kmount Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Hi, I would politely scream at them as waiting until April 1st is just in my opinion shocking and the person who said that should be reprimanded. - We've had accounts made and passwords reset with no problem since the original switchover date. As for a firewall issue, might aswell wait until lunchtime and call back. - If they still say its a problem which is going to take longer, I'd suggest asking they give you the master call reference for the larger issue so to be able to check that in talk2synetrix (I can if you like...). I'm sure they are very busy but I have had several discussions with different people and the general consensus is that the staff are generally understanding but some of them either don't have the necessary authority/credentials or training to deal with a platform such as EMBC.
kmount Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 I can't get into any of the portal pages because the webview password we did have is not working and if I request a new password they want to email it which is why I need the password in the first place, because we cannot email. Monty, I just tried our webview credentials and it logged into talk2synetrix from which you can have a look at your calls ... Welcome to the Synetrix Customer Service Centre
monty Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Email is now working for us and collecting from our POP box so perhaps it'll be working for you too apinnard. Just got to check now if we can access the servers from outside and then we'll be back and working again.
apinnard Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Yep collecting POP3 email from third party providers here too! At bloody last!!
GrumbleDook Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 To help matters I have collated all the settings that we *should* have for NAT, etc and sent this over as an update on our ticket. This included the DNS for the various hostnames matched up to the internal and external IPs, with a summary of services on those hosts. We are still missing access to our mail / FirstClass server, rdp access and access to a few other things. Going out onto the big wide world, we have just lost IM and access to 3rd party mail. They are ploughing through the tickets ... and I am getting through first time every time now.
vikpaw Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 I dont seem to be having anywhere near as many problems as some of you guys, though we don't have a particularly complicated setup. I can access the talk2synetrix site to see logged calls, webfiltering works so i can alter local filtering and generally the webmail and outlook pop settings appear okay too. For those that are interested here is an update of my experiences and little niggles over the past couple of days.... Calls that i've logged by phone haven't all appeared on the talk2synetrix site. I logged a call requesting some password changes and pursuing an account that didn't migrate. After a series of updates to the call from Synetrix staff still nothing was done and it's been 5 working days now. The call i logged yesterday asking about access to webfiltering was left open with no update for several hours. When i queried it i was told that it should never have been logged as a call because that facility is not available yet. [but it is available as per grumbledook's post!] As the guy wanted to close the call i refused as i want to see how long it takes them to sort it out. I spoke to one guy who said that there are 15 of them answering the phones and they took over 700 calls yesterday. Most of which they couldn't sort just had to log and pass on. They also clearly weren't given any guidance on how to resolve simple problems. The old website now autoforwards to the new portal website which is fine if you want to go to the new portal but if you want to log into the old system to access old emails and contacts then like us you're buggered! I wouldn't mind but for the fact that we still have users that haven't migrated or where they have all the folders haven't come across yet. It's not all bad news though. On the bright side, our outlook settings all seem to be fine. We get the odd error on receiving but that seems to go after a while. For those that are not aware, some emails were still going to the old accounts for a while and so in outlook instead of changing the pop settings i added the new settings as a separate account. This worked fine for a day or two but i've had to modify it again: It may be worth a try for anyone missing emails to use mp.embc.org.uk for pop and the new smtp.embc.uk.com for smtp, set it to use authentication for smtp - same settings as for pop and use secured port 995 pop. lastly change the username to be the alias ( i used to use the full email address.) So basically duplicate the guideline pop settings but change the pop server to be the old one. I don't know why it worked but it allowed us to access some "lost" emails. I'm also taking great pleasure in just telling students that if they've forgotten their email passwords i can't do anything until April Fool's Day.
