TechMonkey

Only done the Pro versions and generally it is just run the install on the server, then upgrade the clients. We have normally done smaller jumps than that but from my recollection nothing major changed. Take a VM snapshot and go for it. Whats the worst that could happen?

Never had a problem with bulk email as long as it is done correctly and never had an issue with designing an HTML email that works. What do you do for parents that don't want to be bombarded with notifications but just want a weekly digest of what has happened and what is upcoming for next week?

One option is Adobe Spark. It wouldn't be in the email, you would still have to email out a link, but it does produce very nice end result. I'm pretty sure it is free for Education as well, you just have to sign up.

Have you got deletion after x mins set? EDIT: In Options > General > Hold/Release Queues there is the option to set Delete held job after x mins.

Looks interesting. The film was a bit disappointing. Any ideas where this is being shown? Standard broadcast or streaming service?

Maybe OT but wouldn't you skip 2016 and go straight to 2019?

We have also been looking, so as a warning we haven't used any of these in anger, just seen demos or had hands on. We looked at SchoolsBuddy, CHQ and SOCS. CHQ looks to be a brilliant system but we feel has a massive flaw in that children in a family are kept separate so there is no overview for a parent to see where they are meant to be at what time. They have to flick between a couple of screens. That isn't a deal breaker as the rest of the system does look fantastic and could outweigh that. The workflow and how the modules integrated and worked was really good. SOCS is a little basic and its flaw is that parents aren't users, the pupils are and if you want parents to look or be involved you are expected to give the parents the pupils account details. This means it also suffers from a more severe version of the flaw above, a parent can't see all their children on one screen. SchoolsBuddy seems really well thought out. The only minor issue we found was it was a bit less all encompassing than CHQ. So for example, in CHQ when a transport method is used for a fixture, trip or club an outward and return register is generated so you always know who is on the bus. So worse case scenario we know who was involved and who to contact. I think in SchoolsBuddy this was a manual process or that the way to do it was a bit of a bodge. But we really did love their integrated calendar and the way the processes ran.

We use Vipre Email Security, which was FuseMail, which was iCritical. Does what it should, never had any issues here and only had a very few occurrences of phishing getting through. Great for checking that an email left or entered our boundary at all. Does offer sandboxing, link rewriting and all that jazz, but we aren't using it yet as it is an extra cost. Looking at maybe moving to Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection as it offers extras at a tiny extra cost to what we are currently paying. Though undecided. No fault of Vipre, except the added extras are part of ATP at the cost we are paying now. Currently happy where we are though.

Deed Poll, get them all to change their first names to Mr, Ms or Mrs. Extra points to the bright spark that goes off script and gets it changed to Rev, Bishop, Rear Admiral or Lord.

What if we registered a while ago? Can I still get socks?

New and fresh content is the way to make people look, and this gets the important items noticed. One good method to try is finding sources that are updated and tioe into them. Does the School use social media or a photo site like Flickr? If so use those to get fresh content, using something like RSS. Use the Newsround news feed so it is safe but continuously updated. A quote, riddle or puzzle site with a daily RSS is a good shout as it catches the eye, even adding a weather widget will get people looking. All of that makes the screen ever changing (as long as your Social Media is updated often) with no effort on your part. If the screens really haven't been updated for 5 years I'd put forward a proposal to take them down and redeploy the resources. See how quickly they either sort out new content or just agree. If they agree, one less thing for you to worry about.

So you need to be very careful as just going 'cloudy' with no changes will probably end up costing you a lot, as transferring your server infrastructure directly to the cloud will incur massive expenditure. SIMS is a major example, it is an old school product. If the School is serious about going 'cloudy' then look to move to a cloud based MIS, where cloud is built-in from the ground up. Any MIS of worth will export to CTF files so you will still be able to exchange data with your LEA. As for DC, the two response are either why have a DC at all, or that is something worth having locally. If you are going full Azure you will use Azure AD and your Devices and users will authenticate direct to that. Devices will be managed using Intune, or something similar. If you are going hybrid having an onsite DC will solve a lot of issues. Ultimately you need to reframe the question. What are you trying to achieve? Cost savings, redundancy, home working? Then maybe take it a step at a time. Moving to OneDrive and Sharepoint will highlight a lot of flaws. List all services and software your local servers currently offer then see if there is a native cloud way to offer that. Ultimately you may still end up with a few servers on site for things like DHCP, DNS and services that can't be cloudified or are too expensive. As for redundancy you need to work out what your options are. Are you a school in the middle of a town that can easily have a redundant internet line come from a different exchange or out in the country where your current line took huge cost and much planning to install? Is the cost of the second line worth the annoyance and downtime of not having internet? Is it better to say that key office staff would be sent home to work from there and contact via mobiles? Or a look at backup 4g point? It is like Insurance, you have to weigh up the cost you incur by being ready against the costs you may incur by not being ready.

