Software you couldn't do without?

[tinca492]

Sorry to play devil's advocate:

 

Teamviewer? Really?

Visio / Project is okay, I suppose, but only for one user seems a waste of buying a special tool just for that, and more than one user seems too expensive.

Maybe it's just me?

 

Teamviewer? Yes Really! in our environment where we have a distributed user base that work over 3 counties with Laptops, the cost is peanuts compared to time wasted and additional mileage claims, of course I have explored other options for these users who are not particularly IT Gurus but this is the most practical for them to use. Ask yourself which products are used by commercial support companies for remote support and I should think you will find it is primarily Teamviewer or Go To Assist.

 

Visio. I am a one man department. do you think I should spend hours using free tools or MS Draw to attempt to provide properly scaled drawings for office layouts, new installs, network documentation, schematics, flowcharts etc. Start using the product and you will quickly see the benefits.

 

MS Project. Invaluable and time saving, what do you use for project management? excel spreadsheets with manual Gannt Charts, a plain do-list, how do you deal with planning resource availabiity with multiple, sometimes parrallel projects?

 

I of course use powershell, access etc etc, but my time is the most limited resource that I have.

 

Having spent the bulk of my IT career (since 1981) in the commercial sector where every spend is backed by a business case, I can assure you that I do not spend my very limited budget frivorousley. The OP asked what software we find useful, your post does nothing to contribute to that question.

 

Each one of us work in different environments with a similar thread that is the education sector so of course software used will, and should, reflect those environments. Please try not to be too judgemental.

 

Currently sat at my desk planning the IT elements of the proposed new buildings here and updating network documentation whilst deploying images left right and centre using MDT/WDS (Free)

[mavhc]

Teamviewer alternatives: Single Click - UltraVNC VNC OFFICIAL SITE, Remote Access, Support Software, Remote Desktop Control Free Opensource , Chrome Remote Desktop

 

Visio alternatives: yEd, draw.io, LibreOffice Draw

 

MS Project alternative: Download GanttProject

[tinca492]

Teamviewer alternatives: Single Click - UltraVNC VNC OFFICIAL SITE, Remote Access, Support Software, Remote Desktop Control Free Opensource , Chrome Remote Desktop

 

Visio alternatives: yEd, draw.io, LibreOffice Draw

 

MS Project alternative: Download GanttProject

 

I dont deny that there may be free alternatives to the mainstream, but with the low cost of the MS software, to me it is a no brainer in my current role. I would certainly rather use the products that my suppliers, SLT, Contractors are used to when working collaboratively.

 

Anyway OP wanted to know software that we cannot do without and I have, I hope, contributed to that request in my initial post on this thread

 

Dont feel that I have to justify to anyone outside of the organisation that I work for.

 

I am sure that your post will prove very useful to those looking for free alternatives. Please dont misconstrue that comment, I know that in reality there are a lot of Edugeek users would not be able to justify the expense to their masters.

 

I am off for a coffee......

[andyturpie]

Lansweeper. Network Inventory - Asset Management - Help Desk Software | Lansweeper

 

Wouldn't be without it.

 

Do they give good discounts for education do you know?

[Arcolite]

Lansweeper. Network Inventory - Asset Management - Help Desk Software | Lansweeper

 

Wouldn't be without it.

 

How well does the software deployment work?

We currently use a Dell KACE appliance for Inventory, Assets, Software Deployment and Helpdesk.

Lansweeper appears to do all the same, but in some cases better (agentless for a start!) and significantly cheaper.

[RobD]

I love LanSweeper, we often use it on PCs we're about to migrate to our domain after we've bought a company (private sector) so we know how they'll aline with our corporate standards...Deployment works after quite a bit of fiddling but isnt as good and easy as PDQ Deploy (or SCCM I guess).

[sparkeh]

Do they give good discounts for education do you know?

@andyturpie yeah they do, you need to talk to them to get the education pricing though https://www.lansweeper.com/kb/43/Educational-and-non-profit-discounts.html

How well does the software deployment work?

@Arcolite honestly I don't know, we have sccm for that.

[Blue_Cookeh]

How well does the software deployment work?

We currently use a Dell KACE appliance for Inventory, Assets, Software Deployment and Helpdesk.

Lansweeper appears to do all the same, but in some cases better (agentless for a start!) and significantly cheaper.

 

If you're looking into all that (minus Helpdesk) take a look at Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager too. A bit of a beast to setup and get going but it's so good at what it does.

[Arcolite]

If you're looking into all that (minus Helpdesk) take a look at Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager too. A bit of a beast to setup and get going but it's so good at what it does.

 

We've considered SCCM in the past but the configuration overhead always put management off, which is why we went down the KACE route - all in one solution with less configuration.

 

From the looks of things we have a setup key for "System Center 2012 with SP2 - ConfigMgr and EndpointProtection" on MS VLSC, so we're may already have it, just unused.

Edited April 11, 2017 by Arcolite

[Guest MD5T]

We've considered SCCM in the past but the configuration overhead always put management off, which is why we went down the KACE route - all in one solution with less configuration.

 

From the looks of things we have a setup key for "System Center 2012 with SP2 - ConfigMgr and EndpointProtection" on MS VLSC, so we're may already have it, just unused.

 

I actually hate SCCM lol

[NetworkNinja]

Adobe Creative Suite/Cloud. It's used extremely heavily across the school in a variety of subjects - the students are pretty well versed in the tools (the ones they tend to use, not sure how often they use Illustrator!) and some subjects even get penalised for using other tools (e.g. Media get more marks for using InDesign over Publisher, seemingly automatically but I guess it's because it produces a more professional design by default).

We are currently using the CS3 Verison of this software, I have not got a clue how much we paid for it because it was already here when i started. Can i ask what sort of prices i should expect to be paying for the CS6 Version for 700 Devices roughly.