mrstrong

thanks, that worked beautifully

thanks, so am I right that if a rogue actor got hold of the cert and opvn they could brute force a login? and once connected to a vpn the PC at home is essentially just another PC on the school LAN (kind of connected by a (very) long virtual ethernet cable)?

I'm hoping this is an easy one We use office 365 A1 plan, all in browser OWA rather than desktop outlook client Basically I need an email like say [email protected] that parents etc can send queries to. I want to allow several existing people to monitor/check this mailbox and also be able to reply, but when they reply I don't want the parents to be able to see their "real" email address if that makes sense?!

So I thought I'd use some spare time (now things are a bit quieter) to look into getting VPN access to school from home (initially just for me and maybe SLT at some point) As we have a smoothwall I started with this https://kb.smoothwall.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012413300-Setting-up-the-Smoothwall-SSL-VPN-Window-based-Client However I feel a bit out of my depth so will need to do a bit of background reading I think on certificates etc. I'm just trying to get my head around how this will work / what it will look like when/if I get it working: Smoothwall gives me a zip with 3 files: client (but can I use a different client e.g. one built in to windows 10?) .ovpn (settings file ?) .pem (a certificate ?) I use the client and enter AD user name password and boom, I'm "connected" to school ? So at this point my current home network is disconnected: I can't access any devices on my home LAN ? It's like I'm connected to the school LAN with a school IP, DNS etc ? So if I browse on my PC to a website is it going through the vpn to school then back out to internet? and can I map network drives to school server? and can I use mstsc to connect to my school PC desktop ? (much safer than forwarding 3389 on firewall ?) What about security though? It looks like by default smoothwall authentication is done against our on site Active directory. But some of the teachers passwords are not that secure and could be brute forced easily enough. How do others mitigate this when using VPN ? Can I just set it up so only my username with super strong password is allowed in ?

Audible free for some stories: https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

this is brilliant, really cheered me up this morning, literally laughing out loud!

Thanks, had a look at teams like you said now offered as shifts https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/get-started-in-shifts-5f3e30d8-1821-4904-be26-c3cd25a497d6?ui=en-US&rs=en-GB&ad=GB but can't find it in my apps maybe not included in office 365 A1 plus ?

Can anyone recommend some staff rota type software, preferably free / cheap E.g to plan school staff cover during corona virus. Currently teaching staff on 3 week rota: week one in school, week two on standby/call, week three off. But its done manually Something that allows you to put in staff availability (e.g. over easter hols) and spits out a few possible schedules ?

Thanks for all the quick replies. Just finished a quick assist session. I can confirm it works ok through the smoothwall. You do need a person (the sharer) at the other end to enter the code and grant permission. The only downside is when I tried to run msconfig (which needs admin priv) the screen went black with a pause button. Presumably to allow the sharer to put in local admin credentials. In my case they had wandered off so I had to wait until it timed out and I got control back. Not sure if there is a way round this (running commands that require admin), maybe some UAC or group policy setting ? I also installed teamviewer using personal free license and that is working very nicley to connect to my domain joined PC. If I need to get on servers I can remote desktop on to them just as I normally would (kind of a double hop, teamviewer to PC then mstsc to server)

just looking at my options: for accessing a PC/laptops on and off site where the user is present I'm looking into quick assist https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4027243/windows-10-solve-pc-problems-with-quick-assist hopefully will will work through our smoothwall any recommendations for how to access remote PCs / servers when no one present? In school I've always used Microsoft remote desktop (mstsc) but from outside school what are my options e.g. to get to the desktop of my school pc / the school server. Need something free and secure that will work through a smoothwall.

Mmm so I could be asked to do "childcare" ? Allready "turning" a bit here. Some staff saying not coming in monday. People talking about how they will get time owed back if they have to work over holidays. Teacher said currently they would not get paid if they took time off to look after kids (with a non-corona virus illness) Head suggested (joking ?) that if they say symptoms are cough and temp they could claim coronavirus and get paid I do worry that once the chancellor announces support packages later today people will abuse it and / or make fraudulent claims Early days I guess but the history doesn't bode well: Breaking the law during World War Two

Somebody in staff room just said as from monday we are all to be classed as child care providers, not educators. Is this correct ?

