jthompson

FormatFactory is another option. Can't schedule it but it's powerful for batch jobs. Just watch for 'extras' during installation.

Would definitely second that, particularly if we're talking about a SIMS server. So many bits to it besides just the database. The SIMS document server files, particularly.

Yeah it's a bit of a weird one isn't it, but the way I see it can just be lumped in with whatever other MIS costs you have, and gives the advantage of not tying your custom application(s) to any particular MIS. You could switch out SIMS for something else and your custom apps likely won't care/notice.

You can register with Wonde as an app so that you can query your own school's data. The price is something like £300 one-off with £10 per month to read data. https://www.applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud/services/585578085617074 https://assets.applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud-13/documents/708462/585578085617074-pricing-document-2022-05-17-1956.pdf

Not to feed into PowerBI, but we have various Google Apps Script projects which pull data from the Wonde API to feed into Google AppSheet apps via the AppSheet API. Super reliable. Waaay better than using commandreporter CSVs. Not too familiar with Power Automate so can't think how you'd be querying the Wonde API. If you're going to be doing it in PowerShell scripts, you'll want to handle the Wonde API key(s) securely. Either PowerShell SecretStore or Azure Key Vault would be recommended ways to do that, just so that your API key isn't sitting around in plaintext.

Same here. I've used ChatGPT to write some PowerShell and Apps Script functions, which I then generally just use as a starting off point for making something more correct. Stuff like constructing an API request: I get the bot the give me something so that I'm not starting from a completely blank canvas. I've never felt drawn to use it to write any documentation or emails or helpdesk responses, though.

Haha. Turned off in Group Policy since we first deployed Edge, because I'm a killjoy. It went the same way as chrome://dino!

Go me thinking now. A user can set one of their aliases to be their default sending address in Gmail. Gmail > Settings > Accounts > Send mail as. They add their alias address there and then set it as their default. That would allow your Head, for instance, to be using the longer domain name as their default, whilst others just carry on with the shorter one.

BTW, if you do add a user alias domain, you'll want to configure it with DMARC, etc just as you would with your primary domain name, since you'll want to protect it against spoofing and all that just the same.

It should be simple enough to purchase your new domain name and then add it to your Google Workspace tenancy as a user alias domain. That would mean that all of your users have a primary address (and therefore Google username) of [email protected] as they currently do, but they would automatically also have [email protected] as an email alias. By default, any email they send would be 'from' [email protected], but they could elect on a per message basis to use their [email protected] address as the sender address, should they need/wish to. https://admin.google.com/ac/domains/manage That's what we've done here from the outset, as we have a legacy domain name that is there are a user alias domain.

That's helpful, thanks. After we first migrated it was taking about 14 hours, so dropping us from twice a day refresh to only once a day, with the occasional fail. Quite a bit of tidying up of SIMS data by our data officer has dropped it to its current 8-9 hours. We've also got a few other sync agents running too, which I'm sure won't be helping matters. I do feel like we should be charging ESS for running the third-party connector on an on-prem server, not the other way around. We're paying for them to not run a cloud API.

A question for those using EduLink in conjunction with SIMS Connected. Assuming you have the EduLink sync agent running on a server with the SIMS third-party connector installed, what sorts of full sync times are you seeing for EduLink? We're seeing each full sync take about 8-9 hours now. Just wondering how [a]typical that is and where our expectations ought to be. Our SIMS db will be about 20GB (~1600 pupils on roll) and according to EduLink it's our exams data that's taking the largest chunk of time. Annoying that we're having to sync data from cloud to on-prem back to another cloud, rather than cloud to cloud, but that's where we are.

Has anyone stopped to think what Microsoft or Google want?! They clearly want teachers to be using 1:1 laptops.

I've only got 4 of those client IDs trusted. Of those, only two are of type 'web' (which is what it would be, since the other types are Android or iOS). If you click on an entry there, you can see a user count, which might help you narrow things down. They would need to be 'Trusted', since my understanding of 'Limited' is that that is just the publicly readable account data (email address, display name, avatar). You'd need Outlook to be getting deep into Gmail data, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, etc.

