Salamander AD - views on configuration

[howartp]

Hi,

 

We're looking at Salamander AD and I've been corresponding with Richard (@RPWillis) and he's giving me a ring today.

 

I know the product is good from all the glowing reports from users on here, including ideas of what they use it for.

 

What I can't see because it's not yet available - and I think Richard is going to do some work on this - is screenshots or diagrams of what configuration is available. Not just "we can import all your SIMS people into AD" but examples of what fields/combinations/filters can be applied to this or similar imports (GAFE, Exchange), for example.

 

Does anyone have some screenshots of their config that they could PM me, obviously anonymised and without revealing any of Salamanders corporate property to the whole world, so I can get a feel for that side of it? Or even just talk me through particularly complex examples you've got that Salamander has been able to deal with?

 

Peter

Edited January 28, 2016 by howartp

[Steve21]

What sort of thing did you have in mind?

 

For example, some of ours are -

 

Adding student and staff timetables to O365 - Showing Room/Subject - No reminders set (but can do)

Adding licenses for o365 - So staff get faculty, students get student with skype etc disabled automatically.

Home Drives - Created in the right server, permissions set directly on them as custom (e.g. modify only for us)

ProxyAddresses for O365 automatically set

Photos synced to AD and automatically resized (dependant on what mail you use they need different sizes to sync across)

 

Not exactly "complex" overall but not sure what you call complex

 

Steve

[howartp]

Hi Steve,

 

For example (and I know this one can be done because Richard confirmed it in the email) our student usernames are their admission no, our staff usernames are their Initial.Surname UNLESS the UDF 'AD Username' is filled in, in which case use that, and our parents in a completely different OU are Forename.Surname up to 20 characters UNLESS the UDF is filled in.

 

I haven't asked if Salamander can email me if a duplicate username already exists (eg parents called Jane Smith) in which case I need to go into SIMS and add the custom username. Though thinking as I type, I suspect SIMS write-back could probably auto increment this for me and write it back....

 

Can Salamander process mid-year students or staff before their academic/employment start date, so their accounts are ready when they start? (Not thinking of pre-admissions/new intakes). Currently our staff mailboxes are done via CSV/powershell - but this doesn't happen until their start date, so they can't use email until the following day.

 

Peter

[clareq]

Salamander is very flexible, and they have always done whatever we have asked of them - I think they start from a base set of powershell files, and customise them to fit with whatever you want.

[Steve21]

So working down -

 

Staff/Students have their own "flows" so each can process a seperate command. So yep all that first one can be done.

 

We have it set so that if there's duplicates it adds something to the end e.g. -1 -2 -3 so no reason I can see you couldn't set that as an email warning instead. (We have "all" new creations email us overnight so we know when any are made, so it'd show the username in that too which would show its duplicate)

 

We have all students and staff created in advance of when they're in SIMs as long as they're admitted or have a contract date etc. We used to have this set to a 2 week thing, but now just have it as soon as they're in SIMs, only thing that wont' work is things like calendars etc as they wouldn't be assigned to lessons yet.

 

Email accounts are automatically created (at least for us/365) as the students are licensed as part of the salamander process, so on day 1 they're good to go

 

Hope that helps,

Steve

[RLR]

We have staff and students created with Salamander. Staff are created from SIMs based on their Staff code which are their initials. As long as the informaiton is in SIMS, it will create them. It use to create their accounts based on their start date but this was a bit late so we got them to change it.

 

Students are created using their admission number. The only issue we have with this is the admission number is only populated when the student is admitted. It is possible to admit students early but it apparently messes up census data if that student doesn't actually turn up after they've been admitted. So we usually have to wait for the day after they start to give the student their login details.

 

Salamander's support is very good. They always email back and get things done within a day or two.

[howartp]

Thanks both.

 

Sorry I missed your replies coming in for some reason.

 

Peter

[ITBadger]

I've not made a (reasonable)request of them yet which they haven't been able to implement. Support response times are excellent too. Normally the request is sorted within the hour.