No news here re plans for next week. First spare half an hour for a while so checking these forums, as always a source of support. Spent all tuesday in class supporting cover teacher. Was quite glad to get back to (a mountain of) IT support yesterday

Thanks I'll take a look at "teams"

2 staff sent home last week, another two this morning, and another 3 will be off all week, so thats teaching staff 10% down and its not even 9am yet

Background: I've been asked to document all software in use in school, contract details, responsibilities etc. I've started a spreadsheet and its obvious I'm going to need input from teachers (often they purchase software without me knowing anything about it and then I have to support it but that's another story ) I thought about uploading the spreadsheet to my onedrive and sharing it to teachers to edit / amend but I think as it is a "shared" document this might be a good excuse to learn a bit about sharepoint and set up a site (I've been thinking for a while of moving local shared docs etc from our file server to cloud) Can anyone recommend any good resources / tutorials to get me started on the right track ?

no not using MFA, went with https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/exchange/exchange-online/connect-to-exchange-online-powershell/connect-to-exchange-online-powershell?view=exchange-ps in the end Works ok but every few commands I get e.g. and then prompted by windows dialog box to enter password again (timeout issue?) which is quite annoying. Is this to be expected ?

Have to say I agree with localzuk points / sentiment on this. Also, did anyone see that clip on the news with a pupil self isolating at home? They where watching the lesson via a live stream but not sure what tech they where using to do it. Can't seem to find the clip now, was it a devon school, maybe I dreamt it ?

We're on the free A1 plus office 365 and I need to to a bit of admin with powershell (calendar/mailbox/room permissions) What is the preferred/best method of connencting, I've found at least 3 ways so far e.g. Install-Module -Name AzureAD Install-Module MSOnline $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection (from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/powershell/connect-to-office-365-powershell https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/exchange/exchange-online/connect-to-exchange-online-powershell/connect-to-exchange-online-powershell?view=exchange-ps)

We use online, works pretty well most of the time. But you are right the online version is a bit of a social network and gets abused by people uploading songs / videos. Kids were using this as a way to listen to music etc until I figured out an easy way to block it http://www.edugeek.net/forums/internet-related-filtering-firewall/213567-how-block-scratch-projects-pop-music.html#post1829728

As I never get to go on any training and am generally too busy to learn about new tech in my own / work time I feel I'm falling behind a bit with all the latest developments. Whilst browsing over lunch came across https://www.dmsystem.co.uk/technical-seminars which looks quite interesting. Has anybody ever attended these type of events? Are they worth it or is it likely to be a sales pitch? Perhaps I'd be better just going AWOL for the day with a laptop starting eg here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/azure/

Just an update on this as was asked to look at it again. I noticed the online editor uses URL: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor whereas all the projects with music/videos etc are e.g. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/291427567/ so created two custom categories: first with Domain/URL filtering for scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor and second with Domain/URL filtering for scratch.mit.edu/projects Then add two Web filter policies: the first as allow and place that above the second as block. Seems to have done the job so far. Also blocked searches for [tik] and [tok] using instructions here https://kb.smoothwall.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003315799-Blocking-MOMO-Searches

Bump So when will I need to switch to KW count, 2020-11 or 2023-11 ?

I'm reviewing a pupils activity. After giving up on smoothwall reporting for now I've got my hands on the chromebook and can see their url history ok. However I can't see a way to export this. Is this possible ? Preferably from the admin console or if not from the chromebook itself ? Interestingly when on the Chromebook I go to "Manage your google account" then "Data and personalization" and "My Activity" it just says "No activity". Is there something I need to turn on in admin console to record user activity (sites visited, searches done, apps/docs opened)?

We mainly use office 2016 and have OVS based on FTE (i.e. mainly headcount of teachers) Just looking I can see the agreement as active with these dates: Start Date : 2017-12 End Date : 2020-11 Renewal Date : 2023-11 so now I'm confused, when will I need to switch to KW count, 2020-11 or 2023-11 ? KW count is at least double FTE ! (currently don't include teaching assistants under FTE but assume they would come under new KW definition ?)