kaphc

Thanks for all the replies, v interesting to see how it works well in other schools. We're on Windows Server 2003 so not sure how the newest version of Exchange would be compatible. Also, it's really just the head's diary (and possibly the deputy head's) which would need to be on there .... I prob should have added the size of our school being a small primary with 150 pupils and approx 20 staff! So am not sure if setting up Exchange would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut if you see what I mean. synaesthesia - can you expand a bit on the "Built-in Windows Messaging stuff" ... where can I find out more about this? Our e-mail set up is very basic, it's hosted by the LA and we have to log in via a portal to access messages. They provide a kind of slimmed down screen and you can choose to launch the full Outlook client from this if you want - this then shows a calendar etc too. Not sure whether I will be able to get this to sync with anything though as it's all configured and set up externally.

Am interested to find out if anyone has got the calendar in Kaleidos working with any sort of PDA device and if so, which one? The reason is that our Head wants her diary to be available over the school network but also wants something she can take with her to meetings etc. so that she can check her availability and so on. Ideally, she can then dock the device and upload / download new content to and from the network. Setting up an exchange server and outlook seems to be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, which is why I've thought of Kaleidos. But am wondering if the technology is there yet?

I cut my teeth on Netware and have come to Windows Server late! Have found my way around most things and taught myself as I go along. What I really need to do is get a thorough grounding in profiles as these seem to be fairly key to the smooth running of the network. Things that are occuring that i need to know about include: - what's a roaming profile? what are the advantages of using this? how do I go about fixing error messages when the user logs in and their roaming profile can't be found? - how can I deny access to profiles? for example, all new users appear to be configured so that when I create them an account with a profile, the Administrator account is denied acccess to their folder on the server? Am happy to go away and read up about this kinda stuff if someone can point me in the right direction - but I guess I am looking for something that points to some real-world experience as well as just the theory! Many thanks in advance

Nothing else on the csv files thanks, but it would be good if the install instructions had more information on the expected format of the CSV file, e.g. what fields to include and what to name them etc. Also have noticed a small typo on the "Head Tecaher's Comments"[sic] in the Sections - not sure if this is local to us or not. Hope it's OK for me to pass these minor points on like this, I felt it would be overkill to phone them through!

Links to some of the presentations are here: https://portal.embc.uk.com/news/Pages/embcSpringEvent9thMarchpresentations.aspx

Our school has just purchased ReportPlus and I am in the process of setting it up. The help team are great - I have phoned twice to ask questions, been answered by the person who picks up the phone - so far, so good. Just going to try and import our pupils in from a CSV file now ....

The majority of Derbyshire are on Kaleidos as that is what the LA is providing support for. I've only looked at it briefly though as the usage of it is quite low here, others on the VLE forum have given some quite critical comments of it compared with Moodle.

Hi - wonder if anyone can help with this. We are looking at our headteacher moving away from a paper diary to something in electronic format so that it can be more easily shared with office / teaching staff. It needs to be something portable so that she can take it to meetings, and book appointments there and then. Then I envisage that she could bring the device back to school and upload it onto the network. In an ideal world, I guess this would be to our Learning Platform calendar, or if not, to something like Outlook. Just wondering in the first instance what other schools do, whether there is anything that works well that you would recommend? Many thanks

Would love to know if the information from the day will be available also.

Am just downloading it now to trial on our network and am looking forward to seeing if it is as good as everyone says! As a small network but split over two sites, it might save my mileage a bit!

Speaking as a parent, rather than an IT bod, my the interactive w/b in my daughter's nursery is much lower than this. Prob about a foot of the ground at the most. The reason being is that a lot of the time, staff set up activities to do using the whiteboard for the children to do ... they then have to be able to touch all parts of the whiteboard to do the activity.

We have a support called logged with our LA IT Support to look at this, but just wondered if anyone in the wider embc network has any experience of this. We are trying to create 30 generic student e-mail addresses at our school. We do not want them to have specific names, just [email protected] etc. etc. This will give them a bit of practice using e-mails which is all we want at present. Out LA IT Support has created a *.csv spreadsheet and imported the details in for us, however none of the accounts then have a username - though all have a password. So basically although the accounts exist, we can't log into them without a valid username. Anyone else successfully created generic e-mail accounts similar to this - what worked for you? Many thanks

Wow! All those lovely play-doh activities and sign-in sheets are gone! Who'd have thought it? Bit of a scandal!

