michael2k6

It appears to be the webapp sat on the front end which is either performing not as expected or is overloaded in some way. That's hosted in Azure. The symptoms are similar to a DDOS but i'm not suggesting for a second it's malicious, just that it's a similar symptom. Not sure if they've got cloudflare infront of it or anything. Hadn't thought to use the teacher app, but you're right in that it's a different front end service so that's probably unaffected - it'd have been nice for them to suggest that as a workaround though wouldn't it. The reason it's classified as a minor incident is because the status is public and the reality of the situation is likely to be devastating to their reputation in the market. Unfortunate reality is that with so few players and such rapid growth as people move away from SIMs there's little to no motivation to do a good job of it. I wouldn't normally be this blunt or vocal but the amount of issues we've had since i've been in post only 18 months ago (not just full outages but things like reports timing out or taking forever and partially completing), I've run out of care for it now. I've staved off the SLT enquiring about a move to Arbor for quite a while but this will likely take the decision out of my hands.

Our experience is that it's so slow to load it's unusable. We've also had some 504 errors and timeouts. Latest update is they're making infra changes and so it'll be unavailable for the next 15 minutes (posted 08:57 so until 09:15 ish).

We've been looking into this recently. I have a mix of schools who have TVs because they weren't using the interactivity, and now new staff are asking for that interactivity, and a bunch that have the promethean panels but largely don't use them for their intended purpose. There are also some that have prometheans and do use them well, or ask for them and would use them. We don't have the budgets to go to promethean everywhere overnight and so looked at adding Vivi boxes to the TV's. Much cheaper combination but actually having seen the functionality at bett and thinking about digital strategy long term (in terms of not just the teachers using them but how the learners interact and immersive learning) I'm wondering if this might be the way forward in general. Early days but I'd recommend you check them out for a demo. Not to hijack the thread but if anyone else is using them in the classroom I'd be interested to know your thoughts on how they compare, too. https://www.vivi.io/

I was going on the Thursday with a colleague on the train. On Wednesday I think from memory trains will finish quite early as they have to be at their final destinations by a certain time. My wife who's a marketing manager for one of the train operating companies has said to me I need to be on a train leaving London by 3 on the Wednesday if i want to get home and it'll probably be busy if it's the last. So that rules Wednesday out for me too. Trains Friday morning will be disrupted because they won't be in their usual places the night before, so it's an option but might be disrupted. The reason that the operators won't update their site yet is because they haven't been formally told by RMT that it's going ahead. They have to give 2 weeks notice so that might not happen for a while. So for me it's a case of driving down, but if lots of people are doing the same for this reason parking won't be available.... getting to the point where it's just not worth it. There have to be ways around it i'm sure but it's just turned into a massive job.

Director of IT and Data Services. Director because it fits with the trust model and org structure for this post, IT and Data in that order as certainly at the moment the greatest need for progress and attention is in IT and not Data (specifically for this trust in our circumstances) and Services because we wanted to emphasise this is a service and not just a thing we do. Trust of 15 schools, 9 of which are secondaries / secondary 6th. One college on the FE framework and the rest are primary.

Thanks Lee, we've got our MSP on it and having exhausted our talent and theirs are now waiting on the senior Sophos team for RCA. Pretty certain I could cure it with a hard factory reset and restore but I want to figure this out before it happens when upgrading the firmware on the other 16 appliances. I do feel like it's unusual and I'm hoping a reconfig at Easter solves some of the problems, and the firmware with the bug fixes solves the others.

