Dos_Box Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 It's that week once more when finally the summer holidays are over for everyone and you are about to get swamped by hundreds of requests for password resets, see your hard work over the holidays get either destroyed or overlooked completely and they joy of seeing swarms of new pupils totally lost in labyrinthine corridors. I know my kids are not back until Wednesday. Today being an inset day and tomorrow the new year 7's induction day. So, are any of you having any major headaches yet, or are you still waiting for the hoards to arrive? 2
synaesthesia Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 (edited) Just a couple. Last minute "You're getting a new network". New fiber runs to every cabinet. New switching. New cores. New WiFi with dual cat6a runs to each AP (over 80) Monday and only a 3rd of anything is working, entire blocks of the building out and panicing cablers everywhere.... 1.5 days left! Edited September 2, 2019 by synaesthesia
Mark182 Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 Just a couple. Last minute "You're getting a new network". New fiber runs to every cabinet. New switching. New cores. New WiFi with dual cat6a runs to each AP (over 80) Monday and only a 3rd of anything is working, entire blocks of the building out and panicing cablers everywhere.... 1.5 days left! Oh dear. Good luck.
Dos_Box Posted September 2, 2019 Author Posted September 2, 2019 Just a couple. Last minute "You're getting a new network". New fiber runs to every cabinet. New switching. New cores. New WiFi with dual cat6a runs to each AP (over 80) Monday and only a 3rd of anything is working, entire blocks of the building out and panicing cablers everywhere.... 1.5 days left! Ouch! How long have they been at it?
hardtailstar Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 Ours started back on the 28th August (Academy joys) and I sent all new year 8 and above pupil starters information to their form tutors and teachers on the 28th. Every day since then ive had emails from their teachers saying they dont have a logon. So I just forward the email I sent to them. Year 7s were created by my manager and sent to All staff. we have had emails asking when they will get their logins!
Datamouse Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 Local Authority Data Team bod here. Calm before the storm. In a few short days begins the mass influx of pupil data from 277 schools which needs importing/checking/updating/conflicts resolved between three people in the next three weeks or so... just in time to do it all again next month for the School Census.
DrBeaker Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 New staff started that nobody told me about so no accounts due to no data to sync! Electricians turning off projectors at the socket on the ceiling and only finding out after the "projector doesn't work" Projector suddenly goes off in the middle of a SLT meeting, due to electricians turning off the board to that socket. Other people thinking they know better and undo all my hard work installing computers during the summer by moving them to "suit their needs". etc. etc. etc. Let alone when the kids are back in tomorrow!
FishCustard Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 Generally okay for the first day back, although we had people moaning that they've been promoted (e.g. LSA -> TA) and want their staff cards reprinted. Our response of "sorry, we don't have enough spare cards to re-print for people who already have working ones, can you ask us next week once the order has been delivered?" didn't go down very well with some people. To quote one, "but it's important, I want it done today!".
DrBeaker Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 Generally okay for the first day back, although we had people moaning that they've been promoted (e.g. LSA -> TA) and want their staff cards reprinted. Our response of "sorry, we don't have enough spare cards to re-print for people who already have working ones, can you ask us next week once the order has been delivered?" didn't go down very well with some people. To quote one, "but it's important, I want it done today!". Important to YOU (the teacher) - not to us and NOT in the wider scale of things (IT/wider school issues). Who's approving the cost for reprinting a perfectly fine and working badge, just for vanity reasons i.e. change of title? Recharged to the faculty etc? Does the fact they have a wrong title on their badge stop them from teaching, or does the fact the computer isn't setup in the classroom? I know which is the priority in my book. 1
Jamman960 Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 Our new IT suite is finally finished, had a few issues getting the final bits of worktop delivered and getting carpet fitted.. managed to get the pcs on the desks this afternoon ready for the kids to return on Wednesday having spent the summer waiting for it to be prepared. More or less ready other than sorting out a couple of other rooms that have just become ready Glad we’re not the science dept... the new building got handed over today and they’ve got about 60 large boxes of equipment to move in.
