DfE - Digital Standards - Updated January 2024

[CrootUK]

We run 40+ sites using Intune and have done so since 2018. Currently it is almost on par with what we need on prem.

 

No onprem at all? what do you use for unattended remote control? printing? etc

 

Don’t get me wrong intune has its place, we are co-managing with it via sccm for 10 sites and its handling various bits itself but on to many occasions when trying to do something that should just be simple hasn’t been possible with Intune or its behind a pay wall..

 

Autopilot has never worked well for me either, but that could be down to previous configs that capacity hasn’t allowed to be reviewed.

[Mr.Ben]

No onprem at all? what do you use for unattended remote control? printing? etc

 

Don’t get me wrong intune has its place, we are co-managing with it via sccm for 10 sites and its handling various bits itself but on to many occasions when trying to do something that should just be simple hasn’t been possible with Intune or its behind a pay wall..

 

Autopilot has never worked well for me either, but that could be down to previous configs that capacity hasn’t allowed to be reviewed.

 

No on prem at all. We use Printix for Printing (although we are dabbling in Papercut Hive) and Connectwise for remote control.

 

We buy into A5 as when you compare with the costs of hardware, support and time it pays for itself.

 

Autopilot was a bit flakey originally but seems to have improved, certainly for new devices. It's hard to tell where the improvement was as we have also moved to Leased Lines and a different filtering provider at about the same time the issues improved!

[enjay]

- "Operating system - Enterprise or education-grade operating systems, which means they are designed for professional rather than home use."

 

Does that rule out Chromebooks too? I can't imagine many professionals use Chromebooks (unless they work for Google!)

[Face-Man]

Managing computers with servers is a thing of the past. Tools like InTune all the way.

 

Sorry I was just trying to be provocative.... after all the cloud is just someone else's computers (or servers)

 

The main difference is apple philosophy is for local personal users rather than managed central users.. it has got better with MDM and ASM but really they are trying to sell shiny expensive stuff that are great for the end vip users but hard to manage in a microsoft environment especially in music/media labs (don't get me started on hard drives filling up with user profiles)

 

My response when asked is always everything you want to have is possible but it needs to be fully costed including the additional expertise need to integrate with other schools system eg SIMS (there is another company that didn't get the whole severs are a thing in the past)

 

Still at least the DFE are helping with these guidelines .... Though if your fully cloud do you then need an on prem solution to meet the 3-2-1 backup requirements ???

[dmj]

The main difference is apple philosophy is for local personal users rather than managed central users..

 

er. no. Unix had centralised users before Windows NT was even a thing.

[localzuk]

Chromebooks, iPads, Apple computers all would comply with that guideline just fine. They all have central management tools. Chromebooks have Google Workspace. iPads and Apple devices have MDM/ASM, and can link to Active Directory as well.

 

Linux would be fine as well, as its an enterprise class OS, and has plenty of tools for central management - just depends how technical you want to get.

[Zoom7000]

Does that rule out Chromebooks too? I can't imagine many professionals use Chromebooks (unless they work for Google!)

 

"Can't Imagine" being the key phrase here. Many, many organisations and professionals around the world use Chromebooks.

 

Like it or not, browser based software is the future, or at least a big part of it. Take for example Canva. The company is worth $40bn at least based on September 2021 financial data. It's wouldn't be worth so much if it wasn't "for professionals".

 

ChromeOS is different and not for everyone, but it's not just for non-professionals or employees of Google.

[PotNoodleTech]

I think the key thing with Chrome O/S is that if you are already using google services in your org, then Chromebooks are an absolute no brainer as you just turn them on, log in and hey presto there's all your orgs workflow right in front of you. It also suits agile environments more as you can do everything you need no matter where you are in the world with just once device.

 

Orgs that are still heavy on windows or office365 etc will not see as much value in chromebooks as we do.

 

One things for sure, I'd rather buy and set up 1000 chromebooks than 50 surface tabs and I'd never go back to having trolleys of Windows laptops.

[drutt]

"Can't Imagine" being the key phrase here. Many, many organisations and professionals around the world use Chromebooks.

 

Like it or not, browser based software is the future, or at least a big part of it. Take for example Canva. The company is worth $40bn at least based on September 2021 financial data. It's wouldn't be worth so much if it wasn't "for professionals".

 

ChromeOS is different and not for everyone, but it's not just for non-professionals or employees of Google.

 

Little off topic but Canva is worth every penny, so quick and easy to chuck together professional looking school communications and materials. Helped us to bring creation of our prospectus and any other marketing materials in house, we still get them printed via digitalprinting.co.uk or vistaprint but we save so much money in comparison to using a 3rd-party.

[DGardiner]

Little off topic but Canva is worth every penny, so quick and easy to chuck together professional looking school communications and materials. Helped us to bring creation of our prospectus and any other marketing materials in house, we still get them printed via digitalprinting.co.uk or vistaprint but we save so much money in comparison to using a 3rd-party.

 

every penny? its free

[Zoom7000]

Canva is worth every penny

 

What @DGardiner said. If you're paying for Canva, please cancel the payment ASAP! Canva is 100% FREE for all schools. You can sign your whole school up for SSO using this form.

