Zimbra Email BGFL?

[mtdmitchell]

Get a call today informing me That Link2ICt need to access our CMIS database to extract data for the new email system they are hoping to have up and running in Feb half term?

 

EH! did i miss something!

 

and why do they need my Cmis data? Surley they would use the data from SINA? right? Logins etc..

 

anyone in the know?

[Edu-IT]

I'd be wary of that. Surely just an encrypted export of first name and surname would be sufficient for them to create an email address? CMIS will contain a lot more data than this which they absolutely do not need access too, at least to create an email address anyway. Either than or provide tools for schools to create their own addresses.

[mtdmitchell]

Well for the username i would want it to be the same as our logins, which have 2 numbers at the end for the year they started.

 

cant think of any other reason why they would need data fo Zimbra

[jamin100]

Yeh, someone came on remotly last week (when i was off) and did the same. The secetary mumbled something about CMIS and Zimbra at me on Monday

[jamin100]

there is a document available now on ebriefing regarding zimbra.

[mtdmitchell]

i Read it earlier today and as suspected Link2ict have decieded to implement their own username's hence extracting the data.

 

Staff get a completley new email address from what they have now here (first initial of first name.surname) i.e [email protected] and studnets are ending up with 3 numbers i.e [email protected].

 

we currently use surname.first intial of first name+year of start i.e mitchellm09@ for students

and staff get the same except for the number. This is the same as the domain login. So no confusion between the two.

 

Opened a call with Link2ict as i cant see why i cant keep my current email addess, logins. why can they just extract the current username from SINA?

[andy_b]

hmm, 150Mb limit on staff mailboxes. That could be fun, several of our staff have "slightly" more than that on SINA.

[Michael]

I did query this last week at one of my schools. I was under the impression it was possible to export existing e-mail addresses and e-mail boxes and import them into Zimbra? It's also unclear whether schools are going to keep their existing domain names or whether forwarders are going to be put in place?

 

It looks as if everyone's going to need to forward everything manually to their new Moodle address from reading the e-briefing PDF. Why BGFL haven't done themselves some favours and included LDAP to integrate with Active Directory I'll never know, but I will certainly ask tomorrow if I have some time

 

I can't actually access bgfl.org, ebriefing or VPN successfully at the time of writing. Looks like something's bust?

[AdamK]

We only found out about Zimbra yesterday and moodle is also going to be provided.

 

My boss just been on the phone to them asking a load of questions and from the looks of things, we still don't get external smtp and they won't let us provide a list of usernames for staff or students as they are following BECTA guidelines.

 

The staff accounts are not going to be too much of a problem as it won't be too difficult to set up forwarders for them. But for the students, I would prefer their e-mail addresses to be the same as their usernames for our system.

 

Ideally we would like staff and students to only ever need one user name and password, going with the BGFL mail system and moodle is going to mean everyone is going to have two to remember. Students currently struggle to remember the username and password for the one account they currently have....

 

We are seriously considering setting up our own internal system now instead.

[mtdmitchell]

the problems we have had with Mymail , we have been considering setting up an exchange server for a while now.

 

but aparently Link2ict wont release the current domain to us.

[Michael]

but aparently Link2ict wont release the current domain to us.

 

I wouldn't expect BGFL to support Exchange Server directly, but they should make the necessary changes so all mail is forwarded to your internal Exchange Server. As for the web domain, if you do a 'whois' search, who is the domain registered to?

[rapid_f1]

we had them dialled in today to get data from cmis.

 

we do have an exchange server onsite fo staff only, so all staff sina emails are forwarded onto exchange. god knows how this all fits in with zimbra as they havent told us

[Michael]

There's an updated PDF you can view here. Scroll to Page 2 for a FAQ

[AdamK]

Has anyone else decided to go with their own solution instead?

 

We have quite a few concerns about the system they are setting up, so have decided to look at installing Zimbra internally.

 

In all honesty, we had been thinking of doing this next summer anyway, we've just had to speed up our plans now.

 

Adam

[alan-d]

We have had our own exchange setup for some time now. BGFL did ring me to ask if we wanted to provide details so they can set up zimbra for us to look at though. I declined the offer. Firstly because we have a system that works for us, secondly the mailboxes would be too small for some of our users, and lastly, if BGFL+ is no longer available our subscription should decrease.

[Michael]

What BGFL are doing with Moodle is definitely a positive move overall and a step in the right direction, however it will be impossible to please everyone.

