Kent BSF Wave 3: 11 schools and Northgate

[Deaks]

Interesting development yesterday.

 

Dane Court has been taken out of the wave and they are arranging a seperate Dane Court BSF contract so we become basically wave 3a. They are still planning to use the managed service as provdided by the LEP but finanical close is likely to be later than other wave 3 schools. This is all down to the cost of the refurb here. Wether or not Northgate will tupe us before they reach financial close is unknown.

[Deaks]

Just had official notification of the Northgate School Technician Open Day running on the 11th & 12th next week. It's running at the Thanet Skills Studio, Westwood Industrial Estate, Margate.

 

EDIT: Have this additional information:

 

I have attached the original information. The programme for the day in the information is what we will be sticking to. There will be experts on different areas of the BSF managed service there to demo and discuss these areas, and we hope that you will be able to find out more about all of it and focus on any areas that particularly interest you or which will particularly affect your school.

 

Have attached the file that was sent.

Untitled.txt

Edited June 4, 2008 by Deaks

[Deaks]

Over the last two days myself and the two other techies here have been to the Northgate School Technicians Open Day, and members of our Leadership Team have a similar event today.

 

It was held at a "skills centre" on a nearby trading park, the sort of place that kids go to learn catering, car mechanics etc..., with bookable rooms for conferences. Northgate were there en-masse with almost as many staff as there were delegates. Around the room there were various displays including Scantek engineering teaching products, Mobotix CCTV systems, Cisco IP phones, some whiteboards and a whole range or portable devices.

 

There was no real structure to the day, instead we were all encouraged just to mingle, look at the kit and systems on display and chat to the Northgate staff. They were all introduced to us and they were there to cover different things. I spent a lot of time chatting to the woman from the helpdesk side of things, plus the guy who will be involved in managing the installations over the next few months.

 

Firm information was thin on the ground, partly becuase stuff is still being developed or decided, and partly because each school will have a say on how things work for them. Chatting to the woman from the helpdesk it was clear that their focus will be that the first support contact for teching staff will be to email the central helpdesk. They acknowleged that staff will always phone internal staff, or pop into the office, and that would be ok, but they would engage the teaching staff and encourage them to log everything centrally. This was mainly because they would try and do as much as possible remotely using Netsupport.

 

There was lots of talk of support and training for techies and teaching staff, and assurances that they would be there to back us up and if we hit any problems all we had to do was escalate it. It got a little vague when we got to the practicalities of how we receive instructions. We were told we'd receive instructions and jobs on the PDAs we'd be given, also that if we did pick up jobs informally from staff that we would have to phone them in. She seemed reluctant to show us the call management system, almost as if we would never use it as we'd simply receive instructions or do everything over the phone.

 

A couple of us spoke to a guy about the network management system, and while he couldn't show it to us he said we'd have no trouble with it and would be able to do everything we expect to be able to do like passwords, access user areas, change permissions etc.. We would be the only ones in the school with "admin" access to the network.

 

There was a demo of both their MLE N-Able and VLE Fronter(sp?) and explanations of how they work with Sims etc... Seen one, seen them all on that so I zoned out a bit I must admit. Both of these are hosted on off-site servers, while the main network will be local servers.

 

Some other stuff that was said, in no particular order. Their desktop OS will be Vista, Office version will be 2007. One of our techies who went the previous day said they were talking about shift-work with support on-site from 7am to 7pm, but I didn't hear that. Somthing else said on the previous day was that they intended to install just one large copier/printer in each department, not printers in each class. Hmmmmmm......

 

The two jobs that will be advertised later this month will be a "Team Leader" for all the techies from the 11 schools, plus the project-management post. They do want to fill these posts from existing staff, and generally made a big thing of how valuable our local, and school-specific, knowledge was to them.

 

I'll add more if I remember anything else, and feel free to ask questions as it might jog my memory. As I've said previously, I like what I'm seeing of the Northgate people, but am still very nervous about how well things will actually work once it's all in place.