GrumbleDook Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Yes ... chatting with various folks I have been officially labelled as 'bloody awkward'. Admittedly I started it by describing myself that way but it has stuck. The other description of those of us with setups that differ from the SNB (some differing in serious extremes) would be 'independently minded'. We had no issues at all the previous weekend as we had nothing to migrate ... it has hit us hard this weekend though. One last thing ... there are a variety of issues with email. When we are talking on here and talking to Synetrix (or even Capita .ICT) can we be clear wheter we are talking about in house email servers using the relay, the synetrix provided exchange system or the northants-ecl emails that tend to be accesses via machines on the admin (172.) networks within schools. This has led to some confusion for some schools (mainly primaries without on site staff).
vikpaw Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 I have a cunning plan............... and it doesn't involve turnips! Has anyone thought of contacting the Synetrix helpdesk and getting them all to join eduGeek. They might learn a thing or two from us and be better placed to advise other people that call up. )
GrumbleDook Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 They already are. They are out there ... watching you ... Why do you think that this forum is not blocked within EMBC? We just have to get other LAs / RBCs to stop blocking it now.
vikpaw Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Well they need to blummin well read the posts!!! How can i be told that my call should never have been logged (id:132409) when the answer is here in plain sight. admittedly, i too made the mistake of not reading the forum first, but i'm human, they are simple bots that answer the phone and follow flowcharts. it's easy to reprogram them to check here before doing anything. lol.
apinnard Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Still no webby though Alex:( Yep still no website. I have been told that affiniti are dealing with it, but they wont elaborate.
GrumbleDook Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Translate as "We have moved up as far as we can within our own support teams, but now we have to involve our sub-contractors, in particular Affinitti".
GrumbleDook Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 OK folks ... The collection of information about settings was indeed found to be very useful. If you can put together a document containing your school name, your site ID, your head's name, your name and contact details, any existing call ref numbers and the domain concerned. Then ... add in a table with ... hostname | external IP | internal IP | services running on that host (eg, web, ftp, rdp, pop3, etc) If you have any other information that you have (eg, specific IPs that were set as 'power users') then please include that too. Then send it over to tonysheppard @ mac.com and I will send it in to the relevant people. I am not promising that it will definitely get it done any quicker but it will help move things along.
techyphil Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Everytime I contact synetrix I get my called logged and thats it. When I do get a call back, theres a 1/4 chance it might be a useful answer. Today I asked if there was a facility allowing our school to alter our filtering levels or if we can block or unblock websites. The guy wasnt sure at all and simply said "urm, not sure but i think so in the future." Also the distribution lists is still a bit of a pain. Ive asked several times how our staff list appeared in the global area and where it came from as its out of date. The majority of senior staff have asked for it to be removed or atleast updated so its not totally useless. Again, the guys on the phone said "not sure.. urrr". I've also asked the question 3 times "Is there new forward lookup DNS servers we can use and will the proxy address continue to be the same *proxy.embc.org.uk*" Again, couldnt give me a straight answer. Im a bit reluctant to use the documentation available incase it's not in place yet. Could anybody shed some light and provide yes no answers please? Thank You You'd prolly know GrumbleDook
kmount Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Sounds like you've had a right time calling them! I can hopefully answer some of your questions. 1) Yes, "Local Control of Filtering", or it might be called "Portal Controlled Filtering" now which means you can set up Groups and assign users to said Groups for filtering. IE, our default anonymous users are Group1 which is well restricted, should a member of staff log in, they become Group3 which is less restricted. - We block/allow sites at each Group level as we see fit and it becomes effective immediately. I'm intrigued by the Distribution List question, and can only imagine they are showing the details of all accounts migrated over from the previous Community Gateway / Mirapoint platform and as such, the only way to remove the erroneous accounts is to delete them, which at the moment one can't do without involving Synetrix. The proxy has already been changed (weekend just gone) to proxy.embc.uk.com BUT proxy.embc.org.uk has been spoofed in DNS to point to this new one. - So in reality, the change should be made at your own convenience. Yes, there are new DNS servers, 92.43.65.1 & 2 but again the old EMBC ones are forwarded to these so changing is at your leisure but advised sooner rather than later. I'd go with the documentation, its more reliable than word of mouth. If you're in Northants, there's a good article on our platform that Grumbledook wrote/acquired showing a quick breakdown of the changes needed/advised. HTH.
