Software that reduced your workload?

[Caffeine11]

I am the sole IT person for a federation of two primary schools and I am looking for recommendations for software that could make my life easier.

 

We have Windows Server 2012 r2 and are currently using:

 

Windows 10 deployment, images using Window Deployment Services. It's OK as I decided on one image for all the machines.

 

Deploying Software, using Active Directory. It's OK if you have an msi. Have heard good things about PDQ Deploy. Don't know the educational pricing yet.

 

Deploying Updates, using WSUS.

 

I am also interested in the following:

 

Network Monitoring. None. At the moment, I have no idea where the bottlenecks in our network are. We are looking at replacing our wifi at both sites this year which is also an opportunity to look at the network switches in our cabinets. My understanding is that if we get switches that support it, we can get software that will monitor our network and show us how it is performing. Is it worth it? Does it give you stats you can understand or is it for network gurus only?

 

Ticketing System, don't have one. Telephone calls, notes on my desk, email. We recently started using CPOMS and our SENCO is really pleased because their workload can now be "seen" by the number of cases on the system. I am wondering if a ticketing system would quantify what I do. Secondly, has a ticketing system helped you prioritise your jobs effectively? It would need to be something simple like, name, location, item affected, description of fault. The ticketing system from Spiceworks seems to be a popular choice. Something that included an FAQ section and/or how to videos would be useful. We use Google Apps for Education. Has anyone used any of the ticketing systems in their Market Place?

 

Office 365. We are using Google Apps for Education. However, just about everybody seems to be using the free for schools version of Office 365, Microsoft Teams etc. Has anyone moved from Google to Office 365? Worth the effort? Easier to manage? However, we use custom fonts in Word that match our handwriting scheme. Obviously you can save to One Drive but I assume the file would not display correctly when opened in the cloud version of Word.

 

Google Classroom. Does the job. The main issue we have had is getting users onto classroom on their own device. Once they are on we are OK. With Covid, there are lots of suppliers offering "easy to use" online learning platforms but surely the problem is getting the user on in the first place. Has your learning platform been easy for users to access?

 

A bit off topic as it is hardware:

 

Chromebooks. We are using desktops/laptops and ipads. Are Chromebooks easier to manage? The reason I am asking is that we are still using a lot of software that will not load on a Chromebook. However, as more things move to the cloud, this is less of a problem.

 

Finally, if this is in the wrong topic or too much for one post, let me know.

Edited May 8, 2021 by kha11

[dhicks]

Ticketing: we use Spiceworks - it's a simple, and therefore popular, choice. I've used a couple of other systems in the past and I find Spiceworks is about the right level of functionality verses complexity - other systems can take a while to fill in the details for each ticket, but Spiceworks makes it nice and easy to edit / change / close tickets. It helps us organise our work, although it doesn't allow us to prioratise - I'd like a system that just lets me drag-and-drop tickets into the order I'm going to do them in, maybe with a time estimate and finish time / date summary.

 

O365 v . Google Workspace: we use Google, although there really isn't much difference is functionality bteween the two systems as a whole. I find Google Classroom nice and simple to use - it handles classroom functionality, integrates wirth Meet, and not much else, meaning there's less to go wrong.

 

Chromebooks: as I've mentioned in a couple of other posts recently, I'm quiet impressed by the new model Chromebooms we've received recently - the Asus C214 and the Lenovo 500e. Both are full-flip (so can be used as a tablet by simply folding the keyboard right back), have a world-facing camera in the keyboard for use in tablet mode and can be specified with a stylus included in the keyboard. The C214 is very well built, with padding all the way round, the Lenovo seems a bit lighter, which might be better in tablet mode. Both are around £340 (price includes VAT), but don't foget you'll also need to pay for a management license - around £30, one-off fee, so really it's just part of the purchase cost with no on-going yearly fee for a separate MDM. Google's own tools for managing Chromebooks are absolutly fine, although you'll probably want to add a (paid) solution for filtering.

[3s-gtech]

Salamander for reducing onsite, M365 and GW workloads.

[SteveM555]

A few things I can think of..

 

MDT - An addon for WDS to customise your deployment images more. Ours is now fully scripted, so all we need to do is update the ISO in the task sequences and no more image making, saves lots of time updating things. You choose the software to install on the WinPE environment.

 

SCCM - Used with WSUS. For software deployment, Windows Updates and allowing staff to install software on their own without local administrator rights using the Software Center. You can provision an installation package and target computers, or users/groups in AD.