 

Deaks.

[CyberNerd]

 

The two jobs that will be advertised later this month will be a "Team Leader" for all the techies from the 11 schools, plus the project-management post. They do want to fill these posts from existing staff, and generally made a big thing of how valuable our local, and school-specific, knowledge was to them.

Deaks.

 

I'm guessing the Team Leader post is a Senior Tech Job and the project management could be handled by an existing Network Manager. So how many are set to loose their jobs ?

[Grommit]

The two jobs that will be advertised later this month will be a "Team Leader" for all the techies from the 11 schools, plus the project-management post. They do want to fill these posts from existing staff, and generally made a big thing of how valuable our local, and school-specific, knowledge was to them..

 

Of course they would.. because without you they wouldn't even know where to begin... but once they have sucked you dry of Information ?

 

 

They acknowleged that staff will always phone internal staff, or pop into the office, and that would be ok, but they would engage the teaching staff and encourage them to log everything centrally. This was mainly because they would try and do as much as possible remotely using Netsupport.

 

How are they going to plug in a printer or Calibrate a whiteboard with Netsupport ?

 

There was a demo of both their MLE N-Able and VLE Fronter(sp?) and explanations of how they work with Sims etc... Seen one, seen them all on that so I zoned out a bit I must admit. Both of these are hosted on off-site servers, while the main network will be local servers.

 

The VLE is being rolled out accross London by Fronter hosted on Fronter Servers in Norway... Northgate has nothing to do with it... so if they are showing it off then they are reaping accolades for something that has nothing to do with them...

Edited June 13, 2008 by Grommit

[Deaks]

They did say that Fronter was a bought-in product. However, unlike elsewhere Northgate are hosting it on their own servers and involved in the development as there was a guy from Fronter there.

[Deaks]

I'm guessing the Team Leader post is a Senior Tech Job and the project management could be handled by an existing Network Manager. So how many are set to loose their jobs ?

 

Just the oposite I think. The team leader job seemed to be staff management etc..., while the project-management post covers the installations accross all 11 schools.

 

There has been no talk of job loses in school, and even talk of recruiting more techies. I think Kent have agreed a minimum on-site number of staff.

[Diello]

"A couple of us spoke to a guy about the network management system, and while he couldn't show it to us he said we'd have no trouble with it and would be able to do everything we expect to be able to do like passwords, access user areas, change permissions etc.. We would be the only ones in the school with "admin" access to the network."

 

That's the bit that interests me... access to what extent... and how much say do those that know what's needed within the school get to put those measures into place without going through levels of red-tape...

 

---

 

Did they mention salaries for those positions?

[beeswax]

Of course they would.. because without you they wouldn't even know where to begin... but once they have sucked you dry of Information ?

 

 

 

 

How are they going to plug in a printer or Calibrate a whiteboard with Netsupport ?

 

 

 

The VLE is being rolled out accross London by Fronter hosted on Fronter Servers in Norway... Northgate has nothing to do with it... so if they are showing it off then they are reaping accolades for something that has nothing to do with them...

 

Have to reinforce what Deaks said about Fronter being hosted in this country rather than Norway. That's what I was told by a couple of chaps from Northgate a few months back.

[Grommit]

They did say that Fronter was a bought-in product. However, unlike elsewhere Northgate are hosting it on their own servers and involved in the development as there was a guy from Fronter there.

 

I don't understand why this is as every single London Borough is having Fronter hosted on Fronter servers...

[GrumbleDook]

When Fronter put in bid for LGfL they only sited their servers in their own data centre. LGfL were happy with this.

 

Some other LAs and RBCs when meeting with Fronter were not happy about this (and Fronter subsequently did nt get shortlisted or lost bids) so it appears that for BSF there is enough leverage to force Fronter to change.

 

Some might argue that LGfL were not pushy enough, and did not negotiate it to host it on the LGfL servers ... but it may be that Fronter have realised they have to compromise.

