talksr Posted February 22, 2022 Posted February 22, 2022 Hi there, I am trying to get staff to move over to Google and make use of the Google Drive. Does anyone know if there is a way to use CleverTouch software on Google and with Chromebooks? In particular, staff use Lynx. I can see on the ClerverTouch website, something called Lynx Whiteboard and it says you can get this on Google Play. Does anyone know if this is what you are meant to use in a Google environment? We have Windows 10 stations for staff which run on CC4, but I really want to get Google Drive in use so their files would be on GDrive and would be accessed via Chrome, which would mean currently, the Lynx files would not be recognised. Wondering if anyone else has had this obstacle and found a way forward?
TwistedHelixis Posted February 22, 2022 Posted February 22, 2022 We don't have Clevertouch, but for our Smartboard files..... Windows laptops have the Google Drive Desktop app installed, which gives them the G Drive and can run any file type, so CleverTouch files should work. For our Chromebooks, the Smartbaord's have a cast system built in, so the pupils can cast what's on their screens to the boards, but we don't have anything that can open SmartNotebook files on the Chromebooks. 1
talksr Posted February 23, 2022 Author Posted February 23, 2022 We don't have Clevertouch, but for our Smartboard files..... Windows laptops have the Google Drive Desktop app installed, which gives them the G Drive and can run any file type, so CleverTouch files should work. For our Chromebooks, the Smartbaord's have a cast system built in, so the pupils can cast what's on their screens to the boards, but we don't have anything that can open SmartNotebook files on the Chromebooks. Thank you, I had considered this but when I spoke to RM I had to keep chasing their sales team for answers, nobody got back to me so just gave up. We would need to deploy the Google Drive for Desktop app via RMMC to get it to work. I also asked about OneDrive but got similar nonsense and excuses for why RM couldn't accommodate for it. Apparently they have some kind of online platform to use OneDrive Mapper and that would not work with our MIS; Shcolarpack. Maybe eventually, we could move away from RM, but for now, would like to keep it as when it works, it seems to work.
David44 Posted February 23, 2022 Posted February 23, 2022 We use RM CC4 and Google Drive File Stream (now called Google Drive Desktop). We just created our own package for it, it's just an MSI IIRC. We also don't use RM Unify which I believe is the online platform you refer to. 1
talksr Posted February 23, 2022 Author Posted February 23, 2022 We use RM CC4 and Google Drive File Stream (now called Google Drive Desktop). We just created our own package for it, it's just an MSI IIRC. We also don't use RM Unify which I believe is the online platform you refer to. Hi Daivd, Thanks for this, that is music to my ears! Great news. If you had a teacher sign into Google Drive File Stream on their main class computer, if they then used a random computer in the staff workroom as an example, would Google Drive File Stream automatically be logged into the account for them provided the computer had the MSI installed? I am trying to make it as easy as possible for staff and can see they will not want to be putting in usernames and passwords all the time. Yes, RM Unify, that was the name, thanks for reminding me.
David44 Posted February 23, 2022 Posted February 23, 2022 Hi Daivd, Thanks for this, that is music to my ears! Great news. If you had a teacher sign into Google Drive File Stream on their main class computer, if they then used a random computer in the staff workroom as an example, would Google Drive File Stream automatically be logged into the account for them provided the computer had the MSI installed? I am trying to make it as easy as possible for staff and can see they will not want to be putting in usernames and passwords all the time. No, but it's not that difficult to sign in. We have Google Drive Desktop open when they sign in. If they are already signed in to Google, this just mounts the G: drive silently in the background. If they are not signed in to Google, they get a prompt to sign in to Google, which they can do in the browser so if they are already signed in in the browser it's just a matter of selecting the correct Google account, no typing involved and then the G: drive gets mounted. 1
talksr Posted February 23, 2022 Author Posted February 23, 2022 No, but it's not that difficult to sign in. We have Google Drive Desktop open when they sign in. If they are already signed in to Google, this just mounts the G: drive silently in the background. If they are not signed in to Google, they get a prompt to sign in to Google, which they can do in the browser so if they are already signed in in the browser it's just a matter of selecting the correct Google account, no typing involved and then the G: drive gets mounted. Thanks, that makes sense and sounds perfect. Did you have to remove a drive letter from Drives>Specify which drives are hidden/cannot be used by users in the respective staff RMMC Policies so that the Google Drive Desktop could successfully mount a drive?
David44 Posted February 23, 2022 Posted February 23, 2022 Thanks, that makes sense and sounds perfect. Did you have to remove a drive letter from Drives>Specify which drives are hidden/cannot be used by users in the respective staff RMMC Policies so that the Google Drive Desktop could successfully mount a drive? I don't remember. I expect we already allowed E,F,G as it was possible before the days of Google Drive that some users may have connected USB sticks, digital cameras and/or memory card readers so they would have used these early drive letters for those. 1
talksr Posted March 2, 2022 Author Posted March 2, 2022 I don't remember. I expect we already allowed E,F,G as it was possible before the days of Google Drive that some users may have connected USB sticks, digital cameras and/or memory card readers so they would have used these early drive letters for those. Thank you, that makes sense. The only issue I am having is I am struggling to find an MSI for Google Drive for Desktop. How did you manage to get it? All of the Google Support pages give you access only to an exe version.
David44 Posted March 7, 2022 Posted March 7, 2022 Just checked, the CC4 package we created uses a .exe file (GoogleDriveFSSetup.exe, but it's an old package from before the rebrand so your .exe might be different) with --silent as the only command line argument. It's probably time we had another look at it and install a newer version by default. It does upgrade automatically which was the cause of another issue, when it upgraded it used to make a new folder so you'd have it installed in c:\program files\google\1.0 or something similar and then the new version would installed in c:\program files\2.0 and so the CC4 shortcuts wouldn't work. Someone on here wrote a Powershell script, Google Filestream Launcher that worked around that issue but I have a feeling that may not be needed any more. 1
talksr Posted June 23, 2022 Author Posted June 23, 2022 Hi everyone, Another option is PDQ. We have a subscription and Google Drive can be deployed using PDQ. I have not tried it yet but will give it a go at a later date.
XiJ Posted June 25, 2022 Posted June 25, 2022 I’ve used a script to deploy the Google drive exe. It works well with switches to allow certain options (drive letter etc iirc)
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