 

LibreNMS - Monitoring switches, routers, servers etc. opensource and free to use. For example, can instantly see bandwidth usage and if switches are down. We use it with SmokePing too (also opensource). Will support any device that has SNMP.

 

Freshdesk - We use the free version, fully cloud based ticketing. Has phone apps, FAQ, pre-written solutions for tickets, form builder for staff to use if you need them. But we use it to monitor our group email, e.g. someone emails [email protected] and it automatically creates a ticket and notifies us. Has more options if using paid version, such as integration to MS Teams etc.

 

365/OneDrive/Teams - Using more now that staff have been working remotely.

[free780]

Trying to move things to automated with good alerting/monitoring like ADRs in SCCM.

 

AAD Identity Protection saves a ton of time in blocking/forcing password resets on high risk users.

 

Move to let's encrypt for certificates and automating the renewal will speed things up.

 

Getting applications deployed via SCCM means install is consistent. As others have said having a monthly/new release of win10 automated image capture process within MDT saves a lot of time.

 

You can also think of things that you don't mind giving up control on so they are automated. E.G Antimalware software updates.

[TwistedHelixis]

Pulseway -

Does all our MS server updates

Emails me after each backup has run

Lets me start or stop VM from anywhere

Automatically run a script if something happens, good for restarting a printyer service etc.

Lets me know if any servers go offline or something stops running.

Lots more but you get the idea

[jmak]

On Google Workspace vs M365:

M365 has more configuration options (with the added complexity that brings) and often the advantage claimed is their perceived better compatibility with Microsoft OS and applications and user familiarity. If you've already got Google Workspace running and staff are comfortable, personally I wouldn't be interested in swapping.

 

On Chromebooks: ime definitely more straightforward to manage, although ultimately less capable. If they meet your requirements (and I'd say for most student use and working with Google Workspace, they usually will) they're definitely a good option. Updates are definitely more straightforward and don't introduce problems neatly as often as Microsoft.

 

On updates: SCCM definitely more powerful than WSUS, but not free and there is a learning curve. You could also look at Windows Update for Business (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-blog-archive/what-is-windows-update-for-business/ba-p/167033) which manages your updates in the cloud. Control through Group Policy and/or Intune, potentially means you can remove a role from from your server - a role which can be problematic.

 

No definitive "right answer" but definitely options to look at.

[FN-GM]

Salamander can be used to automatically create, disable, delete user accounts. It can also be used to maintain groups as well. Worth its weight in gold.

[TechMonkey]

Another chip in for Salamander. Also an alternative to LibreNMS (whish is great, don't get me wrong) is PRTG. You can use it free for up to a 100 sensors, so a thing you are monitoring.

 

Be careful when starting monitoring though as the urge will be to monitor ALL THE THINGS!! But you will inevitably end up flooded by data and alerts and just end up ignoring it. Work out what you actually need and then build up. By need, what would be catastrophic if you missed it. Switches or core servers going down, users being added to domain admin groups, lack of internet, web services down, etc. Also get a nice display in your office so things can be displayed, it makes a nice talking point and impresses people when they come in

[nwkeene]

Haven't tried the other monitoring solutions mentioned, but we use Mutiny (http://www.mutiny.com). Paid for itself when it alerted us to a failed HD in a raid array one of our main servers. Educational pricing works out around £1 per node for us. You need a dedicated 'appliance' to run it, but it can be virtual.. Gives a great display for the office (we use a tab rotator on the browser to give us different views of the data) Its free for 10 nodes so you can try it before you commit to it. We use the free version for our 5 Primaries (one server and a couple of switches etc)

Not connected to mutiny.com in any way, but very impressed by it.

 

my 2p

[jhothersall]

Locker https://locker.co.uk/- hands down. AD accounts created from Sims.net and Teams all created for classes. Hours and Hours saved.

[Caffeine11]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply. I will have a look at your suggestions.

[jthompson]

Another monitoring option that I can recommend looking into is checkmk. The raw edition is the free one. For a quick look at what it'll allow you to monitor, graph and alert on, have a look at the list of integrations - https://checkmk.com/product/integrations.

