Ready...steady...GO! - Who's ready for Monday?

[Dos_Box]

Well, once more the summer holidays have come to an end and for the vast majority, Monday will be D-Day on your networks.

This is where all your hard work over the summer gets to meet the 'enemy' and, all being well, will prevail.

Are you ready? Do you still have work to complete? Are you apprehensive?

Let us all know here so we can issue some 'Yay's' and sympathy to those who need them.

[localzuk]

Ready? No. Not by a long shot. Being ill saw to that! Stressed out of my head right now.

[jthompson]

I have a nicely maintained wiki page detailing all of the various jobs that need doing ready for each September, and how to do them. Unfortunately, quite a few of them can't be started until after the start of the first day of term, since they rely on synchronisations with SIMS. Add to that the fact that sixth form enrollments seem quite 'fluid' for the first couple of weeks of term, so keeping on top of student accounts is not just a case of August preparation.

[Dos_Box]

Ready? No. Not by a long shot. Being ill saw to that! Stressed out of my head right now.

 

Oh dear, fingers crossed you'll get there in time

[southhamster]

2 new touchscreeens being installed Monday - (non pupil day!), new starters and a new trolley of Learnpads to deploy (easy)

Returned laptops to gather up, fix and redeploy (hard). About a million windows updates to deploy too.

Even though I know it will be ok, I can never sleep the night before the start of a new term.

[3s-gtech]

I planned to have Windows 10 deployed across 95% of PCs by the end of Summer. I'm on about 60% (I didn't account for actually having about half of the Summer off on holiday). I've done the most important areas and the teacher PCs, just got the laptop suites and departments to do. Only another 400 or so! Not stressed in any way - 7, 8.1 and 10 will sit alongside each other just fine for now.

[Sylv3r]

We are pretty much done which is quite remarkable considering how much of a building site the school has been these 6 weeks - thats what a million pound bid for a new heating system does. The place is still thick with dust and i've been round the school and plugged everything back in for the third time ! All being well, it will be quiet on Monday when the staff all turn in. Due to the building work, we told staff not to come in so it has been relatively quiet which is the only saving grace !

[hardtailstar]

We are already back...

[AJWhite1970]

All the infrastructure work is done, the new building is finished and the pc upgrades are finished.

 

Not done are three projector changes, two art classrooms (builders running late) and one room change for the exams officer (plaster just setting on the walls as I type)

 

All in all, had worse summers

[cpjitservices]

I have a nicely maintained wiki page detailing all of the various jobs that need doing ready for each September, and how to do them. Unfortunately, quite a few of them can't be started until after the start of the first day of term, since they rely on synchronisations with SIMS. Add to that the fact that sixth form enrollments seem quite 'fluid' for the first couple of weeks of term, so keeping on top of student accounts is not just a case of August preparation.

 

We use MediaWiki for our internal Documentation - I shall do a video on my YouTube to show you. It really is great!

[Rob_D]

Still waiting for the new servers we were going to install this summer. But at least everything should work fine.

[caffrey]

I was supposed to be off all week but I've been in Wednesday and today finishing off (Some contractors were late) - don't feel ready at all

[Jamman960]

Got all the physical stuff 99% done but still need to sort out pupil accounts on our various cloud apps etc have 2 inset days so should be ok

[BKGarry]

People ignoring the 6P rule and had two days of nightmares with staff development days and a whole bunch of stuff not done and then a couple of very bad email conversations really pushed me over the edge. But it is now Friday night. I have had a beer or 3 and chilling out as much as possible awaiting Mondays start with the students.

[forkies]

Have done 80 hour weeks, still not 100% ready. Staff back today so lost time and more jobs added to the list. In over the weekend to finish off connecting buildings, checking wifi up and ICT suites which have been moved or refurbished need uplinks configuring.

Builders are finishing stage 2 of our expansion this weekend too so hopefully I can get in there on Sunday to finalise networking.

 

Dreading Monday and finding out which computers and phones aren't working as had 4 cabinets relocated and cabling rerun by contractors as part of electrical works.

[CHU]

Fantastic productive summer here, minor snag list to work through, but on the whole our two man team has smashed it.

