GoTo Training

[David44]

Has anyone used this on a networked PC? People might be more familiar with Goto Meeting and Goto Assist. It all just seems like different branding of a very similar thing, screen sharing. In this case screen sharing for the purpose of training, so someone shares their screen to multiple people. This is done in a browser but it seems that this just triggers a piece of software that is installed locally to launch. This is where the problem lies, when a user goes to a training session they are prompted to download a .exe file (see test session here... https://support.logmeininc.com/gototraining/help/join-a-test-session-g2t060001#Join), obviously this is something we do not allow to happen and even if we did, we then wouldn't allow users to run a .exe file downloaded from the internet.

 

Goto Training do offer an MSI version called 'Goto Opener' which supposedly allows people to join the training session but although that installs fine and launches when the user visits the training URL, Goto Opener itself tries to download and run another .exe file from the users temporary internet files on c:\users\...

 

We can't be in a unique situation here. I expect most schools (and companies) don't allow random .exe files to be downloaded and run by end users (BTW, the .exe seems to be different for each session/user so even white listing a particular file/name would be tricky) and this particular training is provided by Pearson so it's must be quite common within schools. So, has anyone else got this working from within a school network?

Edited February 22, 2018 by David44

[bossman]

@David44

 

We setup a number of accounts specifically for this which we have already used and installed the software for which staff members are allowed access to in a controlled manner...i.e. they have to book these accounts in advance and also they can only be used in our conference rooms, we have found this to work very well and SLT were impressed with the speed in which we sorted the problem and kept the network security to a maximum......

 

Hope this helps

[JATSO]

Has anyone used this on a networked PC? People might be more familiar with Goto Meeting and Goto Assist. It all just seems like different branding of a very similar thing, screen sharing. In this case screen sharing for the purpose of training, so someone shares their screen to multiple people. This is done in a browser but it seems that this just triggers a piece of software that is installed locally to launch. This is where the problem lies, when a user goes to a training session they are prompted to download a .exe file (see test session here... https://support.logmeininc.com/gototraining/help/join-a-test-session-g2t060001#Join), obviously this is something we do not allow to happen and even if we did, we then wouldn't allow users to run a .exe file downloaded from the internet.

 

Goto Training do offer an MSI version called 'Goto Opener' which supposedly allows people to join the training session but although that installs fine and launches when the user visits the training URL, Goto Opener itself tries to download and run another .exe file from the users temporary internet files on c:\users\...

 

We can't be in a unique situation here. I expect most schools (and companies) don't allow random .exe files to be downloaded and run by end users (BTW, the .exe seems to be different for each session/user so even white listing a particular file/name would be tricky) and this particular training is provided by Pearson so it's must be quite common within schools. So, has anyone else got this working from within a school network?

 

About to test this, this afternoon with Education City.

I thought that was the issue the Deputy Head was having problems so I have arranged a test onsite this afternoon, so this post just confirms my suspicions.

Thanks for posting:)

Edited February 22, 2018 by JATSO

[atcoates]

We have user with less restrictions that we enable and disable when needed.

[David44]

Hi @bossman. Thanks for the reply. Interesting idea about setting up accounts just for this software. I am not sure how well this will work in our case as I think our Exams Officer wanted to watch the training on one screen while following along on the other. If she logs in with a different account she won't have access to the exams software she needs or all her own files.

 

When you say you have installed the software on these accounts, what do you mean? I couldn't actually find a version of the software that didn't try to download additional .exe files from the internet. Do you simply allow these accounts to download and run .exe files or have you already done that for these accounts and then put the restrictions back on? What do you do when the software requires an update (they say the software updates every 4 to 6 weeks)?

@JATSO

I would be interested to hear what Education City advise as I assume they are a paying customer of GoToTraining if they they are using the software so may be better placed to get answers from GoToTraining than us IT technicians who have to deal with it.

[bossman]

@David44

 

These accounts are set up with local admin rights but when finished with are locked or disabled until booked again, as for the software it is run by my technicians once a month on these accounts and updated as and when required.....

 

You can give access to exams software to any of these accounts so they would be able to run the software without running on her account and any files she requires can be uploaded prior to the training by you or your technicians to the specific training account and then deleted after or transferred back to her account.

 

End users always make things difficult as they think only of themselves in matters like this as they can do what they want when they at home regardless of the consequence.....don't understand why she requires two screens or two computers to watch some training basically....it has all the necessary viewing screens on the GoTo application...we've never been asked to provide double screens for training purposes yet....we've been using this GoTo training for a couple of years now.. no complaints so far..good luck

[JATSO]

Hi @bossman. Thanks for the reply. Interesting idea about setting up accounts just for this software. I am not sure how well this will work in our case as I think our Exams Officer wanted to watch the training on one screen while following along on the other. If she logs in with a different account she won't have access to the exams software she needs or all her own files.

 

When you say you have installed the software on these accounts, what do you mean? I couldn't actually find a version of the software that didn't try to download additional .exe files from the internet. Do you simply allow these accounts to download and run .exe files or have you already done that for these accounts and then put the restrictions back on? What do you do when the software requires an update (they say the software updates every 4 to 6 weeks)?

@JATSO

I would be interested to hear what Education City advise as I assume they are a paying customer of GoToTraining if they they are using the software so may be better placed to get answers from GoToTraining than us IT technicians who have to deal with it.

 

Well test done had to give up on Gotomeeting didn't like Edge or Chrome just gets cut off even though GoToOpener was installed, so they used Team Viewer using Chrome.

 

Local account with PowerUsers rights on the PC in the conference room.

[Cache]

I have an Applocker Certificate Rule that allows the GoTo apps for use by staff which tends to aleviate most problems. I did also have to create a FileHash rule for AppCore.exe located in C:\Users\(user)\AppData\Local\Apps as obviously that wasn't signed by a certificate so I just left it open on a workstation before copying it somewhere to allow me to make the hash rule.

 

I still have some issues with our proxy server that I need to tweak manually so it still only really works on certain workstations.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Cache