How many techies should we have for our site?

[tosca925]

Just asking the question to fellow collegues. This will be our set up as from September 2007

 

7 Buildings on one site connected by fibre backbone

40 Admin PC's

150 Staff Laptops

800 Curriculum PC's

16 2003 Servers

68 IWB & Proj

 

Website to manage

VLE to manage

CMiS & ePortal

Sims for just finance

Video Conferencing

EPortfolios to update

Exchange

WSUS

Sophos EM

Kitchen till systems

Media lessons studies to support

Podcassting lessons to support

 

 

Plus all the usual delights

 

 

With no proper training given what so ever by the school to any of us.

 

I will reveal twe have in a couple of days.

[bishopsgarthstockton]

I think 3 - 4max

[Geoff]

We have about half the amount of kit/buildings/etc you have. We have a NM, me the Senior tech, plus two more techs. However we also send one of the techs out on a few half days to primary schools (probably adds up to about 2 days a week).

 

Anyway, I'd err on the side of caution, so five (assuming your using 'tech' as a general term)..

[Ric_]

It also depends on how you manage the systems. If you have a policy of regularly replacing machines you will have little overhead from hardware maintenance - especially if they are always in warranty.

 

If you have a centralised way to discover and repair faults (e.g. NetSupport Manager), this also helps.

 

There is also the question of how much non-technical work you do... video editting, random MIS stuff, etc.

 

I am all alone and manage almost 300 clients (laptops, workstations and thin clients) but don't have any where near as many IWBs, etc.

 

So, assuming that you don't make life too hard for yourself, I would have thought maybe 2 full time and 1 term time.

[Friez]

We're running almost the same setup on 2 people. New suites and a VR suite to be built by the government for next year too. Still only 2 of us. Fun times.

[zag]

yeh 2 or 3 should cover that.

[ThatBoringBloke]

I'd go for four, but you're probably going to say two.

 

Two Full time and two Term Time Only.

[_Bat_]

Just asking the question to fellow collegues. This will be our set up as from September 2007

 

7 Buildings on one site connected by fibre backbone

40 Admin PC's

150 Staff Laptops

800 Curriculum PC's

16 2003 Servers

68 IWB & Proj

 

Website to manage

VLE to manage

CMiS & ePortal

Sims for just finance

Video Conferencing

EPortfolios to update

Exchange

WSUS

Sophos EM

Kitchen till systems

Media lessons studies to support

Podcassting lessons to support

 

 

Plus all the usual delights

 

 

With no proper training given what so ever by the school to any of us.

 

I will reveal twe have in a couple of days.

 

Do you mind if I ask where you work?

[djm968]

One “hands on” NM (paying him/her a sensible salary) and three technicians.

[bossman]

Becta guidelines stipulate that if you have a manned helpdesk and your staff are average IT literate (God help us) then you will need approx 1 technician to every 150 workstations. If on the other hand your staff are IT iliterate then Becta states you should have approx 1 technician per 50 workststions.

 

tosca925: Under these guidelines then i would say you either need 6-7 plus one NM or 18-20 plus one NM depending on how IT literate your Staff are.

 

If they are anything like ours i would think the latter but i don't think for one minute you have anywhere near what you need.

 

Good hunting my friend

[bandgeekmafia78]

We've got 1NM 1 full-time and 1 term-time PLUS 9 primary schools to look after. Seems to work fine, and we are a pretty massive school.

[sidewinder]

We have almost the same as that, although you have a few more PC's and double our servers

 

We have 6 staff altogether

NM, Me (sort of a senior tech similar to Geoff), and one tech are all full time

 

3 more are term time only. 1 of those supports primary schools, 1 of those does mostly classroom support and the other 1 is on site, altough he helps out primaries a day or so per week

 

So in essence we get by with 4 staff in terms of technical support

However we only have minimal involvement in SIMS and we dont have Exchange.

 

I would say 5 - 6 staff would be what you need there

[acrobson]

Under good old BSF we will have 1 NM at a central neutral point who covers 3 comprehensive schools when they are requested to attend site and on site 1 senior ICTO and an assistat ICTO (ICTO - ICT Officer)

 

Thats to cover approx

300 curriculum clients

30 admin

5 windows 2003 servers

75 interactive set ups

24/7 on call for conference hiring

and the rest!

[trekmad]

I would say 4 to include:

 

1 Senior NM

1 Assistant NM or IT Manager

1 Senior Technician

1 Technician

 

The two technicians would be involved in fire fighting most of their time leaving the required time to manage the servers and databases while managing the department.

 

Depending on the amount of lesson support you have to give this may increase to 5.

[tosca925]

Well there is two of us........and we cant cope or afford another tech :-(

[t_guest]

sorry misread post :oops:

 

5-6 sounds about right but try not to buy no more kit

[Sylv3r]

An awul lot of kit for 2 bodies - I would have said about 4 would allow everybody and everything to work effecitvly.

[MkII]

You're havin a larf Callum!

 

6 minimum - 4 would be just surviving.

 

Like has been said.. depends what you're expected to do. If you don't have general tech staff do all that for you you must be headed for an early grave. Either that or you have superhero costumes hidden in a closet somewhere.

[tosca925]

Thanks Mark

 

we used to survive but we are now slowly sinking. I cant cpe any more with it. Things are just not getting done as and when it should be.

 

As ofr new stuff, well we never get chance to try anything and everything is always rushed.

 

@callum

No offence mate but you dont know the half of it.

[acrobson]

"@callum

No offence mate but you dont know the half of it"

 

I agree, come on, 2-3. me thinks all theory and no trousers!

[kylewilliamson]

once you've worked with the "its got a plug on it, you fix it" mentallity..

[Oops_my_bad]

i think callumtuckey would be one of those who are good with the pursestrings

 

tosca: maybe you should tell the school to invest in a technician (or several) rather than any more equipment 8O

[Midget]

Unfortunately in alot of cases the only way your place will get an extra technician in, is to quit and force them to see how much work is required.

[simonat]

Your hardware and services quantities sound similar to our set up. The only main difference is we have 5 main sites, some 70 miles apart. We are an FE college which supports a rural community - South & West Gwynedd with approx 2.500 students 300+ staff)

 

My IT Services staffing structure is as follows:

 

1 x Senior E-Learning / IT Manager

1 x Network Manager

1 x Network Officer

1 x VC / VLE Support Officer

2 x IT Techs

1 x Information Coordinator / IT Services Helpdesk

 

We can't be every at once regarding sites, however the above staffing structure appears to be working well, introducing a full time ‘helpdesk’ made the biggest impact – We received a grade one for support this term by ESTYN, and at last, are receiving some excellent feedback from staff and students. Wasn't always like this! It has taken a major restructuring, three years of head hunting and finding the right staff, also 3 years of winning staff over to major changes in policies and procedures which was the most difficult.

[FatBoyFonz]

Becta guidelines stipulate that if you have a manned helpdesk and your staff are average IT literate (God help us) then you will need approx 1 technician to every 150 workstations. If on the other hand your staff are IT iliterate then Becta states you should have approx 1 technician per 50 workststions.

 

Sorry to drag up an old post but can you point me in the direction of these guidelines - been looking through the BECTA website but can't find a decent document stating any figures.