Tall_Paul

That looks handy, thanks. Looks like it might be a case of downloading the data from SIMS via CSV, using your script (altered to make it fit us) to populate the required groups in AD (and amend the required groups when required like at the end of the academic year) and then finishing with GADS to sync the groups into Google Apps. Still a bit of fiddling, but it'll (touch wood) work which is the main thing.

We have no choice unfortunately, our class data is held in SIMS rather than AD. If GADS syncs perfectly with AD I suppose I could faff around with using CSVDE to import the data from SIMS. I'd be interested to know if anyone else on here syncs class data between SIMS and Google Apps (and how you do it if you do).

This is, hopefully, exactly what we're looking for too. Our MIS is SIMS and our Principal wants group email addresses for every class (which change more than once per academic year too, a real pain). I'm fairly sure, given the time, I could have scripted something to do it but if this tool will do it out of the box then even better.

Me neither unfortunately.

Get your notice handed in! Put the cat amongst the pigeons.

I keep all our vital information in a password protected 7-zip folder. AES-256 encryption so it's pretty secure! It's also protected with NTFS permissions as mentioned above.

I have to confess this is not one of my areas of expertise unfortunately and I had the misfortune to inherit the cludge. I think VRRP is enabled but not MSTP and we certainly haven't got connections to each core from the switches and servers. Can anybody recommend anyone who could help us make sure our 5412s are correctly set up for redundancy?

We have two 5412's that were supplied by RM when the school was built (before my time). They were supposed to provide a fully redundant solution (so we could lose one switch and it wouldn't be catastrophic). However, the 5412's cannot be stacked, so it has no redundancy. Marvellous!

Already done that! It was reasonably painless I thought. Fortunately as part of the deal we will be getting someone to help us integrate all this stuff with AD rather than it just being dumped in a big box on our floor.

Well, we definitely will be getting IPads (a new Head who is exceptionally keen on them), so I guess I will be sharing your collective pain in a few months time (though I'm hoping it'll all go swimmingly).

I inherited a domain with a .local suffix so I'm glad I read this thread! A domain rename is out of the question at the moment and our Head is as keen as mustard on deploying and managing IPads with a view to them being the 1-1 solution for all our students. I shall be mentioning this to the vendors when they appear and see what they suggest. EDIT - Unless I'm being dim it reads like Apple have addressed this - specifically Some private networks also use ".local" domains for hosts registered with their internal DNS server, even though it is not a valid top-level domain on the public Internet. If your Mac is connected to such a network, you may want it to look up host names that end in ".local" by using Unicast DNS to speak to a DNS server, the same way that it looks up host names such as "www.apple.com" on the Internet.

We have our domain set up and verified and SLT have been using Google Mail since just after Xmas (incoming SLT mails to our Exchange server are forwarded on to Google). We'll be moving the whole kit and kaboodle over in August so I shall watch this thread with interest.

We have a good sized office between the three of us, but I think it might be being put to another use shortly (jungle drums have been beating). Not sure where we'll end up to be honest, but it can't be a broom cupboard as we need a fair bit of space.

School branded shirts with 'ICT Support' added, black combat trousers and shoes. When I was promoted to ICT Manager I made of point of saying I should wear the same as my technicians and the Head at the time agreed.

And beware, if you use VEEAM for backups, there is a problem with 5.5 Update 1 and NFS (which affects restores).

I'm getting a work experience lad from our current Year 11 in June too. I'm going to get him to shadow me for a bit, so I'll give him a tour of our server room and show him our network (both physical and virtual). He'll also shadow my techs for a bit then I'll get him to DBAN some of our old servers and get a lot of our old tat ready for disposal. He can also tear down some laptops and desktops and see how they work, and there'll be other things to do too. It's going to be a full week. No photocopying involved.

Windows 7 here too. I think our network is going to fundamentally alter over the next few years with a change to BYOD or one-to-one so I'll look seriously at a desktop OS change when that happens.

I think most providers will supply something similar. We've bought a bank of 5 days from Stem in Plymouth. It has proven to be incredibly useful.

We're part of a multi-academy trust that was set up almost two years ago. As has been said, I suspect every situation is different. It has made no difference to us at all and, from an ICT POV, we don't interact with our other partner at all (which I find somewhat bizarre TBH). Whether that will change in the fullness of time, who knows?

I've just spoken to NetHelpDesk who say they can help. Has anyone here any experience of any of their products?

If anyone has migrated to it from another helpdesk solution then I'm all ears. As I said, a vanilla install isn't the answer unfortunately (though it would be lovely if it was).

That's not a bad idea, but the problem is all our assets. Scanning them in took weeks, and I'd prefer not to have to do that again.

Ah, it's the migrating that is key to my question unfortunately. It'd be nice if I could start again, but that isn't possible.

What about migrating from a different helpdesk solution and bringing the data over? Also, does that do asset management? I couldn't see it in my brief look at the blurb.

A quick post to ask advice from my fellow 'geekers! We are currently using BMC Service Desk Express software which is installed on 2 x86 servers running Server 2003. We pay quite a lot in maintenance each year, and the software is also EOL. For obvious reasons I need to upgrade\migrate and am considering my options. I inherited this when I took the job and, while it works well, it is way above what we require in a Servicedesk software and is also too costly. I've had a quote from BMC which was, erm, a bit eye-watering. I'd like to implement a more slimline and cheaper Helpdesk solution but I think I'd need someone with DBA experience to extract all our current data from the database (it has all our old calls and also has all our assets listed). Has anyone here been through this situation before and can you offer any advice regarding both what Helpdesk software you moved to and how you managed the migration?