Heggy

@steve21: it's friday afternoon, and i'm a muppet at the best of times. Couldn't see how to create the template in Outlook, this link: Create an Email Template in Outlook 2003 - How-To Geek was the missing link.. This is working now. Knew it'd be something simples. Thanks for all suggestions.

@Steve21: I've had a play with Thunderbird to do template replies, but that's not going through. I'll have a play with Outlook at the weekend. @Caffrey: I suggested that to him, but he'd like to do the attachment, and he's the only ICT teacher i've met who is enthusiastic about IT, so i try to support him on the little extras where i can. @somabc: If i can't do outlook, it's time to breakout my scripting hat. Thanks all

Morning, Got an ICT Teacher trying to spice up his module, want's to get kids to send an email to a designated email address, which will automatically reply with with an attachment (a picture). The students use the picture in the next stage of the module. The thing is, i can't see a simple way of doing an auto-reply with an attachment. Understandably, the feature isn't an orthodox one in email services/clients. I've tried doing it in Thunderbird Portable, using a template email, but it seems to mix up the mime type when sending, so doesn't go through. Anybody done something simple to auto-reply to messages with an attachment? I can run the client program from my machine for the couple of weeks that he needs it. Thanks all.

Answered own question, bit more persistence with google: How to Add custom MMC "Snap-Ins" in GPO (Windows 2003 AD) : mmc, restricted, snap

By default, we deny all staff/students from running MMC. We've now got a situation, where we're planning on allowing 1 teacher to run 1 custom MMC on 1 specific computer. I was hoping to do it by setting: Admin Templates | Microsoft Management Console | Restrict users to the explicitly permitted list of snapins. and adding the custom snapin. But i can't find where to add a custom made snapin to the 'allow' list. Anyone know if i can do it this way/done it another way? Do i have to create a custom ADM file to get it to work? or have a missed a blindingly obvious GP setting somewhere? Thanks

We were on approx same grade. Although, my understanding is that if i take on MIS/Data-Manager duties, it's in a different (Admin) field, so my scale should be adjusted. Although i won't be asking/expecting that. Our bursar is on a higher grade, and head of admin. I'm going to go to our Bursar, and have a discussion. Thanks for so many sensible suggestions, I'll go down the 'train someone else, but I'll co-pilot this time' route. wish me luck peeps

that's kind of where my mind is going to. I've assumed it's because our only remaining administrator isn't on a high scale, and may struggle with the 'technical' side of doing it. I haven't done one before, so not quite sure what i've been let in for. I've just run a dummy to get the error's; things like student's primary language, travel means etc. Might end up having to fight my corner on this.

@sivadam: You were correct, we are a secondary with around 600-650 on roll. @elsiegee Fully accept your point, working in education, you have to be flexible. But this one is knowing where is reasonable to draw the line, i've never turned work away because my dept is too busy, i don't agree with the principle of it. But we have a dedicated attendance officer, a bursar, exams/cover, head's pa, administrator, finance etc etc etc.

Don't have one now that she's left, there is currently no Senior Admin which is why it's fallen to me. Our Bursar/Finance Manager is line manager to all of Admin, so i see it falling under his remit.

Our Data Manager has just left, she isn't being replaced. Her responsibilities have been divided up amongst the rest of the admin team. I've ended up with a few tasks, which i'm not over-the-moon about, but can understand (Creating reports, assessment, user mgmt rights, troubleshooting). One i'm pretty annoyed with: the Census. I can't understand why it's not our Bursar, with support of Admin dept. How many NM's have to do the census? If it isn't your Data/MIS Manager, who does the Census return in your place? I hate it when people pass of their jobs/responsibilities onto other people, so i don't want to do that if i'm being unreasonable. Should i fight this one?

Is that something particular to the way that Norfolk have gone about it, or are you not comfortable with MIS hosting in general?

Yep, Progresso i believe it's called. Looks interesting.

Norfolk have changed MIS provider from E1 to SIMS. Wanted to get a feeling of how many people are looking to move over? FYI, we're Serco CMIS but our Head is interested in migrating.

Our ICT Teachers want the simplest way of students creating a nice looking menu for websites that they are creating. They have used Fireworks MX 2004, but we've been having problems with it & can't afford to upgrade to the Adobe suite, so looking for a short term alternative. Preferably something with a wizard for creating menus/navigation bars. Something fairly cheap/free as it's only needed until we get Adobe Suite (6/12 months). Any recommendations? Or if anyone knows if there are plugins for Gimp/Inkscape/Paint.Net that would do the job?

