yusuf7 Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 hi, i was wondering if anyone has come across the issue of OFSTED being blocked by the BGFL? emails from both ways are blocked, sending and receiving.
alan-d Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 Not to and from Ofsted but we are having problems of BGFL blocking emails - especially those with the surname 'Young'. They haven't worked out how to adjust the filters yet! Call it into the helpdesk - they may realise that our problems are more widespread than they think.
Michael Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 You'll also find that BGFL block anything incoming from yahoo.com and hotmail.com, even if it's perfectly fine content wise. It's lazy filtering really.
Michael Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 A Governor from one of my schools wrote to BGFL recently and asked how are parents supposed to contact the school, bearing in mind a large percentage are going to use Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail etc... they haven't replied as yet. I'm glad it's not just me thinking maybe the filtering is just a little bit too OTT.
yusuf7 Posted October 6, 2009 Author Posted October 6, 2009 this is coming from OFSTED a governing body, very unlikely that they will be sending malicious content. we have contacted BGFL, they have replied by saying that they cant put OFSTED on some kind of white list, which would allow those emails.
CHR1S Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 L2ICT are having their own emails filtered out, it took me pointing it out to them to even realise! There are no warnings that emails are being filtered either. I have a call logged with them now, seems its not very high priority tho! LOL!!!
alan-d Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 this is coming from OFSTED a governing body, very unlikely that they will be sending malicious content. we have contacted BGFL, they have replied by saying that they cant put OFSTED on some kind of white list, which would allow those emails. Keep the case open and say you are not satisfied with their solution. You will need to supply them with example emails that have been blocked.
skysock Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 We are still waiting for a reply on why they are filtering ofsted communication surely as a goverment inspection body the BGFL should put these people on there white list.
machin05 Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 I don't seem to have hotmail.com emails blocked here. Just sent a test email from my hotmail account and recieved it without a problem. Strange eh?!
sparkeh Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 they haven't replied as yet. The answer is probably been blocked somewhere
CHR1S Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 The answer is probably been blocked somewhere I wouldnt joke, it probably has! So far I have had blocked - Quotes from companies Ive used for years. Lots of generic emails from L2ICT including the incident logs for calls raised. In school email from my office manager to me and vice versa. Important emails to the head about important things. Mail from staff private email accounts to school email accounts. Any email with an attachment that could remotly be a virus, zip/rar/renamed zip/rar. eReceipts of purchases online emails from myself to other .bham.sch.uk schools And those are the ones I know about in the last few weeks and not a single one was reported as being blocked and in some cases the email vanished all together and didnt get put in the filtered spam folders!
machin05 Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 I wouldnt joke, it probably has! So far I have had blocked - Quotes from companies Ive used for years. Lots of generic emails from L2ICT including the incident logs for calls raised. In school email from my office manager to me and vice versa. Important emails to the head about important things. Mail from staff private email accounts to school email accounts. Any email with an attachment that could remotly be a virus, zip/rar/renamed zip/rar. eReceipts of purchases online emails from myself to other .bham.sch.uk schools And those are the ones I know about in the last few weeks and not a single one was reported as being blocked and in some cases the email vanished all together and didnt get put in the filtered spam folders! Ouch!
alan-d Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 (edited) We've just had another blocked for supposed bad language! Not even the option to get it released! BGFL NOTE: Teddy is going in the corner shortly Edited October 6, 2009 by alan-d
localzuk Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 All I can say is - at least you know you had things filtered. When email gets filtered by our LEA here, we don't know about it until the sender complains via phone. We then have to contact the LEA helpdesk and get their bods to search their logs by hand to find it. So, I've lost a massive amount of mail over time, I now get people to send faxes for most cases!
pete Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 All I can say is - at least you know you had things filtered. When email gets filtered by our LEA here, we don't know about it until the sender complains via phone. We then have to contact the LEA helpdesk and get their bods to search their logs by hand to find it. So, I've lost a massive amount of mail over time, I now get people to send faxes for most cases! Same here. Certain LAs seem to believe that school email shouldn't be useful for actually carrying out school business. For critical "need this done next day" email that don't contain sensitive info I cc an account I can pick up on the iPhone - at least that way I know it got through.
witch Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 All I can say is - at least you know you had things filtered. When email gets filtered by our LEA here, we don't know about it until the sender complains via phone. We then have to contact the LEA helpdesk and get their bods to search their logs by hand to find it. So, I've lost a massive amount of mail over time, I now get people to send faxes for most cases! Are you with SWGfL? We have just set up a user and organised all filtered emails to be sent to it so that we can see what the problem was. I don't think it helps with things like hotmail but it does mean that we can see a bit better what is going on
localzuk Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 Are you with SWGfL? We have just set up a user and organised all filtered emails to be sent to it so that we can see what the problem was. I don't think it helps with things like hotmail but it does mean that we can see a bit better what is going on Staff email in Somerset is handled by the LEA/SouthWestOne. Pupil email is via easymail. So we get filtered email sent to an address for easymail but staff is a black hole at county level.
Michael Posted October 6, 2009 Posted October 6, 2009 The answer is probably been blocked somewhere I wouldnt joke, it probably has! Just to clarify BGFL appear to filter in two different ways (as far as I can see). Either blocking domains completely, such as yahoo.com so irrelevant of content the e-mail is rejected and the sender receives a postmaster message. The e-mail doesn't even get to the filtering list or the e-mail selectively gets added to the filter list by magic! It is absolutely ridiculous, because I bet the majority of schools in Birmingham have their enquiry e-mail listed in the header of all letters, but what's the point if the e-mail will get rejected?
pete Posted October 7, 2009 Posted October 7, 2009 Is there a Birmingham MP willing to chase it up? That does seem more retarded than most LA mail screwups.
alan-d Posted October 7, 2009 Posted October 7, 2009 The software is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. The problem is that it has not been configured to take into account the customers needs. When policy central was first brought out it was tested in schools and this highlighted numerous problems which forced a rethink and eventually a new version which although not perfect is adaptable to the needs of the organisation. It seems that prior testing on this product was skimped on and we are now suffering as a result. As paying customers Link2ICT need to realise that we are not prepared to accept a poor service and there will be consequences.
jamin100 Posted October 7, 2009 Posted October 7, 2009 Ha ha - I have my Policy Central emails blocked. One day it was working and then back around March sometime it just stopped. So now i dont get any PCE emails at all. . . Great!
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