[Grommit]

When Fronter put in bid for LGfL they only sited their servers in their own data centre. LGfL were happy with this.

 

Some other LAs and RBCs when meeting with Fronter were not happy about this (and Fronter subsequently did nt get shortlisted or lost bids) so it appears that for BSF there is enough leverage to force Fronter to change.

 

Some might argue that LGfL were not pushy enough, and did not negotiate it to host it on the LGfL servers ... but it may be that Fronter have realised they have to compromise.

 

The LGFL were going to host fronter on servers in London and ring fence London... but something happened and this has seemed to have been scrapped..

[contink]

The LGFL were going to host fronter on servers in London and ring fence London... but something happened and this has seemed to have been scrapped..

 

It may well have been the slew of London data center issues that took place over the last year.. In truth, having a datacenter in a different country is not such a bad thing. If Fronter have their own techs, know their stuff and have every reason to pull bad components and software offline and fix them then it'd seem a bit odd to want to have it local.

 

Even the timezones work in our favour because they're not too far ahead, are going to spot a problem there before we even get up and have had more than a couple of cups of coffee in their system so they're on the ball before us

 

IIRC there's a data pipe from Scotland to that area of the world so it's relatively local and not going to suffer greatly from any bottlenecks.. I'd need to check further to be sure but I'm fairly confident that's the case.

 

Can't see any major issues in truth, unless of course the real issue is that each county has picked a POS RBL provider with nothing like the proper spec internet provision and as a result anything outside the LEA WAN crawls like a dead lizzard.

Edited June 15, 2008 by contink

[GrumbleDook]

The LGFL were going to host fronter on servers in London and ring fence London... but something happened and this has seemed to have been scrapped..

 

Hosting someone else's servers in your data centre for a service you are buying from them has certain contractual obligations. SLAs are just the tip of the iceberg. It may be that LGfL decided the costs or contractual obligations that were needed to get Fronter to host within LGfL were not worth it. From comments I had heard Fronter do not like doing it that way and tend to put some very strict things into the contract ... that would preclude most RBCs / LAs from even considering and I was under the impression that LGfL had ruled that out at bidding stage. I am surprised to hear differently. Who told you it was going to be hosted with LGfL?

[Deaks]

Some interesting documents came out yesterday.

 

Two job descriptions for the posts being advertised. These and any future posts will be offered to existing staff first, before being advertised more widely.

 

edit: I received some good advice and have removed the documents until I clarify if I'm allowed to post them into the public domain.

Edited June 24, 2008 by Deaks

[Diello]

Make for an interesting read...

[SeanVin]

Chatting to the woman from the helpdesk it was clear that their focus will be that the first support contact for teching staff will be to email the central helpdesk. They acknowleged that staff will always phone internal staff, or pop into the office, and that would be ok, but they would engage the teaching staff and encourage them to log everything centrally.

 

Having to report all faults by email would be very unpopular with a lot of our teaching staff, and is simply not practical if there is a problem in a lesson. We get a lot of 'Oh by the way...." type problems. Asking staff to go and email it would not go down well.

 

Many simple jobs like replacing mice, plugging cables back in and switching stuff on (or off and on again) will simply not be recorded, to do so could take longer than the actual fix. Next thing that will happen is the number of technicians will be cut back because of the low number of calls actually logged!

[Diello]

Having to report all faults by email would be very unpopular with a lot of our teaching staff, and is simply not practical if there is a problem in a lesson. We get a lot of 'Oh by the way...." type problems. Asking staff to go and email it would not go down well.

 

Many simple jobs like replacing mice, plugging cables back in and switching stuff on (or off and on again) will simply not be recorded, to do so could take longer than the actual fix. Next thing that will happen is the number of technicians will be cut back because of the low number of calls actually logged!