 

New hosts and SAN installed, one IT suite hardware refreshed, 250 PC’s blown out, BIOS updates, security tagged, new power leads and disinfected (100 to go), new lapsafe setup and deployed, 90 PC moves, 5 projectors replaced, all switch firmware updated, new staff and student accounts manually created (well custom script), staff ID cards produced and all cables velcroed and tidied just in time for the PAT testers to arrive on the 29th August. [emoji36]

 

All in all gone very well, big improvement in last summer when I broke my ankle in the last week of term!

 

Craig

[Ephelyon]

This was my work on Friday (yesterday):

 

* Verified that all phones are in place and correctly configured;

* Updated all phone extensions with the correct name for where they are;

* Edited the options on the main menu when externals call so that calls to Finance actually go to Finance;

* Changed the Reception ring group to a hunt group (to ring the next extension if the former doesn't answer, instead of all at once);

* Replaced two workstations in Reception and Computing as the ones supplied were dead-on-arrival;

* Created and configured 105 new student accounts and generated a nice PDF with all the usernames and passwords;

* Tested the Lecture Hall audio/visual installation and made it ready for the Principal to kick off the staff training at 8:30am on Monday;

* Imaged up 8 staff laptops for the new starters;

* Imaged up 12 out of 32 student laptops in the new laptop trolley, more to follow next week (last summer thing to do).

 

This summer was the first in 30 years where I didn't get any sort of break. Our new building was being finalised and handed over, so there were all the new phones that needed doing, plus the CCTV, access control, BMS and cashless catering. Then a further 76 desktops and their monitors to asset tag and image up once they'd been fitted by the installers. I won't say who the installers were, but let's just say I'm not sure if we're going to be paying that invoice. The amount of cages I had to open up to plug the keyboard in properly, or the power supply, or remove the blanking plates that had been left in so the power button wasn't actually accessible!

 

So it's safe to say I'm almost looking forward to the students returning next Thursday - things ought to be almost back to normal by then!!!

Edited September 2, 2017 by Ephelyon

[davethetekkie]

The only problem with taking the last week of the holidays as annual leave is... I don't actually know! I'm personally feeling recharged and raring to go but all too aware that I'm going in as part of a 2-man team for the time being (compared with 4 this time last year) with a new head (oh, and we're also covering the creative tech for the first week back)!

 

This... is going to be interesting.

[MrFrostmaul]

Monday and Tuesday inset days and roll-out of iPads to staff + got company in to finish wireless cabling points in two buildings, and for me to configure the AP's. Then on Wednesday Year 7 1:1 iPad rollout. + new photography classroom which they still painting today.. Going to be a 'fun' week..

[XiJ]

Had an e-mail today from a primary that's had a complete Refurb + new building and in effect a new network cabled up. I'd powered down severs and stored them. On Friday the network wasn't complete. They have planned an ICT training day on Monday. Luckily I managed to enable. My professional gene before writing the first thing that came into my head / mouth. They've since cancelled the training [emoji23]

[MartinRouterKing]

Still got 35 iPads to build and get out! Oh and I still have 185 computers to rename and join to the domain. Rebuilt all servers during the holiday and decided Friday I will deploy a new windows 10 image so everything is fresh.

[newpersn]

Staff back tomorrow so it will be last min requests.

 

Trying to get 2 smart E70 working (see my other topic)

 

Need to update 32 iPads.

 

Nothing major left to do now. (Famous last words)

[sparkeh]

Term started last week for us

 

Couldn't do majority of usual summer work as most of the site was closed for asbestos removal. Teacher days were chaos and still way behind but it'll be done when it's done.

[forkies]

Term started last week for us

 

Couldn't do majority of usual summer work as most of the site was closed for asbestos removal. Teacher days were chaos and still way behind but it'll be done when it's done.

 

My new favourite phrase "it will be done when it is done".

 

Finally finalised all network issues today, bar one ICT suite that has he fibre cores the wrong way round inside the panel, hopefully engineers will be back to correct next week but running on cat6 temp link for the moment.

Also had to redo some work the intruder engineer had done as he hadn't run new cables but joined 30cm to a cut cable. Forgetting it ran two detectors.

Back in early tomorrow to do snagging meeting and handover from one of the last projects we have had running over summer.

[rickjames]

Spent the last two days setting up the main space for enrolment. Thankfully gone OK but I expect something to go belly up come tomorrow...