TechMonkey

On your CV, application form and/or cover letter you can put achievements at your job and often this is more credible than certs. Depends on the employer but doing is often viewed higher than theory. So managing an Azure AD for xxx number of users, setting up Intune for yyy devices. I'm not saying don't do the certs but more do them for the personal challenge and satisfaction. Unless you want to get in to a whole new field, say cyber security or cloud management.

Event viewer will give you some clue. Check Item-Level Targetting isn't somehow excluding them. Check share permissions.

They are definitely set as owners/teachers in the team?

I know a few places that do 3 months now. I think it is to prevent what you are discovering, the hoarding of data and then inevitable impossibility of going through it. I have heard the 15 months +/- a couple suggested above a lot in schools, for exactly the reason given. But proper documentation trumps hoarding.

So staff should be putting them in the MIS or the CP system, not in email. Email is not a storage system. As others have said, passing the information on if the member of staff leaves is bad enough but what happens if something happens to that member of staff suddenly. Almost certainly IT will have to try and piece their creative filing system together and make it available to someone else. Whereas if it was in the correct place then someone else can be given the appropriate permissions and they can be on top of whatever they need.

Could it be an issue contacting the MS file? https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/59943/ncsi-false-34no-internet34-status.html

I think we should all raise a glass to the cloud MIS teams. 2000 schools to Arbor and 330+ for Bromcom, and I imagine similar to the others, are a massive onboarding and ramp up of resources and I haven't seen any major performance issues being reported. I bet it has been a pretty fraught time for them.

Link doesn't work, just gives me the Guardian logo. Topic discussed here

When people say they are using CloudFlare free, is this an offer to schools or are you using the hobby version? I looked at it before and have to say I got a bit confused as there didn't seem to be a simple host DNS option. Many thanks

In some cabinets the racks are adjustable. Maybe able to slide them back and give your self more room. Depends what else you have in there.

Yes it really is. It is why having all patches live is not a great idea. I have had it caused by a dodgy NIC as well. I'm not sure if it has changed but it used to be that spanning tree would limit the issue to a single switch, stopping it spreading. This allowed you to at least have half a chance to find the area the loopback was in.

Used to be with Salamander, got Locker at my new place due to Salamander being booked up till November Both are great companies with great products. The only difference I can see is Salamander is more flexible and customisable, but you have to get their Techs to do the adjustments. Locker is more rigid but you have a nice GUI that you can make changes yourself.

The whole network.

Hub wise, if you have a big, modern Alexa or certain Google devices then you have a hub. Otherwise a Hubitat or Home Assistant (thrusting hips optional) maybe a good option, depending on level of tinkering or budget. As for the plugs, I'd say you'll never waste money on them if you get reputable ones. Always a use.

Any event viewer warnings?

Not going to be ready for a lot of stuff, backend bits will only annoy us. Going to be tight with somethings finishing up Friday. Massive jobs are done, new fibre runs and groundworks to accommodate them. New Wi-Fi is just about done. New helpdesk implemented and just needs tidying up and things like locations need adding. Moving users and devices to a single domain is getting there but won't be fully done. Not an issue, just an annoyance Big lecture theatre refurb project is going to be delayed as the company fitting the AV hasn't delivered. Not impressed. A batch of PCs has been delayed, meant to be 5-10 days but a single part has delayed it. May not arrive until the end of September. Trying to get new staff laptops built, as well as a large batch of Pupil devices. Pupil devices were from before I joined and they are consumer devices so won't SCCM and are AMD so AutoPilot not properly working. Joy. Saying all that, still in a better state than I thought we would be!

FreshService has it all built in, not using it yet but I would like to get it working to provide better transparency and accountability. May be OTT though.

I may be naïve but I don't see a difference between a voicemail on a PBX and on a cloud system. You aren't recording phone calls, just passing the voicemail in a different manner. If a caller doesn't realise you are recording a voicemail message then I'd question their understanding of a lot. If you have the ability to record phone calls it may be useful to add the generic line to your privacy policy about some calls may be recorded for training or for legal reasons, just to cover yourself if it ever does happen.

You can set a Role and then get Salamander to ignore them. I think we had a Contractor role set for this very reason. Not sure about VeriCool

Interesting that all of those are links to suppliers of backup solutions. & Yes I know that they all relate to the MS document setting out responsibilities, but my take on it is that this is MS throwing a bone to backup providers and CYA themselves. Are Microsoft really saying "Hey, get a backup solution because we can't be trusted with your data?" and on the flip side they aren't going to claim total protection as every company will be at them if any data gets lost. So, as ever, it is about risk assessment and risk management. Also how many using O365 backup are considering GDPR and retention policies? If you are backing up the data, are you being selective and considering what needs to be backed up or just backing up everything? Do your retention policies apply to your backups also? I'm not saying O365 backup is bad, but it is interesting the scaremongering that went around when MS published the shared responsibility and the push to get schools to do it, even more interesting that prices are now sky rocketing.

The alternative way to look at it is can they do any harm? If they change all their own word documents to jpgs then that is up to them. Anything serious should have the permissions set to not allow them to make changes.

Folder Options?

Think the English UK pack will add it, then just have to get it set to default. I've never found a satisfactory way to do it apart from get the build right.

I think it will be to do with the domain, not the specific email address. I have no knowledge but could there be a setting that will allow them to be used? Though you open the domain to be used by every pupil! Possibly setting up an enterprise app to allow nominated accounts?

With Ruckus I've always plugged them in, it has contacted the Director, got any updates, got the config and been ready about 15 mins later. At one point you did have to go into the Director and allow the AP to join. Think it depends on how it was setup. This would all depend on the VLAN being correct and any other security conditions being met.