TheHyperTechie

Same as @Norphy we do use it here, but not for communication between staff and parents - only for the points system. For external communications we use our MIS (Bromcom).

Yeah... anything Google related is not working. Chromebooks included. We use a transparent proxy, but weirdly if I put our "admin filtering" proxy on a device everything works fine.

Hmm, odd. I have seen it drop all settings when editing VLAN or IP stuff before, but I wouldn’t have thought that editing a port name could cause it. Could perhaps be a bug or glitch?

Would also recommend this newly released RM Infrastructure Health Check.

The UDM will automatically try to act as the controller for any device it sees that is not currently managed. That is why it is trying to adopt the switch. Do you remember which setting you changed before this started happening? Also did the switch have an inform URL set that pointed to a different controller at any point? That would explain why it suddenly looks unassigned and the UDM is trying to take it over.

You could look at something like Action1, which supports remote access for windows devices (also free for up-to 200 endpoints).

Yeah, we had to do it a lot - as we were onboarding schools at a rapid rate. Was much quicker than sending out a technician and manually wiping them/re-adding them to our system. I think the only caveat, was that you had to provide proof of ownership e.g. invoices, and serial numbers. Most of the time though the iPads were purchased from the same company that we used, so if all else failed they were able to track the serial number to an invoice etc.

To be fair, you may not need the old support provider to release them. Do you/school know who the supplier of the iPads was? if so, you could provide them with the serial numbers and ask if they can move them. We had to do this a lot in my old Trust when moving them from school level ASM setups to a central Trust level tenant.

an even better deal then! - Last price I got was around £460 for the laptop and then an additional £13 (for each laptop) to upgrade them to 16gb of RAM. Inflation though! The extra cost now, is worth it for the upgraded warranty (compared to the 3 years). Their support really is great, I have submitted issues late PM before and they have managed to come on-site for early morning the next day.

I wouldn't bother, they are a nightmare to manage. There is only a single MDM I am aware of that supports them - https://www.hexnode.com/ Not sure how well it works, but does cost. The few devices I set up (a while ago) were password-protected and had a single Amazon account with purchasing disabled (after installing the desired apps). Additionally, a proxy was enabled for student filtering.

Stonebook Pro's (I think they still make them). They are easily upgradable, have good support, 3 years next day on-site warranty, and are around the £500 price mark.

+1 Snipe-IT - host it on a VM (free) and away you go.

Similar to ours, my office is based in one of the rather "old" parts of the school - thin walls, old windows. We do have an electric wall mounted radiator in here but I believe it works via a timer.

100% Agree - Oh... but wait, there is funding, but in my opinion (and I think others) it is very poorly allocated. I know a number of schools that have been offered the CtC scheme that already have the latest and greatest kit. Meanwhile some schools are struggling to upgrade theirs due to budget restraints. I understand that it is down to the school to allocate their budget accordingly, but it is difficult to stretch an already thin budget when you’re choosing between essential maintenance, staffing pressures, and keeping the tech even remotely up to date. It feels like the funding model unintentionally widens the gap between well-resourced schools and those that are barely keeping the lights on.

We have the same model, been running non-stop for about 2 years with no issues. Mainly chose Synology due to their free "active-backup" feature for Office 365 and Google Workspace.

Hi, Never used PDQ before, but I assume you host it locally? GCPW, and Google in general can be a bit funny when you don't give it an IP address for example in RemoteAddress= try listing the IP address of the server instead of the DNS name. More than likely won't be this, but I have seen it happen before in similar situations.

We had struggled with this over the last couple of years: 1:1 in KS2, and we were experiencing multiple breakages every week. I decided that enough was enough and sat down with our SLT. We revised a plan, which included having the student and parent sign an AUP for the device, covering breakages and loss. At the bottom, I included a chart listing the type of damage along with the cost to replace it. If the parent chooses not to sign, the student will only be able to use a Chromebook at school (not at home). Cracked screen = £30 Water damage = New device cost etc. So far, we have had only three breakages (cracked screens). Two of these have been repaired and paid for by the parent, and the other was an accident. This is a huge improvement compared to the ~10+ breakages we had just in September alone last year. The obvious downside is determining whether a breakage was accidental or not. Luckily, SLT work closely with us on this, so they are usually very good at finding out. Most of the time, parents are also forthcoming, as they want their child to continue using the Chromebook to enhance their education.

Are you using separate domains for Office 365 and Google? where do your MX records point?

We had the standard subscription (one below Plus) before our new MAT moved us to a Microsoft setup (cries!) For me it was worth it, it allowed us to use GCPW and windows device management - this enabled me to remove their aging server. I also used the enhanced security tools a lot, along with context aware.

Yep. - Add temp domain - Promote it to primary - Update users, migrate items across from original instance (if you need to) - Delete the domain you want/need from the original instance. - Re-add domain to the single instance you want and promote it. Very frustrating, we had a couple of schools that had similar - like all of their devices and licenses in one, and users in another. No idea why they set it up like that though!

could be wrong, but I believe sadly not - a domain (and any aliases) can only exist in a single tenancy at a time. You would need to create a temp domain, move users to this, migrate files etc, then when ready - delete the old domain from the instance you want removed.

If you don't have the means to work yet, e.g. waiting for your kit to arrive - I would just do an audit of the site (assuming you haven't already?) Look at their network cabs, classroom set-ups, introduce yourself to staff etc.

+1 for Ricoh. We have 2 x IMC5500 and 1 x IMC3500 with them. We essentially use their own version of papercut called Ricoh cloud print. They have been solid for us, they have the occasional issue, but support are always quick to come out.