Sheridan Posted February 10, 2019 Posted February 10, 2019 Bit of an odd request from our SLT, but they have asked if we can prevent access to email (or the sending and receiving of emails) on our G Suite domain between certain hours (i.e 8pm until 6am for example) It seems to be driven from some desire to stop staff 'working from home' - although I think they'll find those people are in the minority, and it seems a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut scenario to me! I could have done this with our old hosted Exchange server, but can't see anyway (without paying into a third party system) to do this with G Suite Before I report this back, I was just checking that I hadn't missed an option in G Suite to do this?
DrBeaker Posted February 10, 2019 Posted February 10, 2019 Would be interesting to know myself. I can understand the request - https://www.tes.com/news/hinds-tell-schools-spare-teachers-out-hours-emails and https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1012734/lidl-work-emails-blocked-overnight-business-hours https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38479439
Sheridan Posted February 10, 2019 Author Posted February 10, 2019 Thing is, we don’t advise teachers put their work email on their personal one, but they do it for convenience at work. I don’t do that, so only check emails during working hours or when I want to do something specific. I’d love to see some of these teachers tell an A&E nurse how overworked they are....[emoji3]
Ditto Posted February 10, 2019 Posted February 10, 2019 I think this was discussed on a GSuite for Admins forum, but perhaps more for restricting the time pupils used the GSuite apps - but it's the same challenge really. The general consensus was that it's something that should be managed without resorting to an IT solution. You can be sure that it would a right PITA for someone at some point - most likely a SLT member! That said, I think I also recall the only viable solution at present was by using something like a scheduled GAM script or by using one of the third party tools like GoGuardian.
fiza Posted February 10, 2019 Posted February 10, 2019 3rd party app "quiet for Gmail" https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details%3Fid%3Dcom.sgarcia.quiet_for_gmail%26hl%3Den_GB%26referrer%3Dutm_source%253Dgoogle%2526utm_medium%253Dorganic%2526utm_term%253Dquiet%2Bfor%2Bgmail%26pcampaignid%3DAPPU_1_YqBgXLHxJOCd1fAP672SwAY&ved=2ahUKEwixqqK6lrLgAhXgThUIHeueBGgQ5YQBMAB6BAgKEAI&usg=AOvVaw1dJTMub24gL1uR8KvZk9d5 1
ADMaster Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 Can we not just educate the teachers on turning off notifications? I recently saw the inbox by gmail is going away soon so don’t know how that will change my setup but… I have my personal gmail in the inbox app and work in the gmail app. I have notifications turned off in the gmail app except the alerts label. The alerts label is where UPS and server alerts go. Anything else I choose to check, or not.
Sheridan Posted February 11, 2019 Author Posted February 11, 2019 Can we not just educate the teachers on turning off notifications? I recently saw the inbox by gmail is going away soon so don’t know how that will change my setup but… I have my personal gmail in the inbox app and work in the gmail app. I have notifications turned off in the gmail app except the alerts label. The alerts label is where UPS and server alerts go. Anything else I choose to check, or not. Similar to me, I have personal email only on my phone, and have access to work email on my ipad at home - with notifications off. I choose not to read work emails unless something I'm expecting or waiting for.
jthompson Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 I think this has been discussed on other threads before, with the general consensus being that you should avoid any time of day constraints. Different people work in different ways: some people may want to stick to work hours only, some people may want to spend time with their kids and then do their work later in the evening after they've put them to bed. Also, these platforms are not built with such things in mind, so you'd essentially be "doing it wrong" (i.e. inviting unintended consequences and/or facepalms down the line). The problem is really one of expectation. Some staff may feel pressure to work out of hours when they receive an email from a colleague at the weekend and may not feel empowered enough to understand that they're perfectly entitled to ignore it until Monday morning. I'd argue that it's the job of SLT to straighten that out, empower people and make clear what the expectations and responsibilities are around out-of-hours working. It was done here with an email from SLT and many staff responded with gratitude that it had been spelled out for everyone. It's not a technical problem, but IT depts can help by providing general guidance on managing notification and DND options on various platforms.
