Lockdowns

[DavR]

That sounds like a good idea, would you be able to share the script you're using to trigger the message?

I'll dig out the scripts when I'm next in the office. I'll warn you now, my vbs is a bit clunky, but, it does work.

[Michael]

Just wanted to touch on the combination of these two here

 

Utilization of the phone system/whatever other ability there is to provide the information for the full school is vital depending on the purpose of the lockdown. Especially in the case of the "crazy machete" type situation mentioned earlier: an internal issue needs to be communicated fully and as widely as possible with as much information given as clearly as possible for people to be able to make the best decisions they can.

 

Codenames are not a good system as there are too many variables at play where they fail: is every single individual in the school at that moment someone who has been provided information and training on the codename variants and their meanings? There are too many people who could be in the school for any number of legitimate reasons for that day alone that do not know the codename system for that school. Instead it is always better to provide as much information as possible and relevant/important to the situation in as clear and succinct a manner as possible. Is the lockdown due to an issue in the surrounding area that does not directly impact the school's ability to function outside of restricting outside access? Or is there something that is happening and teachers will need to move students from a specific portion of the building while others remain in place?

 

Any lockdown is going to be different from any other lockdown; creating a system that relies on fixed "If X do Y" creates issues immediately when something does not fit perfectly into those scenarios and causes people to have to process through their mental Rolodex of what they are supposed to do instead of hearing the information and responding accordingly.

 

Last piece to add on: does your system work when the office itself is unable to send the alert? Are the teacher's aware of what the process is for enacting the lockdown scenario? If you are using the phone system is it centralized to only a singular point being able to make the call to all handsets or is each handset able to do this? Have the teachers practiced making a call like that if they ever need to due to the incident originating in their class or area?

 

Exactly - you can't plan for every eventuality, but I'm not willing to discuss internal processes. Only I know they work and have been tested (just like fire drills) and do vary slightly from school to school as you would expect.

[DrBeaker]

We've got NetSupport Notify configured via vb script so that we have a big red button on certain users desktops marked INITIATE LOCKDOWN, which when pressed messages all workstations with an alarm noise and a message to enable lockdown, and another big green button LIFT LOCKDOWN that does a similar thing in reverse.

 

Between you me and the gatepost though, our emergency and lockdown plans were made over five years ago, never reviewed, we've never had a drill, and I doubt any new staff are even aware of what the procedure is. At this point I think pressing the big red button would just cause confusion and distress.

 

That sounds like a good idea, would you be able to share the script you're using to trigger the message?

 

Be warned that VB script is nearly EOL now https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/10/microsoft_says_vbscript_will_be/

 

 

Not being funny, the first time your inhouse script fails for whatever reason and there IS a lockdown - SLT will be pointing the finger of blame directly on you and the department.

 

Not that they appreciate your skill and ingeuntity in what is a damm good idea.

 

Not that they should have invested in a system with support and warranty etc.

 

They'll be looking for a fall guy to take the heat off their own failures.

[DavR]

Be warned that VB script is nearly EOL now https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/10/microsoft_says_vbscript_will_be/

 

 

Not being funny, the first time your inhouse script fails for whatever reason and there IS a lockdown - SLT will be pointing the finger of blame directly on you and the department.

 

Not that they appreciate your skill and ingeuntity in what is a damm good idea.

 

Not that they should have invested in a system with support and warranty etc.

 

They'll be looking for a fall guy to take the heat off their own failures.

Luckily, I have faith enough in our SLT that I don't think they would throw me under the bus if that did fail..... But I know for sure not every leadership would be quite as forgiving!

 

It's a fair point re vbscript EOL. It's something I've made a note to look at in my Windows 11 development.

[DavR]

So, below is the vbscript we use to sound the lock down alert. For some reason I could never get this script to run on it's own, so I bodged it by calling from another bit of vbscript - perhaps better scripters than I can fix that!

 

We've got some custom sounds added to NetSupport Notify, to add extra urgency when the message type "Critical" arrives - see p44 of the manual for how to do that - https://resources.netsupportsoftware.com/resources/manualpdfs/nsn_manual.pdf

 

As has been mentioned above though, it may not be worth spending a lot of time getting this working via VB, as that is deprecated now in Windows 11.

 

 

intAnswer = Msgbox("Do you want to sound a lockdown alert?", vbYesNo, "Lockdown Alert")If intAnswer = vbYes Then        'Creating the NOtify COM object        set pNotify = CreateObject("NSGatewayAgent.BroadcastMessage")        pNotify.AppType = &H100       'APP_NOTIFY        	'Setting connection details        pNotify.GatewayAddress = "[sERVER.FQDN]"        pNotify.GatewayKey = "[YOUR KEY]"                pNotify.Caption = "INITIATE LOCKDOWN"	pNotify.Text = "Please initiate lockdown procedure."        pNotify.Flags = 4380        pNotify.Timeout = 1800        pNotify.dept= "*"        pNotify.BroadcastFlags = 1	'Execute Notification	pNotify.Execute	msgbox "Lockdown alert sent"	set pNotify = NothingElse    Msgbox "Lockdown alert cancelled."End If

[DavR]

Ack, formatting has gone all screwy on that, sorry folks. If you want the full script DM me and I'm happy to share.

[Primus]

Luckily, I have faith enough in our SLT that I don't think they would throw me under the bus if that did fail..... But I know for sure not every leadership would be quite as forgiving!