JOY! The Rage. Somehow it fits my mood today perfectly.

Thanks for your responses, i'll have a look at the k9 stuff. One quick question, it say 'free for home use', As it's a School owned unit, does it still qualify? As for CyberSentinel, it looks like a good option, i'll have to get my reading cap on. I've spoken with our child safety representative, he's comfortable with getting the parents to sign off the responsibility as they are legally responsible for the student outside of school. Been trying to get hold of some advice from our LEA, hopefully that will shed some more light.

We have a small set of SEN Laptops issued, the main purpose being to aid in reading/writing etc. We're being pushed by parents to allow students on the Internet at home with these units, but it's new territory for us. So I'm looking at the feasibility of it: How do you cover ESafety/Duty of care when students use school computers with home Internet? Can we get the parent to sign a disclaimer, combined with a revised AUP, would that be legally binding? Have people invested in ESafety products before they've given Internet Access? I'm looking at small scale, can't really do Securus-style product at this stage due to a £0 budget for it.

I'm looking for some advice/gotchas/grizzled experience on things to look out for with a roll out of NetSupport School ( or classroom management software in general). We've just invested in NetSupport School (10.5), to roll out across the site. We've got a combination of thick & thin (Citrix 4.5, Server03). Can anyone recommend anything to look out for/problems caused (social/technical)? Anything you'd recommend doing before staff get their hands dirty with it? So far i've come up with: Disable Tutor from resetting Terminal Server box. Make sure encryption key is set for connection between tutor<>Student. Software restriction policy on students running tutor control. Password on Tutor startup. Ooh, and has anyone created any cheat sheets for handing out to staff?

Yep, tried the laptop on a couple of different ports on different segments of the network, tried other laptop on the same port, ports worked fine, laptop was the same wherever it goes. The image on the other laptops haven't had any problems, and this one was working up until a couple of days ago. Event viewer is clear, group policy processing reports nothing, inventory doesn't show any new installs. Think it'll be a ghost job, just curious to understand what's happened. I'll confiscate it for a while & post back if i find out.

We have one machine (xp sp3), which can get to every server on the network apart from one. It resolves the IP, but won't ping it, can't access it's webpages, can't get onto any of it's shares. All of these functions work on all other machines on the network to the server & from the source machine to all other servers on the network. There are no firewalls (that i'm aware of) turned on on source nor destination machines, although i suspect that's most likely. Nothing odd in the Routing table, no relevant exceptions in IE. Any ideas?

We've just done exactly the same thing (on a smaller scale) with Robocopy, worked perfectly.

We ran the upgrade on Monday, we've had a few issues with the noticeboard bitlet. Overall performance is in-line with 8.2, although that was fairly poor. We're not seeing the symptoms you describe, using ie6 & ie7 around the site. Not sure if it's any help, but when we had a set of problems on Monday i was recommended to do a clean install of EPortal, start services to build it clean, then re-apply any customisations. Server had to be rebooted before the Tomcat service was happy.

Do you have it running in an application isolation environment? or just working from a straight install? I don't suppose you have any notes on anything you had to customise to get it to work smoothly? It does take an amount of ram, but no worse than an extended IE session, our ICT HOD is adamant he wants to use it for creating menu systems, so an alternative seems out at present.

We're trying to run the Macromedia Studio MX package in a Citrix terminal services environment. We're having issues with Fireworks MX 2004, which appears to 'lock' a processor for anything but the first instance of it running on the box. We haven't been able to isolate anything from Filemon/Regmon. Publishing as an App & using Application Isolation Environment hasn't been able to resolve it yet, although we're looking at re-jigging our config. Upgrading the Suite isn't an option at the moment due to cost. Does anyone have Fireworks MX 2004 working in TS Server 2003? & Citrix?

We've just been asked if there are any reasons that our Year 7's couldn't give their email addresses to Year 6 students who will arrive in September. The idea is that they will mentor the new intake & this is the initial stage of establishing relationships. Our students are meant to answer queries & worries. The whole setup is being managed by the team which supports the new intake. We've advised that the parents of the Y7's should be sent a letter saying that we will be handing these out, if they have any objections to write in. I'll also advise that our Y7's should be given a once over of E-Safety guidelines. Are we allowed to give out students email in this way? Or is it publishing personal data? Both sets of students use LEA email systems which adhere to DPA/child protection standards. Does anyone else do this type of thing already? If anyone can share any experience of this, I'd be massively grateful. Are there any reasons we shouldn't be doing this? Thanks