TechMonkey

When we had a redundant DC in Azure we connected via VPN so that the DC was part of the network and all traffic was secure between the VM and us. Not sure if this is what is being suggested or something else though

I guess the question is, as ever, what do they want to achieve? If they need access to onsite resources or software, then VPN will be the only way to do it. Finance or HR team may have legacy application on site and need it to work from home (though if using a Mac I doubt it is either of them!) If they just need access to documents, then I would encourage SharePoint or Teams migration. Currently doing the same process. Going to set certain network drives to read only so staff can retrieve documents but not update. Previous place we were completely moved to Teams and SharePoint except for finance and they were getting there.

Three dots and try "Reset Settings". We occasionally have the issue where you try and print and it just hangs. This normally solves it.

Fair enough, just thought I'd raise the issue. Do you do a full shutdown of the whole system when you need to update the hosts?

Just sticking my oar in, I'm sure you've thought about it, but with 1 Server holding all your VMs do you have plans for resilience and what to do for maintenance?

I was always told to keep the folders under a sub folder so \\SHARENAME$\USERNAME\Documents. I'm pretty sure you don't need to create them, first login will create them. But it has been a while since I did it. If I recall deleting the desktop.ini will clear all the folders being Documents. Again, my memory is a bit fuzzy but making your own desktop.ini and setting the security to not allow any changes shouldn't have any adverse affects.

I'd suggest you look at archiving, if you are on Exchange, and data retention policies and get some applied. Over 10,000 emails sounds a long multi year pile up and that could be a GDPR issue and a potential SAR nightmare!

We've started deploying VSDC. I've not used it in anger yet, but the Music department have been using it without any tuition from us so can't be too bad.

Without going into the security issues the biggest reasons for SIMS still being used is inertia and out side influence. In regards to inertia, any organization using a system will take a good lot of effort to move to a different system. Think of not only the migration effort, transferring all records, data, documents, etc, but also the training of nearly every member of staff, the updating of helpsheets and documentation and the loss of time while people move their mental models. There are also the number of systems that have hung off SIMS to do all the bits SIMS doesn't. It can appear to be an impossible task sometimes. Add to that the amount of institutional knowledge and experience that will have been built-up, it is understandable why there is hesitence. In regards to outside influence, schools used to be serviced by the LEA (local education authority) who would offer cheaper services and licenses. They would decide on the system they wanted the whole area to use and they would go along with it. This did give an economy of scale and meant there was ease of transferring data. Now neither of these should be the end of discussion to not migrate now, but they do explain why this position has come about. If you think education and SIMS is bad, look into banks! They have not only aged systems, in some cases even older than SIMS, but also multiple systems from bank mergers and take overs. These often then have another system to interface into the main systems. This is often the underlying cause to big outages we have seen in the past.

My experience has so far been that it is more trouble than it is worth. Once you consider VAT and pickup. I think one sale it ended up costing us money and one we managed to just break even. With the faff it would have been easier to just get a recycling company in. Also, what we think is residual value, what the leasing company may think is residual value and what the achievable residual value is are often wildly different.

We have had a few members of staff fall victim to this. Again deny installing anything. Unfortunately it was on InTune laptops that were (not) setup before I joined. Something seems to be going round but not had time to look into it deeply, mostly putting it down to users not reading what they are clicking.

I'm with O2 and Halifax and not had any issues. I do use the Halifax App though, can't actually remember if I've had an SMS OTP from them.

It isn't a technical issue, it is a technical solution is being applied to a classroom management issue that happens to use technology. What if a pupil brought a magazine in and read it in class? What if their way to hide that was hiding it in a text book? Extend that to what if the magazine was a Kindle? Same issue. Classroom staff need to be aware of what is going on in their classrooms. We can try and help to minimise issues but at some point it needs boots on the ground to do their jobs. Another way to look at it, you play cat and mouse for months over this, finally lock it down. Do you win? Are all IT classroom distractions banished forever? No, they will find another one to chase your tail over by the end of the day. Alternatively if the school set expectations, help teach kids to manage their time and understand the consequences if they don't then everyone wins! I know, I know, what a big hippy, fluffy, kumbaya answer, it will never work, have I never worked with kids, what do I know. Just a thought though.