Have 6 and looking to push more out including at least one, possibly more, external signs. The biggest issue is formalising who is creating the content, as it should not be IT, and what is appropriate to go on there.

We try and go for a standard device unless there is a compelling reason/business case, for something out of the ordinary. So our desktops are all the same except a few have CD Drives and a much smaller group have much more powerful machines because of multiple monitors and because of the types of work they do. For future devices we are looking at staff devices we are looking at a price point of around £300-£400. We want to make sure the device is responsive enough that staff don't get frustrated and end up not using them (so no £250 laptops), but don't need to be super spec. We are approaching the rollout with a standard use case, internet, access to school docs and report writing, and that will apply to everyone including SLT. If anyone comes to us with a real need for a super whizzy need then we will consider it but I can't see any case that will be granted as there are enough PCs around the school for use and we provide Remote Access. This has been made easier by having the support of SLT, so no wanting the shiny and everyone else seeing what they don't have. We got some Surface 3s and a single Surface Book when the price crashed a while back but the price has skyrocketed so drastically that we would never consider them now. Lovely devices but hard to justify.

Careful with Securly as when I've looked at it it seemed very simplistic. URL filtering only, and although the suggestion is to use wildcards last I saw they don't deal properly. Categories are too generic, things like games does not differentiate educational games. Also no page modifications so removing youtube comments or suggestions isn't possible. DISCLAIMER: This is after the last time I looked and from talks with other schools who have used it, I am not a current user so these issues may have been fixed, just be aware.

Two very different things that you, but no one else in this thread, seem to be confusing. Email Signature Email Signing

I've had a few for various reasons. Course of action depends on what is being done. One time the whole site was going down, so may as well take everything down, maybe test shutdown/power outage and power up procedures. Another time it was just the Server Room area so we got a Generator in to keep everything ticking over and so the rest of the site could carry on. Communication is key, let everyone know what won't be available when. Build some contingency in, so you may think it will take half hour to get everything up, but give yourself an hour, or better two. I find bringing up virtual networks seems to take much longer than old solid networks. If it is going to be an early start, maybe take the network down the night before, saves you having to be up at the crack of dawn and maybe groggily pressing the wrong key!

Could be, fingers crossed!

We moved to OneDrive enmasse about a year ago and currently in the process of migrating our shared areas to Sharepoint. We have locked our old area and telling people to move only what they need across. This will last the academic year before the old are is closed off completely. We have done a lot of communicating and presentations about it so I think we are in a good place. Biggest issue is people not thinking about where stuff is, so they say that Sharepoint has deleted there work but actually they saved it somewhere stupid. I am coming down hard and putting all resources into investigating these incidents as I have found one person claiming it spreads so other use it as an excuse or we just get people saying it doesn't work. So far no reports have been Sharepoint issues.

Sorry, should read posts properly!

BoredGuy's powershell is probably the way to go but have you looked at the Teams Admin center and the policy section? https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/ I've not properly played with it but there is definitely a way to have different policies for staff and students.

This could be fun https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/22/microsoft_self_service_office_365/ Hopefully no one in a school will be that interested in all the add-ons. Might be worth giving the nod to whoever holds a credit card or processes expense claims to reject anything to do with Microsoft or O365 without IT's nod.

Just checked prices against what we are paying for CodeTwo and I would recommend looking at both. CodeTwo works out about £400 cheaper.

Yeah, send out scrappy bits of paper, a crayon drawn newsletter and information with poor spelling and grammar and see how well you do. Now one said Branding is a key focus for parents but it does present a professional front, so the School looks its best. Hence, you know, the reason for the thread looking for consistency and best ways of doing. I'm not sure if you have changed your drink of choice recently or need to mavhc?!

No such thing as Free in IT. There is always someone's time to take into account, if not the IT department then the people having to learn how to use it. And if you don't value your time, why would the school? It goes back to what people said early on, there is nothing wrong with Open Source software but you have to carefully look at all the aspects, of which time, support and training are major factors. Anyone that says the only way to go are paid solutions or the only way to go is open source worries me as they are not looking at the whole picture and taking all aspects in to consideration. It shows an olde worlde view of IT, back from the bad old days when the IT guy protected his domain with an iron fist, shot anyone down that questioned his decisions and used condescension and snarky as his two main weapons. Condescension, snark and memes, his three main weapons... Never mind I'll come back in.