 

That's exactly what is going to happen though, and it's not going to matter a jot of teachers like it or not, BSF has not been designed with those "on the ground" in mind.

[broc]

Many simple jobs like replacing mice, plugging cables back in and switching stuff on (or off and on again) will simply not be recorded, to do so could take longer than the actual fix. Next thing that will happen is the number of technicians will be cut back because of the low number of calls actually logged!

 

If they want to stay in a job, the technicians will have to either a) reject 'ad hoc' requests for assistance and insist the calls are logged first or b) retrospectively log the calls themselves after dealing with the problem.

 

You can be pretty sure the managed service provider will be measuring & monitoring call levels, response times etc as these will inevitably form part of the contractual agreements and service levels. You may even find the technicians are given targets that become part of their performance management reviews, this is often how it works in private industry.

 

Lots of logged quick fixes will look good in the measurements..... a bit like the police boosting their crime figures by pursuing motorists.... point a radar gun at a motorist speeding, give him a ticket & there you have it.... crime committed, detected, solved, one for the statistics and a lot easier & less dangerous than catching muggers & burglars

[Grommit]

Some interesting documents came out yesterday.

 

Two job descriptions for the posts being advertised. These and any future posts will be offered to existing staff first, before being advertised more widely.

 

edit: I received some good advice and have removed the documents until I clarify if I'm allowed to post them into the public domain.

 

 

...................

Edited June 25, 2008 by Grommit

[SeanVin]

If they want to stay in a job, the technicians will have to either a) reject 'ad hoc' requests for assistance and insist the calls are logged first or b) retrospectively log the calls themselves after dealing with the problem.

 

You can be pretty sure the managed service provider will be measuring & monitoring call levels, response times etc as these will inevitably form part of the contractual agreements and service levels. You may even find the technicians are given targets that become part of their performance management reviews, this is often how it works in private industry.

 

Lots of logged quick fixes will look good in the measurements..... a bit like the police boosting their crime figures by pursuing motorists.... point a radar gun at a motorist speeding, give him a ticket & there you have it.... crime committed, detected, solved, one for the statistics and a lot easier & less dangerous than catching muggers & burglars

 

You are absolutely correct. We will have to learn to live with it. Or move on into private industry, local government, NHS, etc and learn to live with it there instead

[Deaks]

Hi all, Northgate are doing the rounds of the Kent schools this week having 1:1's with all of us tuping in September. Just had my meeting. The focus was entirely the transfer of employment so did not cover the systems we'll be using, network or anything like that.

 

Most of the meeting was a detailed comparison of their and KCCs T&C. Each significant element was listed with details of the respective T&Cs and how they compared. If KCCs were better they would be honored, if Northgate's were better we would be invited to move over to them. Where things didn't quite marry up, or Northgate were unable to match the T&C there was a good explanation of the issues.

 

This was a discussion rather than "this is what we intent to do" and I've got to say that overall the ammended T&Cs would be better in almost every way, and the changes that were not were very minor in deed. There was also a clear undertaking that our Tupe rights were still firmly in place and bowing to these changes did not leave the door open for other changes in future.

 

I would post the details as they left us some documents but I've aksed the question of what I can and can't share on an open forum and they've taken it away for clarification.

 

As I've said previously, whatever you think of BSF the actual process of moving over to the managed service is being handled sympathetically and professionally buy everyone I've dealt with from Northgate so far.

[Diello]

It certainly seems that Northgate is the lesser of the evils, which is good news indeed!

[Deaks]

Three weeks and counting!

 

Current TUPE date is October 1st so just a little while to go. We've got another set of 1:1s next week to deal with the final part of the process, and possible to meet the new team leader recruited from the existing support staff. My manager went for it but didn't get it.

[linuxgirlie]

How long has the whole process taken? I notice you posted in Jan 2008 was that the beginning or were you already part the way though? We are in the early stages so I am finding the whole thing a bit fuzzy at the moment, the only thing I know is that we are currently working on our vision statement.