That'll be why I couldn't find it in Active Directory then lol! Thanks, cookie Monster, will take a look at Restricted Groups and see if that will do the trick.

Our ICT Co-ordinator has asked to have access to be able to install software, e.g. a new font, drivers for a new piece of IT eqpt etc. As I work 6 hours a week, this seems like a reasonable request, given that we've agreed how to log what he installs for auditting purposes etc. I'm trying to provide him access to do this via another login which I have given more access rights to via Group Policy. However, given that installing software writes to the registry and c:\windows etc. I'm wondering whether this is achievable. Has anyone else got this working and if so, can you advise which group policy settings need enabling? I also thought about setting somethign up via a Power User, but this has been deleted from our Active Directory by the previous postholder by the looks of it. Thanks

I use the calculation tool at ProjectorPoint at lot as well and find it very useful. Four our teachers, the actual spec of the projector seems to be less important than the need for it to project the correct size image! It's a bit trial and error though, going throught the various projectors trying to find one that fits the board dimensions!

I haven't come across this particular problem myself, but know it is mentioned in the EyeProfile pdf support file that should have been installed at the same time as the software. Our software is installed on the other site at our school, so I can't pull it up and find it for you know, but it should be there. It is a known issue, and I seem to remember that the software support people word it as being the fault of the hardware, not of EyeProfile! Here's the excerpt from the manual, just found it online at http://schoolsportal.suffolkcc.gov.uk/schools/FSP/eyFSPUserGuideV3.pdf - page 30 "I keep getting an “Access Violation” error Another piece of software is trying to use the memory space on the computer that has already been allocated by Windows to eyeProfile. This is not the fault of eyeProfile. It is the fault of the offending software. Unfortunately, the error message doesn’t tell you which software is causing the problem, but experience suggests that it is likely to be a badly-written printer or other device driver. If the problem occurred after you installed some new device to work with the computer then it may well be that this is to blame. Uninstall and remove it and see whether eyeProfile works correctly after that."

Ah yes, just had a look on that thread. Am in two minds whether to let the teachers loose or not, spoke to the ICT Co-ordinator who thought the same. Will let SMT decide based on whether we have a robust AUP policy.

Thanks, sounds so logical and not like a dodgy workaround anymore!

If I was full-time I think I would do this, but I work 6 hours per week on this site, so they'd be waiting a while! Good point for something that might be reused often and by more than one teacher.

I had a request from a teacher about whether it's possible to allow access to YouTube as currently the filters set up (via Netsweeper) don't allow it on whatever level we are on (3 I think). Spoke to County to ask about this and apparently if we login via our county embc portal and then keep the browser window open, we can override the filtering and get onto Youtube (or anything else for that matter). Have tested this under my login and so far it works ..... but I'm wondering if this is a big can of worms I'm about to open if I mention it to staff! Is this usual practice across the embc counties?

OK ... so on the FAQs it says ... "New users are now provisioned with a two digit number after the name identifier? This is the new format for usernames and is the template for SUM, this cannot be changed. " But it actually can then - willl check out your video and not believe everything SUMS tells me. Thank you.

I created a new user on SUMS this week who ended up with 01@ as their e-mail address. I'm not at work at the moment so I can't check this, but I think I remember seeing something on the home page FAQs section about all new user e-mail addresses now being created in this format as a default. Whether this can be overridden or not, I'd be interested to find out.

Interesting ..... so UPN reconciliation had been done, presumably by County and I have decided that tinkering with the system is going to get me a lot further and a lot faster than reading the manual!

Not yet no, just gone into the new system for the first time and have been confronted with a 96-page admin guide to read. So that'll take most of my 6 hours per week time up then ...... Apparently we have to do a UPN reconciliation before we can use the system again , let's start at page 1 then and see what it says. How are you getting on with it as a system compared with WAT?