TechMonkey

Isn't MDT dead and not supported now? So, no new updates and won't support Win11.

Yep, I questioned this and the fact that we already use an SSO provider. If you already use SSO it will not be affected. The timing is wishy-washier than Wishy Washy in full panto.

One of the consequences of this could be more parents withdrawing photo consent, which if it hits a threshold, makes it very hard to use images at all. Suddenly any marketing or social media strategy collapses (oh no!) and a new one has to be created. This did come up about a year ago and I know it was discussed here, with the suggestions being along the lines of what has been suggested. There are systems that genericify people, but is it enough for a school to say that porn created from website photos isn't a real person, or is the damage done by having the school's uniform used in these pictures? It's a tricky situation as how do you account for scummy things other people will do, and how far do you go to prevent or counter it. As LParry says, if people could stop being scummy it would solve a lot of problems.

I keep having to bang on here that email is not a storage or filing medium. If an email needs to be referred to it should be exported or the information entered where it is needed. Problem here is that supposedly everyone is "too busy" to do any kind of admin and the SLT in charge of looking into it can only think that hiring a person to organise and file emails is the solution.

Sorry no. I probably wouldn't go for them as our staff like the ability to cast from their laptops and I like being able to manage settings centrally.

We have gone Newline throughout, their Lyra Pro screens. Solid with good features. They also offer non-interactive screens for signage that you can use with their MDM which is great.

In M365 there is a whole agents section, which I have been assured others schools are using really affectively for things, but I can't get any info about licensing needs, decent documentation of how to use them, or any clear idea from the staff suggesting them of what 'things' are wanted. It is frustrating as I'm sure they may be useful but there seems to be so much fud around with equally as much lack of solid information.

Can you plug directly into your Smoothwall or beyond? Doing a speedtest from beyond Smoothwall and then plugged into Smoothwall would show you any difference in speed. If they are mostly the same but much faster than from your desk you have a network issue, if they are the same as at your desk, it is your internet or beyond connection and if they are wildly different it is your smoothie

That is fantastic.

Don't disagree, but self-host could be cloud based. Just not using a company to do it all for you. Still not sure I would want to manage the website again, let alone technically manage it.

I'm sure it is possible. I don't have the experience or knowledge to know how production ready the output from these tools is. Alot of what I am hearing is that they are great for prototyping, o delegating out prototyping to less technical staff, but don't make great code. But you can run your own website now, cutting the cost. There are a multitude of opensource CMSs that you can self-host and use templates, or code your own with very little coding ability. Generally, the decision comes down to do you want the buck to stop internally or have someone else to take up the slack. If you are a one man band then it might be good to have someone else deal with the website to free you up to do other things. The question often isn't "can we do this?", it is "do we have capacity to do this" or worse, "if something goes wrong do we have the capacity to deal with it in a timely manner"

A couple of Android tablets? Or even phone handsets without the SIMS? TCL do some handsets that are £50. Not going to win any prizes but you can get 4 for your budget and replacing them won't break the bank

I've been with Insight for a bit. Generally no one gets close to them, but they are using the CHESRT agreement. I think Pugh can do the same.

Is it actual users or is it licenses? Don't forget as Education we get 40*FTE licences for pupils, so the system may well see we have 23000 licenses and mark us as large organisations.

That's not a great take though: We need people to buy a rubbish product from a rubbish company to make sure there is competition. Unless I am missing the sarcasm from lack of Tea.

Huh, that looks pretty sweet. I'm going to have a stab at mocking something up, as I have missed doing some coding in slack times, but if it is OK to come back to you once I have got frustrated and realised this is a much bigger project than I have time for

You have purchased the service from the MSP, it is up to them to deal with it, whether it is them creating the admins or them getting Redstor to create them. Worst case get Redstor and MSP on a call and knock their heads together, in the politest way possible.

Just to counter, we have just had our annual account manager check-up, have a health check booked in and issues raised have been dealt with. Support, I generally have great responses, but it does depend on the issue. Having used Smoothwall for 20+ years I can generally sort most issues out myself, so I understand, and appreciate, first line escalating my issue to second line. That is usual about how I communicate the issue and state what I have done and tried. In fact, the usual issue I hear techs moan about companies is first line holding on to the ticket two long. I do have an outstanding ticket that I am waiting on a response but that is down to it being a real interesting one that is hard to pinpoint so, being a tech person myself, I understand that it isn't going to be an easy fix. So in balance, support being in the gutter and having gone really downhill I feel are hyperbole, but as with all companies there are always improvements.

What are you trying to achieve by blocking it?

That would be cool. I've start fleshing out a database and now dreading the creation of an interface, then realised I would have to secure it and have users and then I scared myself away from it all!!

I got 3 licenses as one manager said it would help them massively, 1 to pass around and 1 for IT to try. I've used it for about a month and it is a nice to have. I wouldn't say it has revolutionised my life yet. but that maybe I just haven't found the right uses. My main uses are: - Checking my mailbox for if I have missed anything or for any priorities I may have overlooked - Tightening up documents, like policies, either in language or formatting. - Starting documents for me, to have a framework I can build up. I think it is useful and has made some of my output better, but is it worth the cost and has it actually saved me time, or just done things I wouldn't have bothered with before? Still not sure I have an answer to that yet. I did find the "prepare for this meeting" button this week and I think that will be a help, but again, more a time saver than an essential. The Director of Ops has been impressed with how he can use it to quiz data in Excel, saved him time in that. And that fits in with other things I am hearing from various sectors, that Copilot is useful to analyse, not produce.

Very random request. We have a three weekly menu that we display on our digital signage system and on the website. Currently the kitchen manager types up the menu, it goes to the marketing person to put in a template, then comes to us to convert into PDFs to upload to various places. Then of course something changes and we have to go through the whole thing again. What I would like is a web-based system that the kitchen manager can enter the weeks menu and then a UI that will pull out todays (or tomorrows, or a specific date) menu and display it in a pre-formatted method. This would allow any changes to be added by the kitchen manager and be live instantly, means the marketing person just has to design the template and the info will be slotted in, and we don't have to do anything at all! It would also mean other systems could reference it without any major faff. Before I try and cobble something together and reinvent the wheel, does anyone know of a system that does anything like this? TIA

Out of interest what issues are you having since v20? We went straight to v20 after a personal gap of using 3CX and I haven't had any major issues or found anything I couldn't do. But we are probably very simplistic users so not pushing the envelope.

Have you turned into a Teacher Dos_box? 😛

Looks a great tool but that is a scary amount of permissions it asks for. - Read all users' full profiles - View all content in tenant - Read, update, and delete all eligible role assignments for your company's directory - Manage Exchange configuration Are a few that stick out to me.