You highlight in an interesting point there. Why is Discord part of the image on the new laptops? Unless it is being included for a different reason you have setup a circular argument there. You are including Discord on the image so a Discord helpdesk system makes sense, but Discord is in the image to allow the helpdesk. You will have to be careful with your instant online interaction. What about after hours? What if 15 tickets all come in? If you are touting this as instant access and you don't have the people to facilitate this then staff will become disillusioned. At least with email staff should be checking it semi regularly so know an interaction will be there, depending on your SLAs. Is Discord going to be part of the official school communication policy? Staff now have 2 places, email and Discord, to keep an eye on? Has that been OK'd by management? I hope you don't think I'm trying to be negative. I'll be interested to hear updates to the project. Can you post some shots of the reporting area, sounds interesting?

Looks like some good work and slick setup. From my POV it is a bit limiting. We use our helpdesk with staff, students, parents, even some external systems. Even if you only intend to use it with staff for now you are preventing yourself from even the consideration of expansion at a later date. Also how does it scale? I have no idea how big or small your school is but how manageable will it be with 50 staff on, 100, 200+? Demanding users setup a Discord account, however quick, just to log an issue with our systems seems a tad OTT. I know I would have second thoughts if I were a member of staff and I use Discord. For a small start-up or company or where Discord usage is already high this may work but I'm not sure it is a solution for a school. From a different, managlement, perspective, how are you going to report on your tickets? Can you get an overview on all tickets or do you have to go into each channel to see what tickets are there? Can you run a report on how many tickets were generated last term, compared to this term? What is the spread of tickets between sites/buildings/departments? What is the average time to response and solution? Also is it able to follow ITIL? Can it merge tickets or link them to an incident? What it boils down to is why is this system better or more usable than any other free system? Especially with the high entry barrier we have all pointed out. You have to consider it from your organisations perspective though. If it works then awesome! It looks better than a Shared Mailbox solution. But, and I hope this doesn't appear rude, it seems more like a justification to use Discord, and have it open, than a justification for a helpdesk.

THe native Windows 10 camera app, YAWcam or VLC would be good calls. Depending on the version of Office you have and the end use you can record into Powerpoint now.

Print them out, scan to PDF?

Powershell? From https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16534292/basic-powershell-batch-convert-word-docx-to-pdf

In this day and age, how often do you actually need to visit the server room? So not that big a deal. If there is an emergency, then teaching staff will have to accept that. If the outer room is big enough to be a classroom then that is a heck of a big store room and wasted space really. Annoying having resources taken away from you, but if the resources are not put to best use then I can understand. There is also the issue that we are only one part of the picture. Could the classroom be full with hoarded printers, monitors and copies of Windows 95, when a good clear out could condense the room down to a single row of shelves? What other room do they have? Schools are always after space for more offices or classrooms and we have to be accommodating unless it is not practical.

What are you after or thinking? That is a very broad question. We have moved some services to cloud but not all.

Ohhh tricky! Chunky white chocolate! And all the others too.

A12 is a 6.5 phone but well within your budget. It is our workhorse for work phones at the moment and seems to be well received.

Do OFSTED still look at the website? I'm pretty sure ISI now have the school upload the policies to a portal. Ruined my SharePoint warning system.

Thank you! But not got that setting.

Someone helpfully bought a batch of Lenovo Ideapad 3 Flex devices before I joined. I'm trying to get them built on the network, couldn't AutoPilot them into Intune as AMD fouled up their certificate implementation. Can boot using PXE and get into the WinPE but when starting the build there is no disk available. Opening the console and using DISKPART shows no disks. I can't find any drivers that would affect storage and everything when you boot up normally is using MS drivers or generic. BIOS is the most stripped back Fischer Price BIOS I have ever seen so no ability to see if it is AHCI or RAID. Any ideas or experiences?