 

It's a fair point re vbscript EOL. It's something I've made a note to look at in my Windows 11 development.

 

Just to follow this up - in the worst case scenario it wouldn't be SLT's call - a failure of a lockdown process/system could lead to serious injury or worse with all the external scrutiny that that would bring.

[mavhc]

We have wedges in each classroom to provide additional security if someone manages to bypass the room locks (they're a remnant of the "doors open for airflow" policy during covid, that's been incorporated into the lockdown policy).

 

Hopefully everyone is still keeping their doors and windows open where practical, reduce disease spread and increase iq from lower co2 levels

[DavR]

Hopefully everyone is still keeping their doors and windows open where practical, reduce disease spread and increase iq from lower co2 levels

 

Our site team are constantly going round removing door wedges as the doors need to be closed for fire regs.....!

[DaveTheTech]

Just to follow this up - in the worst case scenario it wouldn't be SLT's call - a failure of a lockdown process/system could lead to serious injury or worse with all the external scrutiny that that would bring.

I have a program to post a Teams message.

It was to aid in communication. But I added the caveat that it can break and isnt THE only way to send messages.

 

Teams messages can be posted manually and school telephones can be used.

 

 

I was told a staff member didnt know about the lockdown as they didnt see the notification.

Surely the lockdown alarm (same sounders, but different tone, as the fire alarm) wasnt enough??!

[CHiLL]

Not being funny, the first time your inhouse script fails for whatever reason and there IS a lockdown - SLT will be pointing the finger of blame directly on you and the department.

 

Not that they appreciate your skill and ingeuntity in what is a damm good idea.

 

Not that they should have invested in a system with support and warranty etc.

 

They'll be looking for a fall guy to take the heat off their own failures.

That's a good point. All of our staff workstations have the NSN client on them, so I'll make sure that our procedure includes something along the lines of "if you didn't get the popup on your screen, assume it hasn't worked and perform steps xyz".

 

So, below is the vbscript we use to sound the lock down alert. For some reason I could never get this script to run on it's own, so I bodged it by calling from another bit of vbscript - perhaps better scripters than I can fix that!

 

We've got some custom sounds added to NetSupport Notify, to add extra urgency when the message type "Critical" arrives - see p44 of the manual for how to do that - https://resources.netsupportsoftware.com/resources/manualpdfs/nsn_manual.pdf

 

As has been mentioned above though, it may not be worth spending a lot of time getting this working via VB, as that is deprecated now in Windows 11.

 

 

intAnswer = Msgbox("Do you want to sound a lockdown alert?", vbYesNo, "Lockdown Alert")If intAnswer = vbYes Then        'Creating the NOtify COM object        set pNotify = CreateObject("NSGatewayAgent.BroadcastMessage")        pNotify.AppType = &H100       'APP_NOTIFY        	'Setting connection details        pNotify.GatewayAddress = "[sERVER.FQDN]"        pNotify.GatewayKey = "[YOUR KEY]"                pNotify.Caption = "INITIATE LOCKDOWN"	pNotify.Text = "Please initiate lockdown procedure."        pNotify.Flags = 4380        pNotify.Timeout = 1800        pNotify.dept= "*"        pNotify.BroadcastFlags = 1	'Execute Notification	pNotify.Execute	msgbox "Lockdown alert sent"	set pNotify = NothingElse    Msgbox "Lockdown alert cancelled."End If

 

Thaks for that. I think I'm very close to completing a Powershell version of that. The main restriction is that is has to be run as a 32-bit Powershell command to access the COM object and I'm specifically having an issue getting it to accept the gateway key. The key contains special characters, including (but not limited to) brackets: "<", ">". It appears that it won't accept these as a string and throws an error: "Value does not fall within the expected range." I'm now stuck and so is ChatGPT and Gemini it appears, with both now suggesting I contact the developer of the COM object (NetSupport).

[ovenchips]

I've been having a chat with our ops manager at one of the schools I support and they're starting to put a lockdown procedure in place after never touching or practising it since opening. They've asked about IT solutions for alerts, and I'm stuck for ideas at the minute - we use Impero for classroom management and can send messages to staff via that, but the client is touchy at best and probably 60-70% aren't functioning on staff devices as they never restart their machines so most miss the test messages we've tried. We don't enforce Teams usage so few have it running (although I might start pushing this), and don't run any other network-wide software that I can think would help.

 

I see a lot of people using Netsupport Notify in here, would you say the price is justified if being used purely for Lockdowns in future, or does anyone have any other solutions that they've implemented for staff-wide messaging in this respect? Cheers

[mavhc]

https://www.edugeek.net/forums/internet-related-filtering-firewall/237755-internet-outage-phones-sending-broadcast-message.html#post2034754 will msg a set of computers in parallel, built into Windows

[MartinT]

Our school bells system uses Bodet sounders so the lockdown alert uses the same system except we send a voice message to stay where they are etc.

There are buttons in both school offices for trained staff to activate it, or we can kick it off.

 

Additionally, I have a lockdown slide preset to send to every IWB to immediately display on the screen, interrupting the lesson.

[PotNoodleTech]

basically your asking the same questions as we all have asked.

 

The problem is there isn't one bit of software that just works perfectly. Some do this some do that some are cheap some are expensive but nothing does it all perfectly for schools.

 

Netsupport notify certainly isnt perfect, but it is relatively cheap we combine it with our phone tannoys.