Bev

Ours also go home, but there is a setting in lightspeed to say that if the pac file can't be found then just go out direct. It was driving me mad but the Global Proxy using a pac file is working. My pac file is extremely simple - it could probably be more complicated but it is literally function FindProxyForURL(url, host) { return "PROXY xx.xxx.xx.xx:8000"; } If the iPad is connected to school wifi, then it finds the pac file, and it uses, if it's at home it can't find the file so it ignores it and goes out direct. Looking at Meraki, if you tick PAC fallback allowed, then this should work in the same way.

I managed to fix it recently by setting up a pac file which is ignored if they are not on our wifi. You have to use this with a Global Proxy.

I haven't had an email, but I've just logged in and there is a bill sitting in my account backdated to the first date I ever used the system. I am 100% sure there was no mention of a cost when I started using it. Not impressed.

Some of the bulk actions are restricted but you can have an unlimited number of iPads. I had about 90 and didn’t miss any of the restrictions. It would be things like bulk renaming or setting wallpaper. You can still do restrictions and apply apps on bulk.

We used to use Pupil Asset but when we moved away from levels it stopped working as well for us, so now we use Target Tracker. I know our staff wrote some custom statements but it's a lot of work and easier if you can work with the included statements.

Our students are competing in the F1 in schools, and need to use Autodesk Fusion 360. I can install it and create free educator accounts, but for the pupils it says they aren't old enough to create an account, even though it says it's valid for Middle schools (which we are). It looks like you should be able to create students accounts but I can't find a way. I've got an account setup as an IT Administrator but it's not giving me any access to add other users.

i've done that, the links are still on the start menu but they don't do anything as the app is uninstalled.

I've uninstalled the office that comes with W10, and installed Office 2016 but I have 2 sets of links on the start menu. I can't seem to get rid of the original ones, they don't do anything but they won't go away anyone else encountered this?

Aspire are one of the two coming out this week so it’s good to hear positive feedback.

Mostly it just works. But it’s a concern that if it doesn’t we don’t have anyone to fall back on.

We have Huawei, and are looking to replace it asap. When it works, it works fine. But there is no support for it, the company who installed it have been bought out and the new copmany no longer support it and we have found a company in Leeds who offer support but we are in Newcastle and it's not practical to get an engineer up from Leeds just because the Wifi is down. You can't login to the Controller easily, and everything seems to be done via a command line interface, which isn't very handy when you are having issues. I've also used Ruckus and that was much easier.

Can anyone recommend someone in the Newcastle area who can come out and do an ICT audit, and make recommendations on new infrastructure. We are looking at wifi / server / filtering and independent internet connection. I've got 2 companies coming out but I'd like a third, definitely local, and preferably used to working with schools.

That's my thought too. I just need to be able to clarify my argument as the pro-cloud advocates are very enthusiastic.

Do what? Set up a traditional server?

The MIS is hosted on the council's server. So, yes, I assume Domain Controller, Active Directory, Group Policy (do these things even have a place in this brave new world? I have no idea)

Yes, we use apple classroom, and everything google. To be fair, we use the cloud a lot anyway. We need a new server and this has been proposed as an alternative, along with getting rid of the LA provided line.

Why? Because it's 'new' and 'the latest thing' and 'we should always be looking forward and not backward', it's supposed to make things slick and easy and we will have no more issues apparently..... I honestly don't know why but I can sense that this is going to be pushed at me unless I can find a good argument against it. We already have google email and use google docs quite a bit, but we still use traditional PCs and office as well. We will be a 1-1 iPad school in September, but the teachers still have PCs, and we have PCs in the ICT suite. I don't even understand the notion of a cloud based server, would we still be able to run software on the PCs and saved to a shared drive for example? Can teachers still use traditional Word on their PC, or is it just Office 365 in a browser? Staff hate some aspects of Google Docs but have really embraced the shared drive and all our shared files are now stored there making the shared folders somewhat redundant. We have a 100mg line, it's normally about 70mg but it's considered too slow when we have lots of students on iPads. I can only think that putting everything in the cloud will just make things slower. We are talking about getting a direct internet line (currently we go through the council), new wifi infrastructure and new firewall/filtering in place. I've used Airhead before, just for accessing gmail and sharing out pages of links but I wasn't over impressed.

I get the impression it's instead of a local server.

We are in need of a new server, and the head and ICT governor are keen on a cloud based server. I know nothing about cloud based servers and would like to know the pros and cons of this approach in school.

I changed my comment while you were replying, as I remembered I'd discussed this with lightspeed and the issue for is that the ipads go home.

The issue with a global proxy is it will try and apply it when the iPad goes home. I think the answer to that is a pac file, but I haven't yet worked out where best to host a pac file.

Mosyle is very good, I used it at a previous school. I'm now using a paid for version of Lightspeed and really wishing I was using the free Mosyle instead. Just not keen on trying to move all our existing iPads across to a new system.

No, I have been onto Apple repeatedly over the last few weeks. They are now acknowledging that we aren't the only people experiencing this but don't seem to know how to fix it. ios 12.1 is no better than ios12, in fact in someways it's worse. I've done loads of tests and found resetting the network settings causes it in 11/12 and 12.1, and if you resync the profiles and switch the wifi off/on, then that causes it but only in ios12.1, but what causes it to randomly happen I don't know, as noone is doing a network reset or switching their wifi off/on intentionally.

Our Computers are currently in foldaway desks which were very expensive and don't work very well. We are now looking to replace them with something simple, plain desks or benching and monitors on the top with NUCs behind the monitor. Any suggestions? We aren't looking to spend a fortune on the actual tables.

We are using Hisense 65in tvs, either linked to a PC with HDMI or AppleTV and iPad. The only issue so far is that you can't freeze the screen, so I need to train some staff how to use them in 'dual monitor' mode.