This is what I get. Adding two recipeints, one internal, the other (with orange highlight) is external but in my contacts. Once I click on to the body of the message, the external receipient gets an orange underline. If there was an external receipient who isn't in my contacts, I'd also be getting the orange warning at the foot of the compose window, like in your original post.

I think the various Outlook clients will be oauth clients under the name of "Microsoft apps & services". Enter that name to list a bunch of client ids. Which exact one your version of Outlook will be requiring is another matter, but you might feel happy to allowlist the whole lot (that's a decision for you). Signing in to Outlook 2019 here and "Microsoft apps & services" is the app name shown in my Google account's list of connected third-party apps.

There's no option available for that, sadly. However, once an external recipient has been added to a message, they'll still appear with an orange highlight regardless of whether they're in contacts or not, which I guess is better than nothing.

I haven't tested this, but looking at the options for rules, this looks to be what you want.

I once got laughed at here when I shared that we usually have a few spare staff laptops ready to go on demand to cover laptops being ill or left at home. You'll need to maintain spares if you're relying on laptops for teaching. We've also got a small fleet of old laptops running Chrome OS Flex that are handed out to supply teachers each morning, with a corresponding generic sign in giving access to the cover work shared drive. Teaching staff setting cover put it in that shared drive (from home, oftentimes).

I've recently (as in a few weeks ago) set up a Gmail user on Outlook 2016. This is what I would have done, if this helps you. On the Google account front, with IMAP access enabled in the user's Gmail settings page and 2-step verification enabled, you'd create an app password(https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords). It used to be that when created an app password it would ask you for the scopes that you'd be using it with (i.e. mail, or drive, etc.) but looking at that just now it's doesn't ask for that, just for you to provide it with a descriptive name. In Outlook 2016, setting up a generic IMAP account, the server details would be: Incoming: imap.gmail.com Using SSL Port 993 Outgoing: smtp.gmail.com Using SSL Port 465 Provide authentication (gmail user address and the app password) for both incoming and outgoing. One of them needs a "use the same credentials" tickbox to be ticked, iirc. Outlook 2019 behaves differently, in that it'll automatically steer towards an oauth Google sign-in dialogue. If your stumbling block is an error in a Google sign-in dialogue, then it might be that the oauth client (i.e. Outlook 20whatever) needs to be allowlisted in Google Admin (https://admin.google.com/ac/owl/list)

I would have thought that the Office web apps would be preferable to the Android apps on a Chromebook. That would certainly be my recommendation to end users. If the device is their own, they can use whatever Google account they want, and just sign into their school MS account in the browser. At least, that's the solution that will scale the best for you from 1 user to many, without you having to do anything at all.

I don't think this has been shared on here yet. Google announced their Chromebook Plus device category yesterday. https://blog.google/products/chromebooks/chromebook-plus/ Basically a badging up of higher-spec Chromebooks so as to reserve some features for them. AI features for improving quality of screencasts and video calls, more local storage for offline cacheing of documents, probably some touch/stylus features, generative-AI wallpaper creation. Hopefully not degrading the value proposition of vanilla Chromebooks.

Any discussions I've been party to around staff wellbeing on this front has revealed that allowing staff the choice to work when/where they want to but empowering them to not feel obliged to work out of hours is the name of the game. For instance, for some, the work life balance they want is to head home promtly for family time, then work once their children are in bed. The trick is to allow that whilst also empowering everyone else to not feel drawn back into work out of hours at all. My comment about working only in classrooms was a bit glib, but most of our teaching staff will be using their laptops outside of the classroom in offices or in meetings on a day-to-day basis. Also, personal devices to access cloud accounts does raise some issues. Yes, there's endpoint verification, conditional access policies, etc. but that's all an easier ride with school-managed devices where device sharing, additional accounts and recreational use is less of an issue.

"Do all of your work in a classroom", says man in office.

GPT reckons it would go a little something like this: edit: I think "Skylance" would've been a better name, but what do I know?