Edited February 2, 2024 by Zoom7000

[FN-GM]

Does that rule out Chromebooks too? I can't imagine many professionals use Chromebooks (unless they work for Google!)

 

My friend works for Ranstad as a recruiter. A Chromebook is all they use.

[localzuk]

My friend works for Ranstad as a recruiter. A Chromebook is all they use.

For a lot of businesses, a Chromebook is an ideal tool. Manageable centrally via MDM so nicely ticks all the data protection and security boxes, fully integrated productivity suite, a huge ecosystem of tools that link in, and allows the user to customise and treat it like a personal device. Easy to fix issues (powerwash and bam, fixed, for most things). Its an ideal enterprise tool IMO. Which is why people shouldn't really question whether ChromeOS is an enterprise OS under the DfE's guidelines.

[TechMonkey]

What @DGardiner said. If you're paying for Canva, please cancel the payment ASAP! Canva is 100% FREE for all schools. You can sign your whole school up for SSO using this form.

 

Sorry to go of topic but have you had any issue with DPIA with Canva? I was looking at it but all their servers are in the US and they didn't seem to have any GDPR provision.

[enjay]

"Can't Imagine" being the key phrase here. Many, many organisations and professionals around the world use Chromebooks.

 

Like it or not, browser based software is the future, or at least a big part of it. Take for example Canva. The company is worth $40bn at least based on September 2021 financial data. It's wouldn't be worth so much if it wasn't "for professionals".

 

ChromeOS is different and not for everyone, but it's not just for non-professionals or employees of Google.

 

It's not really fair to compare Canva and Windows. I understand the appeal of browser-based software, but am not sure how many companies would go fully cloud for the OS, either for connectivity back to some on-prem resource, because they're change-adverse, or because they don't have the resource to change. Maybe this is different post-2020 though.

[Zoom7000]

Sorry to go of topic but have you had any issue with DPIA with Canva? I was looking at it but all their servers are in the US and they didn't seem to have any GDPR provision.

 

Canva - Privacy Policy

[Zoom7000]

It's not really fair to compare Canva and Windows. I understand the appeal of browser-based software, but am not sure how many companies would go fully cloud for the OS, either for connectivity back to some on-prem resource, because they're change-adverse, or because they don't have the resource to change. Maybe this is different post-2020 though.

 

I wasn't comparing software to the OS. I was saying that 100% cloud based software is future. It's not just an appeal. ChromeOS is used by 1000s of companies worldwide. As much as people keep saying "you can't include Google in that example" the question is why not? They are one of the world's largest companies and have vastly greater challenges than most. If ChromeOS & Chromebooks are suitable for them, I can't see how it can't be considered an "Enterprise or educational grade" operating system.

 

No one is saying you must run just Windows, macOS or ChromeOS only. Most organisations will have a mixed environment of sorts for some time to come. But to suggest that ChromeOS is not enterprise grade is wholly mistaken in my opinion.

[paulkerton]

But to suggest that ChromeOS is not enterprise grade is wholly mistaken in my opinion.

 

I don't think it's mistaken, I think it's plainly wrong! If Chrome and Workspace and other Google solutions are good enough for Randstad, Village Hotels, Morissons, DFS, McLaren, PWC, BBVA, Ocado, Roche, Rentokil etc then who are we to suggest all of those massive companies are wrong?

[DGardiner]

I don't think it's mistaken, I think it's plainly wrong! If Chrome and Workspace and other Google solutions are good enough for Randstad, Village Hotels, Morissons, DFS, McLaren, PWC, BBVA, Ocado, Roche, Rentokil etc then who are we to suggest all of those massive companies are wrong?

 

i mean its not like a decent portion of thems workflow is Log into computer, open chrome...... how would we. remove a step

[SimplyJade]

I don't think it's mistaken, I think it's plainly wrong! If Chrome and Workspace and other Google solutions are good enough for Randstad, Village Hotels, Morissons, DFS, McLaren, PWC, BBVA, Ocado, Roche, Rentokil etc then who are we to suggest all of those massive companies are wrong?

 

I also believe HMRC use Google too...

[enjay]

Okay, a lot more businesses than I had realised use Chromebooks! I wonder if that's a post-2020 WFH thing, or if they've been doing it for a longer.

[Alastairb25]

I don`t suppose there is an updated version?

 

How did you do it?, shame the Government didn't think to provide it in a RAG format as the document is pretty useless the way it sits from the website

[simpsonj]

With some apologies for necro raising this thread, but I've created a template for DfE Standards that I thought might be helpful:

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GdgMr0xeeoo0TSog43AD2osTxDRu8EEs?usp=sharing

 

It has an Summary sheet that will pick up the number of RED/Amber/Green for each standard, and will pull through any strands of those standards that have been rated High Priority.

Each Standard is sperated onto their own sheet, and the explanation of each strand is available underneath the RAG rate by expanding the rows below. See screenshots for an example.

 

The Cyber Security and Leadership and Governance Sheets have a slightly different format as each has individual standards that are made up of different strands, and each of these can be RAG rated or marked as High Priority.

 

One thing to note is that I've only allowed for 3 High Priorities per Standard, more than that and the priorities won't show until you add more rows to accomodate the extra priorities.

 

Any feedback welcome.