TechMonkey

Snap with Sharp. We have a contract direct with them and the last major tender, they blew the competition out of the water.

It has been a while since I played with VirtualHosts. Have you restarted the services after changing? I seem to remember Apache holding on quite tightly to the virtualHosts info. Are you able to post a sanitised version of your file?

I used to love the Movie Maker files they had brought in on a memory stick rather than the actual exported movie file and all the resources are of course on their home PC so no way to fix it

Testbase is used a lot here in certain subjects and there is a sister site for older pupils called ExamPro. I don't think it has all the subjects but may cover what you need. This is to use past questions, not sure if it allows custom questions.

Have any other schools that have actual nurses found a way to help them with the Admin burden? If using iSAMS it would be great but any general ideas would be appreciated. Things like automating emails to parents or any other time saving hacks. TIA.

That link seems broken Chanelle. Takes me to the BigMarker home page.

Google Chrome GPO has "Disable Developer Tools". But it would be very easy to prove incorrect as the audit will show what was actually shown. Effectively this is the same as taking a screen shot, editing new text in and claiming whatever. EDIT: Similar in the Edge GPO but it is called "Control where developer tools can be used"

Snap. We are getting a cloud based finance system this summer and as that was really the last use for RDP we are free.

This is the issue though, the engineers when you speak to them are top notch. But if you can't get to them it is pointless. I am losing my positivity about it all having had our failover die again after an update and been waiting nearly 2 weeks for anything beyond automated replies. I shouldn't have to chase, get my account manger to chase or email the CEO, for every ticket.

I think a lot is made of data migration and if you were cynical it could be thought that it is whipped up by certain companies to discourage migration. A lot of companies are making it very easy, in that their DB specialists will go in and get the data for you and they create routines to automate it. I had to do ours and it was easier than I thought it was going to be, even creating SQL queries so I could run them repeatedly. I also think the newer systems are so much more friendly than older systems that firstly staff buy in as they want something better and secondly, it is just easier to pick up. As long as you don't drop them in it, provide training and support most staff will engage. Really it is the development and integration after that which is the hard part.

But what about the initial install cost for SIMS? You aren't comparing Apples and Oranges. Take the setup costs out, they are a one off project expense. They are an "are we willing to spend this much to improve our processes and user experience" cost. Also, does that include any features available in Bromcom that SIMS doesn't have or you have to have a third party for? Does it offset any other costs? Not needing SQL onsite? Less hardware needed? Then, as I mentioned, user time, the ability to use Bromcom from home, or any device. £4,490 for SIMS compared to £3,901 for Bromcom is an annual saving.

I don't know what the first year cost covers, but any new MIS you migrate to is going to be costly up front. You can't compare first year costs to your current costs. Training, migration costs, setup costs all add up. It's interesting first year costs are over double, but I have no idea what that covers. Ask Capita for a quote for if you were setting up from scratch, and compare that. Looking at your ongoing costs and the new ones, you are saving money and I bet that is not a like for like, with SIMS having less. But again, not sure what the quote includes. You could speak to iSAMS, but I predict that will be either equivalent or more than the SIMS costs. Factor in how much time a better, web based MIS will save, and the costs are massively different.

I'm sure there was a report done recently (so with my brain, actually probably within the last 10 years!!) that worked out the average tech budget of schools and compared it to industry. I'll see if I can find it.

Bit off topic but is there any plan or roadmap to update Timetabler, to cloud based or even just modernise it?

Ohh I know. Just interesting he is so adamant.

Interesting that he is saying you have to use the format requested.

What do you want to achieve? What systems do you have at your school? Also, are you the history teacher or has the history teacher asked you to choose?

I'm keeping well out of it. I want them to take ownership rather than rely on us to dig them out of issues all the time. Though we all know its still going to happen

We have been with iSAMS for a few years now but this is the first year Finance have kicked up a fuss about when rollover is. Funnily enough, one of the reasons stated is that we are migrating to iFinance so they need to get the bills out of the way to have time to work on it.

There is this EduGeek.net - PaperCut launches new cloud-native print management solution but not quite ready for education. Coming soon apparently.

As above, PM and I can send a copy.

Hi all, does anyone manage to send out invoices before they have carried out their year rollover? Our Accounts department are adamant that they send out invoices the first week of the holiday, which means we have to roll over, but we have holiday clubs in so need to keep all the pupils as is or leavers details will be moved. Just wondering if there is an easier way to keep everyone happy? Many thanks

I have some traffic from that IP in my firewall, also as Bad External Traffic on port 53766. Not seen any bad side effects. Any can't find anything linking that port with M365 so I wouldn't be worried.

Depends, it could be someone running a server on Azure and scanning you or running some attacks, so Smoothwall is doing its job. Also just because a web address is set to be allowed in the filter, doesn't mean the firewall will let it through. Does the firewall say what rule it is caught by?

Can you give a rough idea how much it cost? I've looked at the HP systems before but presumed that as you have to contact them for a quote they are painfully expensive.