[enjay]

+1 for Locker or Salamander (or is that +2, since I'm recommending both?!). AD accounts including group memberships, Google/O365 accounts including group membership, Classroom/Teams created and populated, email distribution groups for each class, timetables synced to Google/Outlook calendars. Locker also does "teacher of" email groups, so if you want to email all teachers of a kid, you send an email to [email protected], I don't know if Salamander does that or not. All of this is done on a schedule from SIMS, so is basically totally hands-off for you. Our sole involvement is sending an email to the Head of House with new students' login details, and that's only because they teachers can never remember the default password we set. £1000 per year (plus a £500 setup fee for Salamander) and it is the best money you'll ever spend! Of all the things I've changed or implemented since starting here two years ago, the timetable sync and "teacher of" email groups are by far the most popular.

 

Re. helpdesk, make it as simple as possible for the users, otherwise they won't use it. I know you can have pretty portals with automated links to knowledge bases, but I've never managed to get teachers to adopt them - they want to report a problem and get on with their hundred other jobs. Here, you email [email protected] and it creates a ticket. That way, raising a ticket is as simple as emailing my technicians directly so staff have no excuse for bypassing the system. As for post-it notes and corridor muggings, I suggest you speak to the Headteacher and get their backing to stop accepting requests in that way. You need to manage your time and to prioritise tickets based on severity and impact across the whole school, not the user's proximity to your office or "loudest first". If you're on the way to a switch which has gone down taking a complete building offline mid-lesson, you shouldn't be getting delayed by someone who can't remember their SIMS login, or even someone with a more serious issue (1 teacher not working is less urgent than 10 teachers and 300 students not working). You also need space to be able to concentrate on the more difficult issues, which you can't get if people are interrupting you with less urgent issues. Staff here email our helpdesk, they only phone or visit the office if it is urgent (defined as preventing the current or next lesson from happening); corridor muggings still happen a bit, but most staff accept "I'll do that, but not right now" or "can you email instead" as responses when they do.

 

Google vs Office365 is a debate which will rage on forever, with no victor. Consider the two platforms, and see which works best for you. We're currently standardising on Office365, which for some means stopping using Classroom and starting using Teams instead but for the vast majority of teachers, it means using a Microsoft platform to work on and share their Microsoft Office documents, rather than converting their Microsoft Office documents to Google Docs solely for the purpose of sharing. A vast amount of time is currently being spent/wasted by people sharing Office documents via Google Drive, and periodically downloading them, updating them, uploading the new one and deleting the original. So for us, O365 is the logical choice, but if your schools are already well embedded with Google and are working effectively, ask yourself what you'd gain by switching to Office365.

[TechMonkey]

corridor muggings still happen a bit, but most staff accept "I'll do that, but not right now" or "can you email instead" as responses when they do.

 

I have found just saying, "I'm really sorry but I will probably have another 6 people grab me before I get to the office and I would hate to disappoint you if yours was the request I forgot. Could you email the helpdesk and that will be a good remind for me?" That way the onus is back on them, if you remember and do it you are fantastic and you head off any question of do it especially for them as you have already said everyone will do what they did and you can't be expected to remember everything. It also helped here having a member of SLT that took the mantra of "no ticket, it didn't happen" to heart. If someone moaned about something not happening the first thing they would do was ask if they emailed the helpdesk. Any moaning about IT, lets bring up the list of tickets. No ticket means it can't have been that important or they would have put some effort in. It takes time but framing it in a nice way that actually means they are helping themselves as well as you seems to get traction. I still get mugged but the first thing they will say is "I'll put a ticket in as well but..." so they are getting it.

[enjay]

I still get mugged but the first thing they will say is "I'll put a ticket in as well but..." so they are getting it.

 

Or "I know I should do a ticket, but...." (I am sometimes tempted to say "yes, you should" and walk off). There's a line in Game of Thrones where someone says "anything before the word 'but' is horse sh*t"!

 

Fortunately my team aren't usually so busy they can't accommodate the corridor mugging, and staff are okay the times they get told to do one. Usually they're only quick questions anyway, where it would take about as long to say no as it would take to answer it.

 

Selling the helpdesk in a way which shows the benefit for teachers is the way to go. All details covered, can't be forgotten, can be picked up by someone else if original person is absent, can see a record of it for future, and other reasons. There is also the altruistic / emotional blackmail line, saying the helpdesk allows you to prioritise tickets which you're sure the teacher will appreciate when it is their ticket which is urgent and therefore being prioritised. If you feel uncomfortable refusing non-helpdesk requests, you could always make sure you do helpdesk tickets first and then emails/post-it notes/corridor muggings afterwards.

[CacheMeOutside]

Salamander can be used to automatically create, disable, delete user accounts. It can also be used to maintain groups as well. Worth its weight in gold.

 

Second this, also their support team are very responsive