Staff Laptops - AGAIN!

[mdrabble]

I've done similar post on this before but I've become indecisive on how to approach this.

 

approx 3 1/2 months ago, I started looking at all this with the idea to deploy staff laptops via intune and AzureAD joined only.

 

I presented/email the proposal to the Head/SLT and was told it would be looked at - approx 3 1/2 months later not a word, so I scrapped the idea and the project.

 

I now have to start over and have a working setup buy next tuesday as SLT now want a meeting about it.

 

So.... after much thought and over thinking things I have no idea which would be the best method/way to go.

 

Do I go Intune, Azure AD Joined, (can I still always on VPN),

Do I go Intune, Hybrid Joined so I can do Always On VPN for SIMS.net access - possible network drive access from home?

Do I go Domain Joined, SCCM Managed and Always on VPN so full network access from home?

 

Part of the ideal scenario is to remove RDS altogether and rely on AOVPN for network access/SIMS.net etc.

 

Realistically I cannot see the school going cloud/server free in the next 5 years - some staff go into meltdown at the words OneDrive/SharePoint/Cloud Storage including turning a computer on!

 

Hoping fellow edugeekers who have been on this journey can share their insights and talk come sense into me!

 

Thank you all

[3s-gtech]

We've done this recently (I keep piping up on other threads about it!)

 

We went for local AD joined with Always On VPN. This is by no means a cutting-edge solution now, but it allowed me to move things forward without having to completely rethink our infrastructure. Any progress on that has been on hold for 12 months. Using AOVPN means access to SIMS, shares, home drives and intranet resources. It's limited by users' home broadband (upload especially, that causes some headaches!) and getting ports etc through local and home firewalls.

 

It's ideal for us, as staff are constantly moving about, sometimes working from home, and using Teams constantly. They're being pushed towards OneDrive in many cases, but they have choices at present. Email is still on-site, but that'll be moving too. I feel that AOVPN will allow us to transition to being more cloud connected, rather than a hard cut which I haven't got the support time to implement. EDIT: AOVPN set up as a device tunnel with a Powershell deployed profile.

 

Part of the key to all this was modern, USB-C docks and laptops that are all compatible with them. We've got Lenovo kit for this and it works well. You'll need to convert HDMI to VGA on any older projector installs.

 

We supplied cases, which are labelled for that staff member. Everything is tagged with their initials, as they all look the same! My LetraTag has never worked so hard.

Edited March 24, 2021 by 3s-gtech

[Boredguy]

All our laptops (mainly the DfE ones) recently have been configured with AoVPN, but instead of device based we went for user based as we wanted forced tunnelling since most of the users are students so want them to get our filtering. Even with 30-40 users connected during lockdown on Teams, our connection speeds were fine for them. For staff going with Device based AoVPN would be easier and can be deployed via Powershell without needing InTune or MECM.

[mdrabble]

Thanks for the replies - I think I got sucked into pushing all things cloud - when sometimes the old tried and tested methods work just as well.

 

Think will go Domain joined and AOVPN using device tunnels - that way I can simply use an existing SCCM TS to image laptops and add on the AOVPN - will definitely be less work and less stress for me so Ian get some time to re-evaluate things.

[supportman]

We moved away from Sims last year and have gone pretty much cloud everything since then with a plan to retire the old remote desktop server in the summer.

 

We still use onsite AD but synced with Azure AD. Salamandersoft to sync all the accounts from bromcom.

 

We have Onedrive to replace the staff personal drive

 

We have Sharepoint files to replace the staff shared area legacy drive

 

All staff use Edge Chromium and log in with their office 365 accounts so its single sign on after that.

 

Seems to work well so far and intune is the next logical step. We have bought P1 licenses from Microsoft which I believe cover it.

[mullet_man]

All the schools I've worked for have had staff laptops, ours is currently

 

Laptops local AD connected, sccm managed. (No VPN or azure AD as yet)

OneDrive KFM for docs

SharePoint/Teams for shares

RDS for SIMS

USB-C docks in all rooms for connections

 

All works fine for us, usbc docks am not sure how long will last as teachers move around each lesson so these are getting bashed at the minute.

[TechMonkey]

What need are you trying to address by giving the staff a laptop each? I only ask because the device and setup will be very different if all they need is email, access to policies and a browser, to they need to be able to teach in a field. What does the school want to achieve? If you ask the teachers they will say they want a full fat windows laptop so they can do everything everywhere, but is that what the school wants them to be able to do and would it be more cost effective to scale it back?

 

We are starting a trial of giving nice Chromebooks to staff for them to find how they can improve their Teaching and Learning. We have volunteered a group and we are taking proposals from staff for use. We don't need them to hook up to the front of a classroom as all of the classes are equipped, but we are working out how they can cast to the screen in the class. With ChromeOS they can access OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams. We are lucky as we are not on SIMS so our MIS can also be accessed via a browser. It will be interesting to see what limitations they find, if any.

 

Just throwing it out there, may not be appropriate for your setting.

[mdrabble]

What need are you trying to address by giving the staff a laptop each? I only ask because the device and setup will be very different if all they need is email, access to policies and a browser, to they need to be able to teach in a field. What does the school want to achieve? If you ask the teachers they will say they want a full fat windows laptop so they can do everything everywhere, but is that what the school wants them to be able to do and would it be more cost effective to scale it back?[/Quote]

 

Some good questions - hopefully will try and answer them as best as possible

 

We have a large number of staff what move rooms for teaching and they constantly complain about the time it takes to logon, load SIMS, lesson resources etc and then there is logging off as well. - Laptop will enable to then to simply close the lid, move classroom, open lid and carry on. (in theory)

Due to COVID, staff work areas are now restricted, so by staff having laptops, will give them their own dedicated work area so to speak - they find a space and can work.

Will also give them a device to use from home should they need to isolate etc.

 

We are starting a trial of giving nice Chromebooks to staff for them to find how they can improve their Teaching and Learning. We have volunteered a group and we are taking proposals from staff for use. We don't need them to hook up to the front of a classroom as all of the classes are equipped, but we are working out how they can cast to the screen in the class. With ChromeOS they can access OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams. We are lucky as we are not on SIMS so our MIS can also be accessed via a browser. It will be interesting to see what limitations they find, if any.[/Quote]

 

Staff prefer full Office suite as some functions within excel are not available with the online version and some formatting issues also appear on the web versions compared to full versions.

Some staff also use Adobe software

SIMS.net (did think about Virtual App but decided against it)

Edited March 29, 2021 by mdrabble