rpettit Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 I'm sure this question has been asked or at least thought about a lot by the Edugeek forum members... We use to use Studywiz to map to users documents using elocker mapping, but we have now moved to firefly and this does not have the same functionality. We are looking to have an app on the iPad that authenticated a user to either own file share on a windows file server - the user would need to be able to save directly from an app to the share and to open existing documents already in their documents. I have seen that WebDAV has been mentioned, is this the only real way of doing this? Or have others found a different way. I have found a company called 'Foldr' and I am currently going down this avenue - has anyone ever heard or used this before? What were your experiences? Many thanks
Jasbo Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 We use it, generally happy with it. See it as a stop gap allowing us to better support mobile devices without having to give up our reliable file server infrastructure to the cloud. The app and streaming works well and staff and students have taken to using it well, we had a remote access setup using rdp access to rdp servers which we still have, but this is better in my opinion for general file access. One thing, not an issue for our size of school but I'm not sure how well it would scale as a service for large schools/colleges etc, as as far as I am aware there's nothing built in in that area. 1
Brimstone Posted August 20, 2014 Posted August 20, 2014 We use it, generally happy with it. See it as a stop gap allowing us to better support mobile devices without having to give up our reliable file server infrastructure to the cloud. The app and streaming works well and staff and students have taken to using it well, we had a remote access setup using rdp access to rdp servers which we still have, but this is better in my opinion for general file access. One thing, not an issue for our size of school but I'm not sure how well it would scale as a service for large schools/colleges etc, as as far as I am aware there's nothing built in in that area. I've got a school/academy trust currently using Foldr with 2500 users across multiple domains, so will scale perfectly well...
BITS_BryanS Posted August 20, 2014 Posted August 20, 2014 If it's saving from Apps you are looking for, then we have a solution called AirCatch that you may want to take a look at - Business I.T. Systems Ltd Opening saved documents is a different ballgame. Most apps don't support WebDAV, and only allow opening from their own sandbox storage area on the iPad. Some Apps do support the 'Open In' option, but it appears to be completely random as to what Apps will be displayed their, so not particularly reliable.
Brimstone Posted August 21, 2014 Posted August 21, 2014 If it's saving from Apps you are looking for, then we have a solution called AirCatch that you may want to take a look at - Business I.T. Systems Ltd Opening saved documents is a different ballgame. Most apps don't support WebDAV, and only allow opening from their own sandbox storage area on the iPad. Some Apps do support the 'Open In' option, but it appears to be completely random as to what Apps will be displayed their, so not particularly reliable. Oh please.... do some reading before you post If the "Open In" function was completely random and only supported by a few apps how do propose attaching the file to an email from the iPad using your solution? How do you propose to read or save the attachment back to the iPad if a project needs more work? Whilst there is a limit on the number of apps you can actually see to "open in" using the Mail App on the iPad this is not the same when using Foldr, there are at least 1500 Apps that now use the "Open In' function to move content between apps Generally speaking all solutions require you to copy the saved document back to the iPad, unless you want to use a remote session on the iPad which just overcomplicates what should be an easy task...
BITS_BryanS Posted August 21, 2014 Posted August 21, 2014 The "Open In" function will display up to 10 supported apps, and there is no way to control which apps will appear in this list, which does make this a somewhat random process. There are numerous threads across the web complaining about this. Our solution uses the 'Send To / Share To" type option, which is present in most apps. For many users a 'Save Only' solution is fine. They are creating videos / photos / cartoons / stories etc on the iPad, and they just need to save them to a server for later viewing / reference. If you are looking to re-open files on the iPad for continued editing them something like Foldr or WebDAV will be a more suitable solution, but in our experience that is not what everyone wants or needs.
STK91 Posted September 12, 2014 Posted September 12, 2014 Hi, We have been using Foldr for 2 years now with over 500 iPads and it has worked really well. Support is also very good.
Brimstone Posted September 12, 2014 Posted September 12, 2014 Roughly what is the cost of Foldr? Licence costs are dictated by the size of your school roll, have a look at the link below (I do not work for Minnow) Foldr - Free Your Files | Where to buy
Edu-IT Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 Anyone here know how to get Garageband to save to Foldr?
Brimstone Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 Anyone here know how to get Garageband to save to Foldr? Create the song, then use "open in" to send this to Foldr, once logged in you then upload it?
hallb15 Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 Licence costs are dictated by the size of your school roll, have a look at the link below (I do not work for Minnow) Foldr - Free Your Files | Where to buy Does anyone have any pricing information they could share? The link above doesn't work anymore. I've requested a free trial this morning but am waiting to hear back from them... (Yes I am impatient, but I've got stuff to do you know!)
Alis_Klar Posted April 25, 2015 Posted April 25, 2015 Has anyone got any real world workflows for opening from and saving to foldr? I have already bought foldr (and it is a great solution but is still hampered by Apples model) for our new iPad trolley but it is not simple to carry on working on a pages file I had previously saved from pages to our windows network without creating multiple versions in iCloud for example. Also workflows for iOS Word and Excel are IMO too confusing. Also without a O365 subscription Word and Excel will open any files from your network in read only mode and here you are battling not to save it on onedrive I am considering using foldr is shared mode mainly for opening resources from network and then using AirCatch to save back to network. Still not good for large ongoing project files but arguably iPads in the class are not a good fit for this. I can see scenarios where a lesson plan goes across 2 sessions so kids will have to pick up from where they left off in a file. Perhaps the answer is to make sure the iPad goes out to the same kid in session 2 and just save locally rather than using the network like a windows machine to save everything at the end of every lesson
Alis_Klar Posted April 25, 2015 Posted April 25, 2015 Even the new document provider extensions (which allows 3rd party apps like foldr to become document providers) in ios 8 are not a panacea as they require iCloud Drive to be enabled so does not stop data leakage out of your network. Although Apple keep this data secure I'm sure. http://m.imore.com/ios-8-document-provider-extensions-explained http://www.macstories.net/reviews/ios-8-document-providers-and-dropbox/ https://freeyourfiles.co.uk/blog/2015/02/04/ios-document-providers-explained/
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