 

My only concern with the guidelines is the new e-mail format recommended by Becta and adopted by BGFL. I understand the justifications behind it, but Becta and BGFL unfortunately have completely forgotten about the impracticalities of teaching younger pupils to learn and use e-mail. I know it's not just me that has this opinion.

 

Personally I think a more sensible option would be to make pupil e-mail accounts (for Primary, maybe not Secondary) internally available only and integrated with Active Directory. Half the battle is getting pupils to remember logon information.

[alan-d]

I agree - what BGFL and Link2ICT are doing with Moodle and Zimbra is a good thing. Unfortunately they came too late as we had implemented our own Moodle VLE and Exchange.

 

There was a time when BGFL were miles ahead of the others, now they seem to be struggling just to keep up.

[scubadiverhamster]

Hi Finally got my hands on Zimbra. All the staff accounts have been set up but only with 100mb limit - will need to check this out as documents said 150mb. Am also having to go through and set the first name, surname, display name etc etc. The system is set to "change password on first logon" - that will be interesting....... Students accounts are being set up my me but I have been warned I have follow the guidelines. The only concession I have got is that the last 3 digits I can decide upon so we are using 2 digits for year of entry and 3rd digit for form group. We are having the same problem with having another username/password. The logon is supposed to be ready for the single signon system they are implementing. We are all changing from BGFL Plus - single sign on for mail, VLE to 2 different systems - Moodle and Zimbra. So one would have assumed that the username would be the same for both. Wrong - I've been told the username format for Moodle is different because that is internal not external!!! We're having our Moodle training tomorrow so I'll find out more then.

 

The great bits about Zimbra are - shared calendars which work.

Being able to see when someone who is in your contacts list is free so you can schedule a meeting

Booking of resources

 

The bad bits are the current proxy settings don't allow Zimbra to send/receive external email. Apparently the change request was put in 3 weeks ago but hasn't been implemented yet

 

Have spent ages going through the accounts as above and thought I would finish it off tonight in the warmth(!) at home - what was I thinking the port is blocked from being accessed outside the grid!!!!! Oh well will just have to do it in the cold tomorrow.

 

Will update when I get more info.

Looking forward to hearing how you guys are all getting on

[scubadiverhamster]

Oh forgot to say RSS feeds work in there too

[CyberNerd]

The great bits about Zimbra are - shared calendars which work.

Being able to see when someone who is in your contacts list is free so you can schedule a meeting

Booking of resources

 

With the CMIS links, can the timetables be imported directly into Zimbra. I tried (but failed) to do that with SIMS - so instead we created a SIMS/Moodle Timetable module that just displays it in a block

[webman]

Some other notable features of Zimbra that are worth getting to know are tags and search.

 

The interface is fairly Javascript-heavy (which isn't the strong point of IE7 & 8), so to make the most out of it I'd recommend using a Mozilla or Webkit -based browser such as Firefox or Safari/Chrome.

 

We run Zimbra internally here in conjunction with Mozilla Prism. Prism is a single-site browser - essentially the Firefox engine without the peripheral tabs, toolbars and bloat. It also means we can give our end users a proper "Email" icon that just launches Prism pointed at our Zimbra install.

[scubadiverhamster]

We are a SIMS school. But there are no links to the MIS. They only wanted to extract the data so they would "properly" set up the usernames as a "favour" to schools. However, I am told there Moodle has a link into SIMS so that we can comply with the reporting requirement for September 2010. I wonder how well that will work......

[CyberNerd]

However, I am told there Moodle has a link into SIMS so that we can comply with the reporting requirement for September 2010. I wonder how well that will work......

 

knowing the author of the SIMS2Moodle module, it's likely to work rather well

[scubadiverhamster]

Yeh that sounds like good news. Hopefully that will be one more thing ticked off the box. Tell me more....

[Michael]

The logon is supposed to be ready for the single signon system they are implementing. We are all changing from BGFL Plus - single sign on for mail, VLE to 2 different systems - Moodle and Zimbra. So one would have assumed that the username would be the same for both. Wrong - I've been told the username format for Moodle is different because that is internal not external!!! We're having our Moodle training tomorrow so I'll find out more then.

 

Hmm so if I have understood correctly Moodle and Zimbra are not accessible with a single username and password (SSO) at the current time? This is going to be fun if that's the case. As time goes on I feel this isn't going to be a smooth switch over whatsoever. I hope I'm wrong!