into not confusing people with techno-babble or otherwise technical language. People don't often need to know the in's and out's of maintenance, a brief reason, why it affects them etc is usually more than sufficient. "A quick restart of the SIMS server is needed today at breaktime for an update which hopefully speeds things up for us" "We intend to take down our mail server today to take care of some nasty incidents, don't worry all email is safe and it will be back up by 12pm" It takes a little effort on all sides but we can not and will not be held responsible for any ignorance shown by end users if we've done everything necessary to warn.
speckytecky Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 Yes Impero will do the job nicely but my staff would be up in arms if they thought I was able to monitor their screens so staff machines are in a Group that is seperated from student machines so they don't show screens on the console. We use impero to push notifications out to our staff for urgent things. It's brilliant as it pings up over all other active windows. As for planned maintenance, we will announce in briefing, follow up with an email, then use smoke signals for those who still can't use computers. :-)
synaesthesia Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 You can still send messages whilst being unable to see the screens, we do.
Oaktech Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 [/code]Yes Impero will do the job nicely but my staff would be up in arms if they thought I was able to monitor their screens so staff machines are in a Group that is seperated from student machines so they don't show screens on the console. We use Lanview, and we had a brief round of this, but then pointed out to them, if we can't see your screen, we can't remotely assist you, and if we can't see your screen we don't know if you're busy. Plus, monitoring of all machines is in the AUP. While we are on this subject, I've attached an email that I send to staff when there is going to be a cmis or eportal upgrade. A few people have said they think it is too technical, but I can't see a way of giving the required information in a simpler-worded format? Dear All, Due to software changes, CMIS and Eportal for all sites will be unavailable on Thursday 9th January for approximately 2 hours from 16:30. This will affect all access to CMIS and EPortal, including access from home. Please note that during this work, access to other resources on the CMIS server will also be affected, these include: • RM Finance, and Finance document areas (but NOT Corero) • HR (Including recruitment) • [NAME]-[NAME Shares • Special [sITE] Staff to Staff shares. • The Staff Info area • The Staff Temp area • Truancy Call • GroupCall • Exam exchange folders Staff home drives and logging in will not be affected. Please ensure that you have closed CMIS, Eportal and any resources listed above before this time. Any open connections from web browsers to ePortal, or from Facility Admin client to the CMIS database will be automatically closed. Please do not attempt to access any services listed above before 18:30 as functionality may be unpredictable. Any questions, please contact the helpdesk. [NAME] indicates a meaningful name that has been changed for anonymity
X-13 Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 A few people have said they think it is too technical It isn't. It's just an excuse to ignore it.
Oaktech Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 It isn't. It's just an excuse to ignore it. Well, I rather suspected that, but I thought it should be tried by a jury of my peers!
Mr.Ben Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 My notifications always start with a statement in bold that the network (or a portion of) will be unavailable between xx and xx. The title of the email is identical to this. I then include the technical information, but as many staff won't be expected to understand this It's not too long, 50 words maximum!
Oaktech Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 My notifications always start with a statement in bold that the network (or a portion of) will be unavailable between xx and xx. The title of the email is identical to this. I then include the technical information, but as many staff won't be expected to understand this It's not too long, 50 words maximum! Subject of the email says that... I appreciate what you're saying, but this email is crafted to provide answers to most of the questions to helpdesk which go along the lines of "I've read the email, does this mean I can still [insert action or access to resource here] We don't have any of those questions any more, but we do get the aforementioned 'it's too technical' comments in the corridor. 1
sparkeh Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I tend to go for the scatter gun approach for planned work: emailed, put on staff portal, written on staff message board, brought up by Head in staff briefing, word of mouth, sign language, smoke signals etc. If they don't get the message then they are trying really hard to miss it. If needs be (eg one staff member who *never* closes SIMS for a update) then a message is sent by LanSchool, don't really like to interrupt lessons though. Unplanned outages are usually communicated via the staff message board in staff room and word of mouth (eg 'Internet down and no I don't know when it will be back '). Could start using LanSchool to get the message out I guess. I keep meaning to write some kind of status app that sits in the taskbar and turns red it there is an issue, if the staff hover over it it could say 'Internet down' or something....but never have the time.
sparkeh Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 Like this? EduGeek EduNotifier Mmm kinda. I was thinking more along the lines of a status indicator. So if everything was ok it was green. If something, say Internet was down, I could change colour to red and add a message that popped up if they hover the mouse over. That way if a teacher found the Internet was working they could check the indicator to see if there was a known issue before reporting it. When it was fixed I could change it back to green.