GrumbleDook Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 (edited) The article in question (actually adapted by Steve at the LDC) is relevant to Northants, but is based on the full info from the main EMBC tecbhical library that has been mentioned previously. To summarise everything that has gone on ... First there was god... And he looked upon the earth and decided to get through the boring bits of evolution and just buried a heap of old bones and decided to let us invent dinosaurs. After proving he has a sense of humour (ie the duck-billed platypus) he then introduced us to computers (oh joy, oh rapture) followed by eternal damnation (call centre menu systems). To save our sanity he then put a meat loaf lookalike on earth to help form a community based on sharing and understanding. God also allow the civil service to appear so it wasn't all good. Back to EMBC though... 1 - migration has happened! The connection to fujitsu is no more and the services in the technical docs are there. 2 - in spite of best efforts to clean up information there is still some legacy dross around when it comes to user accounts. This will need tidying up by schools at a later date. 3 - the bit that is now missing is the collective admin tool that replaces webview. This is coming but not available yet. Some services are individually available if you have your old webview account details, such as EMF control for mail filters, netsweeper control (I will check on that tomorrow to see if there are any issues) and talk2synetrix for call logging and checking incidents. For northants members there will be a meeting at the end of April for training on this and LP+ tools too, but user guides will be available beforehand. You will get them as soon as we can make them available. For other info and advice about specific customer service issues please pm me. Off to bed as it has been a long day and I have just found out I have to get a replacement car or fork out to have the cylinder head gasket repaired on a car not worth £500. Edited March 27, 2008 by GrumbleDook
apinnard Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 Woohaaaa website now working. Just gotta get the RDP server working although this is in hand aparantely.
vikpaw Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 @techyphil i sympathise with your woes. as for filtering the website you need is EduGeek.net it's been mentioned previously but i'll just reiterate for your benefit. i too was told "um, ah, well you can't do that yet." however you can using the above website. if you didn't use it prior to migration then you'll need a username and password. our username is the site id e.g. nhs041 . if you log a call asking for the password for your site you may get a better response as it's something specific for them to go and do.
kmount Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 webfiltering.embc.uk.com is the real URL which is what vik posted but the new link representation on this site changes it for a title. (Annoying imo).
vikpaw Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 webfiltering.embc.uk.com is the real URL which is what vik posted but the new link representation on this site changes it for a title. (Annoying imo). v.annoying i agree, at least the link still works, albeit a tad confunding.
kmount Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 I've opened a whinge in the comments/suggestions thread about it.
Zebadee Posted March 28, 2008 Posted March 28, 2008 Please help. Spoken to Synetrix and am awaiting a reply!.... Under the Laptop for Teachers scheme (Northants LEA) the laptops set up by .ict had the home page http://www.embn.net From here, people were able to set up email accounts but since last thursday they have been broken - "outlook is unable to connect to the incoming mail server" pop3 server - pop3.embn.net smtp server - smtp.embn.net Has anyone else had this problem. It's driving me mad! I've tried using the new pop3 embc server, but this doesn't work and i'm now at a loss. Cheers Andy Evans Kingswood Primary School Corby
Kitkatninja Posted March 28, 2008 Posted March 28, 2008 Please help. Spoken to Synetrix and am awaiting a reply!.... Under the Laptop for Teachers scheme (Northants LEA) the laptops set up by .ict had the home page http://www.embn.net From here, people were able to set up email accounts but since last thursday they have been broken - "outlook is unable to connect to the incoming mail server" pop3 server - pop3.embn.net smtp server - smtp.embn.net Has anyone else had this problem. It's driving me mad! I've tried using the new pop3 embc server, but this doesn't work and i'm now at a loss. Cheers Andy Evans Kingswood Primary School Corby The e-mail server addresses have changed to: pop: mail.embc.uk.com smtp: smtp.embc.uk.com See the migration document off embc site's (it's the first one: EMBC Transition to Synetrix v1 5 mh3.doc on page 10 & 11). Would have been nice if they told us about this first. -Ken
Kitkatninja Posted March 28, 2008 Posted March 28, 2008 Has anyone else had this problem. It's driving me mad! I've tried using the new pop3 embc server, but this doesn't work and i'm now at a loss. Sorry mate, didn't read that part of your post, just having a bad day at the moment -ken
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