Creating Student User Accounts

[mtwelve]

We're in need of a new solution for creating students AD user accounts and I wondered how people do this... Software, scripts, manually, etc...

 

I have looked at many products but I prefer the idea of a decent PowerShell script

 

Please include whether you are primary, secondary, fe, he or a university and how many accounts you roughly create

 

Also levels of effort to implement and maintain

 

Thanks

[mdench]

Secondary

270ish accounts once a year

 

We have a spreadsheet which is modded from a sims export combined with a powershell script to create the vast majority of our users once a year.

 

Might eventually get round to seeing if we can fully automate it out of sims at some point

[pcstru]

Secondary. Probably around 400 accounts a year.

 

We use powershell scripts in a three stage process with a little manual tinkering. The first creates a CSV of data from the MIS, the second creates the accounts, shared areas, email etc from that, a third then emails tutors with the credentials. There can be a little manual intervention to select the students in the CSV if the CSV isn't created specifically for those students.

 

It's reasonably slick requiring little maintenance but there was an upfront investment in writing the scripts and then 'training' the team to use them.

[3s-gtech]

We the Account Management program (basically a vbs/Excel macro). Has worked well for years, quick and flexible. I'm sure many newer solutions make it look clunky and outdated, but it's clear and efficient. Combined with NTFSFix to sort permissions on the new home areas created, chown.exe to change ownership, and ADModify.NET to add extra variables that we use once they're mail enabled etc.

[sonofsanta]

PowerShell with CSVs.

 

Export the data from Facility to the clipboard and paste it into a prepared Excel sheet that then generates usernames/CN/directories/emails etc. with formulae. Check for duplicates and amend manually. Select that data and save it out into a CSV. PowerShell script loops through and creates the user as appropriate, then a couple of other scripts assign the Office 365 licences and set that side of the equation up.

 

Once a year it's run for 250 students (secondary), and similar scripts are run on smaller batches through the year for controlled assessments/new staff. Probably takes an hour to generate all the accounts; used to take two days for three techs to do it manually when I started (with a much higher chance of typos/spelling errors in names).

 

Once you've got the scripts it's not difficult, and you can write quick one pagers for techies.

[john]

Wisesoft AD Users did me and / or Powershell

[Jonah]

We use PowerShell on a schedule. We do it for both staff and students, CommandReporter runs some pre-defined reports in SIMS and exports each year group and staff list in to a CSV. This is then queried against AD for any new additions/changes/anyone that's left, etc and accounts created/changed/removed as required. The process goes through setting user accounts up, assigning profiles, creating mailboxes, adding to security and distribution groups and e-mailing the relevant people with details.

 

For the sake of it, we have it run on the hour which means whenever a new member of staff/student is entered in to SIMS by the admin team an account is created (with no further interaction required) within 60 minutes at worst. Can also be ran manually when/if required.

[Boredguy]

Secondary with around 200 accounts created for normal students a year (plus any exam specific ones)

All done via scheduled PowerShell script and exported SIMS reports daily.

 

Script creates the user account in AD, creates home drive and share and even e-mails login details to tutor so they can give the new student their details straight away.

[Marshall_IT]

Secondary, 225 per year.

 

Just started using salamander soft that exports from aims /facility staff and students, classes as groups, and even provisions my office 365 accounts. This halogens automatically on a schedule.

 

I could probably written something similar in Powershell myself but I don't have the time.

 

It really is working very well at the moment.

[Abaddon]

SIMS AD Provisioning... pity me.

[mikeyd101]

Anyone using custom scripts that they have written and would share?

 

I'm looking to automate ours a bit, at the moment all manual, we use TXeIS as our MIS and can get exports to use for user accounts. We have around 1500 kids k-12 over 3 campus. each grouped to campus where files live on relevant file server. Luckily kids are put into graduation year groups so they don't change year on year (unless the kid is held back, but that's handful of numbers). So each year we have todo manual migrations for 5 to 6 grade and 8 to 9 grade (moving campus).

 

I'm also trying to convince the boss that moving to 3 machine DFS between all 3 campus would give resiliency and would cut down on tasks like this, would just become a domain share from what i understand about DFS.

[plexer]

Excel spreadsheet to create a csv that is then imported via dovestones ad bulk user creator ran at 12 everyday.

 

Ben

[FN-GM]

We use Salamander Soft, to sum it up its excellent!

[box_l]

We use this in all our schools

XIA Automation - Active Directory Management Tool, User Accounts

Very happy with it!

[pcstru]

Anyone using custom scripts that they have written and would share?

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/coding/119786-powershell-create-users.html

 

(read down the thread for the update)

Edited April 9, 2014 by pcstru