DGardiner Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 We have had this discussion internally too.. it resulted in this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/meeting-scheduler-for-gma/dibjpgjiefaibdinijeddhaiiphfhejp being used by people to schedule mail to flow at "acceptable times" but the trusts view on it is that it cant be enforced and is at the end users discretion to use it as a courtesy and the fact it only works in chrome.
howartp Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 I sent an email at midnight last month. Got hauled in the next day, it's not appropriate because I woke up a teacher. My senior technician, not being aware of the conversation, replied to an email at 10.30pm re some exams taking place the following morning. You guessed it... Outcome: Neither of us touch our work from the moment we walk out at 4pm till the moment we walk back in at 8am. Previously we'd do anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours work a night at home, AS and WHEN necessary/useful to get something done that needed concentration. 1
jthompson Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 Wow. People really do need help pressing the right buttons on their own stuff.
Rob_D Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 Our school email policy states that staff should not send emails between 8pm and 8am and recommends staff who are working late use "delayed send" in outlook if they wish to compose emails out of hours. My opinion is that this is backwards, and we shouldn't stop people from sending emails but rather educate people to not read emails (unless they really want to). But no-one else on the team agrees with me.
bossman Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 I was asked the question: "Could we stop the e-mails on a weekend?" My answer was this: "You do realise what you've just asked me and what the outcome will be if we do?" Them: "No what would be the outcome?" Me: "Monday morning everyone would have a boat load of e-mails land in their Inboxes first thing!" Them: "Ahh Yes I didn't think about that!" Me: "What is required is a Staff policy that no e-mails be sent between the hours of 7pm and 7am and no school e-mails to be setup on mobiles or home computers... Simple!".... Work life balance is just that!..... Them: "Agreed!" Staff policy has been enforced and working well..... End of story.....
Sheridan Posted February 11, 2019 Author Posted February 11, 2019 I sent an email at midnight last month. Got hauled in the next day, it's not appropriate because I woke up a teacher. My senior technician, not being aware of the conversation, replied to an email at 10.30pm re some exams taking place the following morning. You guessed it... Outcome: Neither of us touch our work from the moment we walk out at 4pm till the moment we walk back in at 8am. Previously we'd do anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours work a night at home, AS and WHEN necessary/useful to get something done that needed concentration. Hardly your fault a teacher is stupid enough to a) have their work email on their personal device and b) have notifications switched on and c) not mute their phone at night! Would they have complained if a Facebook notification email woke them up!
DrBeaker Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 I sent an email at midnight last month. Got hauled in the next day, it's not appropriate because I woke up a teacher. My senior technician, not being aware of the conversation, replied to an email at 10.30pm re some exams taking place the following morning. You guessed it... Outcome: Neither of us touch our work from the moment we walk out at 4pm till the moment we walk back in at 8am. Previously we'd do anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours work a night at home, AS and WHEN necessary/useful to get something done that needed concentration. And that is how the goodwill died, when support staff are treated like that. The amount of s:censored: we have to put it with during our working day is unbelievable and to be treated like that is the final straw. Hardly your fault a teacher is stupid enough to a) have their work email on their personal device and b) have notifications switched on and c) not mute their phone at night! Would they have complained if a Facebook notification email woke them up! Used to do that but as it's not appreciated (and neither was I compensated for the use of my personal device in any way, shape or form) it's no more. It's a sad place the world is in now that people are "proud" of working more hours than they're paid for - the US 80+ week type of thing.
free780 Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 (edited) Just wait until you jump on board the Teams/Slack bandwagon. Notifications all sorts of times. You don't have to respond. You might be able to send out an Outlook app config on the Office 365 side but notifications are usually user preference. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/outlook-for-ios-and-android/outlook-for-ios-and-android-configuration-with-microsoft-intune#data-protection-settings Looks like IOS only. Edited February 11, 2019 by free780
jthompson Posted February 12, 2019 Posted February 12, 2019 I used to use Nine mail on Android, which has separate peak/off-peak notification options. It's a shame the Gmail app doesn't have that (only reason I'm using that over Nine now is we have moved to G Suite and I like the snooze and archive support of the official app). I don't know what the DND options are like on iOS, but on Android they're pretty comprehensive and can fit in with just about most people's preferences.
Arthur Posted April 1, 2019 Posted April 1, 2019 This might help... www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/205483-google-adds-email-scheduling-gmail.html
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