Currently sat looking at a bricked Sophos appliance. Experience to date sounds terrible but I'm new in post and so will give it a chance. Short version of this... Old version of firmware had an issue which caused the firewalls to go into failsafe and throttle traffic to the point of not being usable. New firmware version fixes that but breaks wildcards in rules. New firmware version fixes that but on loading it to the other partition, a couple of running services become stopped. Console stops working and web config becomes incredibly slow to respond. Firewall continues to pass traffic though so left it alone until this morning. Reboot into new partition, failed boot. Console connects but will only read, cannot send any commands. Including factory reset. At this point we're at the stage of using the factory reset button on the appliance but need connectivity so the old Meraki is coming out of the cupboard to buy us time. That's a snippet of experience to date. As I say though I'm new in post and the amount of problems I can see in tickets is wild... I'm actually wondering if there was a dodgy batch of memory or something that's gone into all of the appliances we have (17 of them purchased at the same time), because this can't be peoples day to day experience.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced IT professional to undertake the role of Lead IT Engineer at Nova Education Trust. Working within the Central Team and under the guidance of the Director of IT and Data Services, you will contribute towards the creation of transformational schools through the provision of a first class IT solution to schools. An overview of the technology operating within the Trust includes: Hyper-V, AD, DHCP, DNS, SCCM, Aruba / HPe Switching, Xirrus Wireless (Cambia), M365 (Sharepoint, Teams, Intune, Licensing), Sophos (XGS and Intercept X), EdTech applications such as Bromcom, PS Financials, Salamandersoft, IAMCloud, Senso, Papercut,Acronis, Barracuda. Working with the Director of IT and Data Services, your experience will help to define the systems and best practices we adopt in the future, and how to best achieve return on our investments to maximise the impact to outcomes for our learners. Your day-to-day location will be the Nova offices, but frequent travel to our family of schools is required in order to build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders and assist with escalated support issues as appropriate. Nova is in the process of appointing a partner as additional resource beyond our in school technicians, but there will always be those days in IT where a problem occurs, introduces a barrier to learning, and you have to don your cape to save the day. Other time spent in schools will be, for example, to share knowledge with and upskill our team of technicians or provide additional resource for large scale projects. No two days will be the same, but as much as possible will be planned in advance and centred around proactive support. The Nova offices are in the Sir Colin Campbell building on the University of Nottingham Jubilee Campus. This is a modern, purpose-built campus with many state of the art, sustainable and environmentally friendly buildings. It has facilities available to our staff such as a Starbucks coffee shop, two cafes, a convenience store, a discounted gym and plenty of outdoor spaces including a series of lakes. As part of the Nova Education Trust, you will enjoy the benefits of being part of our group of schools and have access to outstanding CPD, career development opportunities and our wide array of staff benefits and perks including dynamic working, salary sacrifice schemes (including car, cycle to work, technology), instant discounts, free parking and much more. About the Nova Education Trust The Nova Education Trust is a dynamic and growing Multi-Academy Trust based in the East Midlands. Our Trust group is committed to providing high quality education to all our students, regardless of their backgrounds. Our track record demonstrates our ability to deliver core goal achievement for every child. Our portfolio of schools covers both secondary and primary phases, working in a range of different contexts. Our high expectations are central to the positive ethos that we develop throughout our group of schools. Our motto is “Work Hard, Be Kind”. We believe nothing is more information than making a difference to children. To apply for this position please complete the online application on our website. Link to Trust careers page Link to job ad **APPROVED**

We have an exciting opportunity for a dynamic individual to join our IT Support team. The role will involve working across 2 schools within the Trust. Reporting to the Business Manager, the post will provide the day to day support for all stakeholders in the schools, and keep the school’s IT systems running smoothly with proactive maintenance. The schools and Trust are undertaking a significant investment and development in IT, where the Second Line IT Support Engineers (you) will be an instrumental part of the work. We understand and appreciate the speed of change in IT and are actively training all our Second Line IT Support Engineers with weekly updates, training, and discussions with the IT team across the Trust, online training through CBT Nuggets, access to Certification Exams, and options to complete Apprenticeship programs. Our aim is to ensure you have access to the tools and resources you need to progress to the next level. The successful applicant will also be provided with the tools they need to complete the job and support their professional development, this will include: Lenovo Laptop Work Apple iPhone About the Nova Education Trust The Nova Education Trust is a dynamic and growing Multi Academy Trust based in the East Midlands. Our Trust Group is committed to providing high quality education to all our students, regardless of their backgrounds. Our track record demonstrates our ability to deliver our core goal achievement for every child. Our portfolio of schools covers both secondary and primary phases, working in a range of different contexts. Our high expectations are central to the positive ethos that we develop throughout our group of schools. This approach is focused on securing success for all our learners and providing them with the very best life opportunities. Our motto is ‘Work Hard, Be Kind’. We believe nothing is more important than making a difference to children. To apply for this post please complete the online application on our website at Home | Nova Education Trust. Closing Date: Wednesday 2nd November 2022 at 9am Link to careers page for the trust: Link to this post **APPROVED**

Hi there Edugeekers, I'm back. It's great to see some familiar names still posting and active on the forum. I previously worked for (Serco) Advanced Learning, then Impero, before leaving edtech for a few years. I'm shortly returning full time as Director of IT and Data Services for a MAT, and I'm really excited to be returning. I've worked in a secondary sixth academy before and also at a small MAT, but it's been a good few years so I'm here catching up. I'll look forward to catching some of you in person at events, don't be shy! Michael

Agree with all of that. Archiving process just uses another CDB to connect to another DB anyway but tends to confuse staff. Give them a CDB to a live db and one to an archive and name them that way then it becomes obvious (we hope). Another tip is if you have a lot of data and you're going to restore one into a live and one into an archive, do two data backups (and one template backup). You'll need to use the templates one twice, but when you restore a data backup and select only some of the datasets, the entire file is decompressed and processed which takes as long as restoring the entire thing (i think from memory a temp set of tables are created, the entire thing restored, the data moved or tables renamed, datasets not selected deleted - or something along those lines - it takes just as long as restoring all datasets either way). So it's much faster to run a restore file containing only the datasets you want - even if you've told it to ignore the others.

