Ordering Stationary for Our School

[cms]

Hello there, 

We currently have a member of staff in our school who orders our stationary in for us and manages the stock, but they are retiring shortly. Whether it's temporary or not, the I.T. team will be taking on this role in our school when they've gone.

As this is new to us, does anyone has a recommendation for a stationary ordering website/portal/company with approval processes for ordering and the ability to only show certain products?

Many thanks!

[Ditto]

My advice is refuse. It is not an IT job. If you do, what part of your role gives? See devaluing IT thread! If you do take it on, it won't be temporary!

[bushby]

kick it back not an IT Job, should be handled by admin or Finance

[Boredguy]

When you say us, do you mean the IT Team's own stationary, or the school stationary?

 

If it's just for your department, then you have YPO, but your finance person should be able to let you know whom the school has existing accounts with (Would have said Consortium, but RM shut that down the other year)

 

Now if it's for the entire school. then I echo the comments above and decline and sent it back to the finance/admin staff as it's not an IT job just because it involves looking up information on a website.

[Garacesh]

Can only parrot the already existing comments. I know many IT workers don't want to be perceived as blockers but that's absolutely not an IT job.

 

Surely this should be left to each department to order as and when they need them? Things like reams of paper can go through reprographics and charged back to each dept as and when they need a top-up. 

[psydii]

Not an IT job. LOL.

 

I am disappointed by people's lack of vision here.

 

Managing stationary is the original IT job.

 

Pen and paper is a lower cost backup plan than replacing a keyboards or repairing devices. Infinitely quicker to deploy and requires no user training from you since reading and writing is literally the teacher's job.   It's so reliable that people will actually *want* the new toys you have in preference to those complex and hard to manage "computers" you've been pushing for the last 25 years; and it aligns pay of the IT staff to the skill level required! It's thinking outside the box. Its saving money. Its solving the long term IT problems*. It's a win for everybody*.

 

 

*opinions may vary. But I'm sure your Leadership believe it.

Edited May 5 by psydii

[cms]

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has replied so far. 

Just to clarify, I'm an administrator for our school's I.T. department, and as the current person in charge of the stationary also manages the printers, it has been decided that for now, this is an I.T. job. Any recommendations for a stationary company/website with approval processes for ordering and the ability to only show certain products would still be greatly appreciated!

[psydii]

Ahh, yeah, having an admin person on the team does open up for some options that don't usually sit in the IT Office. That does make sense, until all the "and... and... and...and-ing"  starts impacting on your ability to support the IT team in a timely fashion. Unlikely with "just" this additional responsibility, but things have a habit of snowballing.  Also with this one who picks up the work if you are off sick?

 

But to answer your question (or rather, specifically *not* answer...)  Services that offer menus to depts so they can request and then an admin can process, can (depending on how finance/ops want to account for time/value) to cost more, and the lack of flexibility ultimately frustrates people unnecessarily.  Here teachers just email a link to the admin for what they want, and the admin does the leg-work through today's "preferred" suppliers  to ensure best value.  The work is generally bundled / front loaded at predictable times, but obviously there's still a lot of ad-hoc purchasing gong on.  In terms of authorisation, the admin team are able to raise POs against dept budgets, but the HoD/Budget holder has to authorise them before the order can be placed. For things that need to go against a central budget, I'm actually considered the budget holder, so get to sign off on things. In fact, my somewhat facetious post (above) was inspired by an actual conversation with our SBM!

[Gibbo]

StationERY!