synaesthesia Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 Ouch! How long have they been at it? August. All the process started back end of June and orders etc not signed off until they'd already started work back of July. Joys of working with government funding! As a result everything's pushed through at a rate of knots, rushed even and hitting roadblocks quite often due to the age of the school and the intricacies of cable runs. Half a day left, we're physically and mentally exhausted trying to help out where possible and still fault finding. Biggest issue is where a muppet contractor (who was then sacked) cut through a whole cabinet's cabling to the wall before realising they needed to keep the cables patched and when they were tasked with fixing it (temporarily until everything's recabled later this year) with comms splices they just through it all in willy nilly so a whole block with zero network It's all shiny new kit, 10gbit fiber uplinks to everything. It's slower. Hoping it's just bedding in, or ARP tables needing to populate or flux capacitors to do something, but it's slower than our mismatched Dlink/Procurve/Ubiquiti setup with gig uplinks on cheese grade cat5...
FishCustard Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 @synaesthesia - check your switches for CRC errors. We had a new network that was flooded with them, turns out the DACs they'd used were too long - for some reason our switches couldn't cope with anything above 3m.
Jawloms Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 Pretty much every year; Do Teacher - "This is Mr %newperson%. Can they have their laptop and logon details?" Me - "No as I haven't been told they were starting. I'll get them sorted ASAP." Loop until visitsofthisnature = amountofnewstaff 1
Disease Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 We rolled out Win 10 Staff were back yesterday no real problems only a few machines failing to get the proper GPO assigned. Students back tomorrow
supportman Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 New Domain controllers upgraded from Windows 2008 to Windows 2019, all working nicely so far but no difference to the end users. SDS import for timetables and classes into Microsoft Teams schedualed for Thursday, hopefully that one will go nicely as well.
bald_pig Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 Our SIMS server died today... Parts to get her online will arrive at the end of the day today.
LTurner3692 Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 Our SIMS server died today... Parts to get her online will arrive at the end of the day today. You didn't want to go home did you?
bald_pig Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 You didn't want to go home did you? I'm going, my colleague is staying to wait for the part.
synaesthesia Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 @synaesthesia - check your switches for CRC errors. We had a new network that was flooded with them, turns out the DACs they'd used were too long - for some reason our switches couldn't cope with anything above 3m. Yeah it's all good on that front. Seeing how things go, once everything's actually working it'll be raised as an issue.
Ditto Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 Our SIMS server died today... Parts to get her online will arrive at the end of the day today. Out of interest, was the server powered down over the holidays or running continuously throughout? 1
3s-gtech Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 Our SIMS server died today... Parts to get her online will arrive at the end of the day today. My Exchange server did that to me earlier this year. It will only ever do it once. It now sits in the corner of shame, and a VM replaced it. That’ll learn it.
DrBeaker Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 Out of interest, was the server powered down over the holidays or running continuously throughout? We've had electrical work during the summer. Ours wasn't shutdown as I asked our MSP to do, but the UPS ran until the batteries were depleted. Then it came back on with hardly any reserve in the batteries once power was restored.... hmmm. Ours popped a UPS during all of this electrical work.... and a new copier too.
synaesthesia Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 We've had electrical work at the same time as all our servers & network which is one of the reasons progress was slow, they've been bloody marvellous though. Couldn't say the same for our PAT testers, I won't name and shame but they're probably based in a county not a million miles from Huntingdonshire. "Do not pat test ANY network equipment ANYWHERE in school. Do not test ANYTHING in EITHER server room or technician office." Fair play they avoided most network kit. Except in one of our offices. They. Tested. Everything. Decomissioned, clearly broken, even hardware that doesn't belong to us (Hello Openreach). Kit that belonged to the contractors on site. I found a signed and dated label on the floor. I don't think that carpets are eligible for PAT but it wouldn't surprise me!
Ditto Posted September 3, 2019 Posted September 3, 2019 We've had electrical work at the same time as all our servers & network which is one of the reasons progress was slow, they've been bloody marvellous though. Couldn't say the same for our PAT testers, I won't name and shame but they're probably based in a county not a million miles from Huntingdonshire. "Do not pat test ANY network equipment ANYWHERE in school. Do not test ANYTHING in EITHER server room or technician office." Fair play they avoided most network kit. Except in one of our offices. They. Tested. Everything. Decomissioned, clearly broken, even hardware that doesn't belong to us (Hello Openreach). Kit that belonged to the contractors on site. I found a signed and dated label on the floor. I don't think that carpets are eligible for PAT but it wouldn't surprise me! Carpet - ah that'll be because of the static electricity. 1
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