pcstru Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 (edited) [/code] Dear All, Due to software changes, CMIS and Eportal for all sites will be unavailable on Thursday 9th January for approximately 2 hours from 16:30. This will affect all access to CMIS and EPortal, including access from home. Please note that during this work, access to other resources on the CMIS server will also be affected, these include: • RM Finance, and Finance document areas (but NOT Corero) • HR (Including recruitment) • [NAME]-[NAME Shares • Special [sITE] Staff to Staff shares. • The Staff Info area • The Staff Temp area • Truancy Call • GroupCall • Exam exchange folders Staff home drives and logging in will not be affected. Please ensure that you have closed CMIS, Eportal and any resources listed above before this time. Any open connections from web browsers to ePortal, or from Facility Admin client to the CMIS database will be automatically closed. Please do not attempt to access any services listed above before 18:30 as functionality may be unpredictable. Any questions, please contact the helpdesk. It's OK. It is a bit too technical - you don't need to say some of those things and generally you are not, I'd sum it up as "reaching out". I'll put my head on the block - here's my translation of that : Dear All, Major Service Interruption : Thursday 9th January 4:30pm-6:30pm. Investigations have led to us identifying a new strain of fungal growth in of our servers, which, as it looks not only edible but possibly even tasty, will involve a short interruption to some services while we, err, send someone in. We plan to do this on Thursday 9th January at 4:30pm and the expedition is expected to take two hours, during which a number of services will be unavailable (Please do peruse the list below). We urge you should your favourite (see list below) software companions be unavailable during this time, to luxuriate in a moment of Zen like peace and tranquillity, transcending all earthly cares except perhaps for a really nice cup of tea. Mmmmm. Obviously if you are planning some specific activity in which the entire future of the human race at a critrical moment during that time, rests somewhat improbably on the availability of one of those services, do let us know.We can probably find a way to work around it. Kindest Ever Regards, PCStru Mmmm. Mushroom Omlette! So kick me. Edited January 30, 2014 by pcstru 1
Oaktech Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 It's OK. It is a bit too technical - you don't need to say some of those things and generally you are not, I'd sum it up as "reaching out". I'll put my head on the block - here's my translation of that : Dear All, Major Service Interruption : Thursday 9th January 4:30pm-6:30pm. Investigations have led to us identifying a new strain of fungal growth in of our servers, which, as it looks not only edible but possibly even tasty, will involve a short interruption to some services while we, err, send someone in. We plan to do this on Thursday 9th January at 4:30pm and the expedition is expected to take two hours, during which a number of services will be unavailable (Please do peruse the list below). We urge you should your favourite (see list below) software companions be unavailable during this time, to luxuriate in a moment of Zen like peace and tranquillity, transcending all earthly cares except perhaps for a really nice cup of tea. Mmmmm. Obviously if you are planning some specific activity in which the entire future of the human race at a critrical moment during that time, rests somewhat improbably on the availability of one of those services, do let us know.We can probably find a way to work around it. Kindest Ever Regards, PCStru Mmmm. Mushroom Omlette! So kick me. Ok... fair point, I'd rather be able to just write Dear All, Due to software changes, CMIS and Eportal for all sites will be unavailable on Thursday 9th January for approximately 2 hours from 16:30. Please do not attempt to access CMIS or ePortal before 18:30 as functionality may be unpredictable. Any questions, please contact the helpdesk. but from experience, I have added the other stuff to attempt to head off the deluge of 'but can I do x-thing?' questions that used to follow the brief message above that I used to give out. Damned if I do, Damned if I don't. 1
Gibson335 Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 For general staff, mail, for more critical a mail following briefing announcement. I got told by a teacher that they couldn't be expected to read the mails because they were too busy...the same teacher who, incidentally, somehow found time to send out endless mails advertising things they had for sale!! Some will not bother to reads the mails at all, some will scan and miss the crucial part, some will read, delete and dismiss from their minds entirely, some will read and ask something either already covered or entirely missing the point...a few, if you're lucky, will read, comprehend, file away in memory banks and react accordingly. Great one recently: been building up to some changes, and did a countdown reminder: x...will be starting Wednesday...x will be starting tomorrow...x...starts TODAY!! and then later that day had a mail to say 'Sorry, hadn't realised you meant today, and am not quite prepared...'
AJWhite1970 Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Simple twitter feed used here for any planned outages or unplanned problems, especially at the weekend so staff can just click on our multi-feed page and see if there are any issues before emailing me
woreilly Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 A lot of schools use something called Teachers2Parents to send parents text messages to their phones when things like school closures come up. Is there not something similar you can do for teachers?
Steven_Cleaver Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 I have created an App that we can autostart when staff login and fills the screen we also have some software that can sort of imitate login so where staff are logged in we just sort of resend the login process and the App loads full screen over everything used the same process for a while when certain staff were really annoying me and not taking registers .
Sylv3r Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 I am looking to implement a traffic light system. Green for everything is good to go, amber for issues that we are aware of with an ETA of a fix, red for something isn't working as is bust. It will probably a manual exercise to change the colours, add the updates etc, but shouldn't take that long to update. At the moment planned downtime for staff and students are posted on our Facebook / Twitter. If it affects just staff it's sent via e-mail.
robjduk Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 I have often pondered making a HTML page and setting it as everyone member of staff's homepage. A kind of network / systems status page they are forced to see which would be perfect for planned downtime messages.... The one fly in the ointment of this is I honestly have staff who, if there homepage is not set to the school's website, they honestly don't know how to get it unless it is a favourite. Maybe you are more lucky with your staff's IQ?
fairm010 Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 I actually did the same thing but upon setting it as the homepage I had an influx of "The internet is broken". Apparently if Google doesn't instantly appear the internet is buggered.
chilbs Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 We had lots of calls saying the internet was broken when we removed the google search box from the middle of the front page of the VLE/homepage. Likewise when we banned the kids from Bing and temporarily left it as the default search engine in IE.
robjduk Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 Is it us? Do we as IT people have standards set too high or are people just a little too silly? I have science teachers who know how to make napalm but cant think of an 8 digit password.
robjduk Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 We had lots of calls saying the internet was broken when we removed the google search box from the middle of the front page of the VLE/homepage. Likewise when we banned the kids from Bing and temporarily left it as the default search engine in IE. I use / like Bing so I understand I am likely to not like the reply but why ban Bing?
mattianuk Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 We have an internal metro style intranet page, with a network status tile we keep updated. It turns red or amber or green dependant on whole network status We also have this for parents and staff and students from home: St Bede's Catholic Middle School » Service Status the ticks ping the server, so if its down down it will auto update. Not fool proof, but we can quickly update website as its WP hosted offsite
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