Oh hello there, this username's not been used in a while! Had to do a password reset. After working for Advanced Learning (previously Serco Learning) for almost a decade (with a couple of years in schools in between), I moved businesses over a year ago. I'll be more than happy to give you a hand though, for a good while I was the chap that would turn up on site for the installs and migrations which is why you're finding threads in my name. What Matt said is spot on, if you have any UDFs you'll need to ensure that you validate your UDFs after template restore and before data restore otherwise your UDF data won't have a field to restore into. Also, when you take the backups and select templates, you do not need to select any datasets. The individual datasets grey out but when I left, if you clicked select all, the datasets were still selected and you actually ended up with a data backup rather than the templates, which most don't realise until it's too late and they're restored into the new db. I'll more than happily give you some help and advice on this process, without warranty as it's over a year since I left the business and over two years since I last used Facility. I'll PM you my personal email address now. Michael

I've got a HtB with Halifax. They do 1k max buy in with £200 per month. You can only open one cash ISA per year which is why you have a problem. As soon as the new financial year hits, open a HtB ISA with 1k if you can and you're sorted. The reason I went Halifax is it's 4%.

Use this Fair Wear and Tear guides | BVRLA As a guide to what would be acceptable for wear and tear (unless otherwise stated in a contract).

Another vote for citizens advice. I am no financial advisor nor is my company, so take this with a pinch of salt but I believe after 6 years of last acknowledgement a debt becomes statute barred which means it's written off and is tough. So check that 6 years. The last acknowledgement would be when you notified the uni of leaving the course, at a guess. If it's over 6 years, mention that to Citizens advice too in case it helps. If it's just under 6 years, that might be why it's happened now (though I agree, it should happen sooner not come out of the blue).

Hi there, At the moment, our support desk is shut down for Christmas, open again on the 4th. I can understand though you may need support to get this up and running again before the 4th if that's when everyone returns. If you need some support with this please PM me your details and I'll get in touch. Mic Sanderson Advanced Learning

Hi all, I did see this thread and unfortunately, I can't help, as I never had much experience with reporting in Facility, but I have emailed the URL to the support team in case someone can help. Mic

I think the M62 has been closed since this morning between Lofthouse and Rothwell due to a lorry fire, which was bad enough that they're looking at resurfacing the motorway. There's also an accident on Leeds Road A61 Wakefield which means delays on bus services between Wakefield and Leeds of around 90 minutes delay - should give an idea of delay for other road users. To add to that, Doncaster Road in Wakefield is also closed due to an accident involving a pedestrian, which means Wakefield's broken too. And exacerbates the problem with the M62.

Well, that got me told. Up until a year ago, I was an on the job data manager, albeit not using SIMS, as I mentioned. I'm genuinely sorry you found my post insulting, it was absolutely intended with the greatest of respect, I was just trying to be helpful. Unfortunately I see on a weekly basis people making decisions for potentially the wrong reasons, I ask exactly the same questions of people implementing our solutions; not just going the other way. I didn't post this really as an employee of any provider but as someone with experience, I only declared my employer because I feel it was right to do so professionally, and I've seen others criticised for not doing so previously. Again, didn't mean to cause any offence, nor did I mean to imply I'm the world's greatest knowledge on this, if I'd known your background etc I could have made some better assumptions, but I had no idea, for example you had 20 years of experience... I said what I thought I'd need to see if I were me a few years ago. I guess it's taught me a valuable lesson! I'll refrain from posting further on the thread in the hope it stays on topic and is useful for you, sincerely all the best. Michael

I've used Facility (CMIS), and Progresso in schools (2004-2006 and 2013-2014), and have been through change from SIMS to CMIS and also CMIS to Progresso (different schools), but do not have experience of other MIS. Just to avoid any backlash, I will make clear immediately I now work for Advanced Learning (previously Serco Learning), suppliers of Facility (CMIS) and Progresso, and so am biased. What I would suggest is that if you are looking at changing MIS, it must be because you're not happy with your current solution. If that's the case, write a list of objectives and measurables that you can use to ensure the project is a success, and also to ensure you can justify the change; changing MIS is not for the faint hearted, from any MIS to any MIS, it needs great consideration because of the reach to such a wide audience. In the post above, you've pretty much said this is what we do, can others do it.. . what I'd recommend you do is take that list of requirements, and potential improvements to process, including cost and time saving capabilities, and assess the entire market. The market is wider than your current solution and SIMS (to remain as unbiased as possible I shan't list them all), and I fully recommend you explore it completely; this is a process you only want to do once, for the right reasons, with clear objectives and direction. Michael Sanderson Advanced Learning

*slides in waving* I can echo what @JohnCondon said and also add that the exams team will speak to just about everyone for one reason or another (in my experience of working in schools rather than my current post), and so if they're on board and positive, they can make a great advocate to ease the change. I also agree with what Christine said and think she was probably just speaking from experience; the simple way I'd put this is that it's safe to assume each of the MIS available will cover the basic criteria else quite frankly they wouldn't be in business. How they achieve that, what they look like, the processes, and the strengths, will differ from one product / supplier to another. The requirements and priorities of each establishment will also differ. It's important, therefore, to assess the market using measurable criteria, which should be set out based on your own needs. Alongside that, take opinion from trusted and respected colleagues from reputable sources, such as those available here; just ensure you do both. On a slightly separate note, I did just discover that my company name isn't in my profile anywhere. I also have a fairly unprofessional username. That's because when I created the account, I was 17, and working in a school! Since then I've been in and out of a couple of businesses, including schools, but I've now added my current employer just in case! I do make abundantly clear the business I work for and my role on any relevant posts though, but I only do this when it's relevant; I use the forum as a point of interest and also to seek help where needed for things unrelated to my work (but still on topic), and help out generally where ever I can - I've been known to help with SQL before with users experiencing issues with other MIS systems (with appropriate caveats and transparency) because ultimately, we're all here (hopefully) for the right reasons; we're trying to be helpful, regardless of whether there's something 'in it for us'. That's certainly how I operate, at least. If I can help, I will, and I've been fortunate enough to receive plenty of help in return over the years, and also met some great people. Michael Sanderson UK Account Manager, Advanced Learning Director, Horbury Academy Car enthusiast Yorkshire lad

ePortal is served using apache so runs on 8080 and (i believe,from memory) 8443. Most schools stick IIS on top of that and serve it from IIS using port 80 or 443. Since Windows 2008 onwards where the firewall is enabled by default, port 8080 isn't allowed unless you use a rule. You can either download the documentation from Firstline and pop IIS on top, allow a firewall rule and use the apache ports, or configure apache to use 80 and 443 (i think you may still need to add a firewall rule in this case). That's all off the top of my head, I've not been in a technical position with Facility and ePortal in some years, but the support team would be able to help further on Monday morning. If you're stuck and need to get it sorted before Monday PM me and i'll give you / get you some support during the day. Mic @ Advanced

Your credit score will include total available credit (so say your credit cards are at 0 balance because you pay them off in full each month, but one has a 4k limit and the other a 10k limit, you have 14k available). SO that will affect a decision. If the bank lends you 9k of credit today, there's nothing to stop you using your other 14k of credit tomorrow, at which point you can't afford to repay it all. So reduce the available credit you have. It will also include credit accounts as a total. So for example, you have 3 cards there. If you also have a phone contract that's 1. If you have o2 refresh, that's 2. So that could be 5. If you have an overdraft (using it or otherwise) that's 6. If you pay car insurance monthly that's 7. Etc. Try to have as few as possible. If you've done the Natwest smart loan and they've said you're unlikely to get accepted, it doesn't affect you. But if you've been turned down for an application, the very fact you've been turned down may affect the rest of your credit for the next 6 months and reduce the likeliness of being accepted elsewhere (at least at a different rate). Best advice here so far, if it's possible is from mthomas. If you need a new fridge freezer, get a second hand one for a bit to put you on, and if you need car repairs, consider changing it, if that's feasible in it's current condition. you could also get online with experian or equifax to check out your credit score and see what's affecting it. You'll have to sign up but if you cancel before a month you won't be charged. Having been in a similar situation, i remain signed up and pay the £8 per month so I can just keep track of what's going on and ensure i'm not missing anything. Oh and ensure you're on electoral role.

It's defo 20 mins on mine.

If you're recording at 1080p, make sure you have a class 10 SD. Also look at the read and write speeds on it as they vary wildly once you get up to class 10. Best I've found is PNY elite at 100mb/s read and 75mb/s write. Never had a problem with those. Also bear in mind you can only capture 20 minutes at a time which is to do with the licensing or import tax or something along those lines - if it's a camera it's subject to a different amount than if it's a video camera. Keeping it to 20 mins (in the firmware / software, not sure which) allows manufacturers to price better as a camera.