gchivers

I have 3 schools who purchased the SIMS Teacher App for registers. I rolled it out to one of them at the beginning of September and we have had constant issues and I've yet to roll it out to the other two because of these issues. I have not had a day where we've not had an issue somewhere. We use iPad mini 2 using iOS 10 or 11 and the app either: - crashes - does not save the register - saves the register but appears as N or blank in SIMS - keeps logging you out - keeps asking you to create a new PIN Capita released an update last week to fix these issues but only the last issue has been fixed I believe. I'm keen to see if any other schools have had the same problems. Had Capita given us a trial I would have refused to have any dealings with the app.

Hi, On our WAN there are 3 mac servers (I know where one of them is) and at the time of the iOS7 release we updated our mac server so we could use the caching service. This did not allow us to download apps directly to iPads but it did allow us to download to iTunes and we used Apple Configuration Manager to distribute the apps. When using iTunes the download only worked 1 in 3 times, it seemed that Apple was sending data to any one of the servers so we only had a one in three chance of our cache server receiving the data. It wasn't brilliant but it worked. After speaking to another school with a mac server the suggestion was that whoever manages the external IP should have one single caching server which serves the entire WAN. A week ago, we discovered that we were able to download apps again, so whether someone at our council made a caching server or whether Apple released a fix I do not know. But what I can say is, a caching server worked for us. Do you by any chance have VLANS? As this I believe can cause issues.

We have updated our Mac Server to Maverick and updated to server 3.0, all went well without issues. We have turned on the caching server and some good news, our MacBook seems to now be downloading apps. We have also discovered two other Apple caching servers on the network. We only have one on site which suggests there are two others on the WAN. Unfortunately iOS7 still will not download apps. Does anyone have any idea how I can track down where the problem lies, there are so many factors but Apple do not make it easy to figure out where the problem is! Cheers

Hi edd_murphy, That is a brilliant bit of information. We have been doing a workaround by using Configuration Manager to install apps. We would have never thought our Mac Server could be part of the problem as I didn't see it in any way related to iPads. We do have a connection to the LA WAN, however we do have our own external IP. I will do a bit more research on this. Thanks, I really appreciate this piece of information!

Hi, On 18th September we had issues with our firewall which required it to be reset. Since then we have been unable to download apps on our iPads (iOS7). Initially we thought it was the firewall, however today I tested an iPad that had iOS6 on it and the apps downloaded fine. It seems that the fact the firewall went wrong the same day apple released iOS7 (also the same day we connected a lot of iPads to Apple configurator which forced out the update). Has anyone had this issue? We are stumped, we cannot pin down if it is the firewall or iOS7 or both. I have tested a few of the iPads at home and apps download without issues. desktops and macbooks download apps fine. Any help appreciated!

Hi, I have two pieces of software and the sequence of install is as followed: 1. Install software 1 2. Restart 3. Install software 2 A restart is a requirement otherwise software 2 will not install. However I do not want the system to restart randomly because someone may be using the machine and even if it did restart I need a way to automatically kick off the second install. My plan is to use SCCM to run a script to install software 1 then set a scheduled task to do a one time install of software 2 on the next restart. However I cannot get the scheduled task to work correctly. I have tried using the SYSTEM account however from what I understand, the SYSTEM account does not have permission to launch anything. I have tried using a domain account but the command is not accepted with an error of not being supported. Can someone help! Thanks

Hi Griff, We ended up buying the Sahara Clevertouch Fusion interactive table which was not much more than a SMART board/projector on wheels (the board couldn't be mounted on a wall). The good thing about the Clevertouch Fusion is that the mechanism allows you to bring the table upright with the touch of a button. Instead of buying a second board, we are using the Fusion as a board or table depending on requirements. The software provided isn't good enough for secondary education but we have found some useful free ones online and hopefully the BETT show in January will give us some options of what software we can buy. However as the table/board runs Windows you can easily install the SMART software if you wish.

Hi all, Thanks for the responses - they are useful! I have to spend the money before the end of August so I am looking to buy very soon but I really do want to make sure we make the right purchase. It seems that Sahara Clevertouch tables look pretty good. I have also looked at the Promethean ActivTable - anyone know what the software is like? I'm just concerned that it may not be suitable for secondary education, however it does run on Windows so we could always use other software and apps if needed.

Hi, Has anyone got any experience with interactive tables in secondary schools (11-16)? I have been told to look into buying one and I do have a budget for it. I have looked at SMART but theirs are aimed at primary level, Promethean seem to be aimed at slightly older kids but I do not know if it is really cut for secondary level. Are there any other companies that provide an all in one interactive table solution that would be recommended? Cheers

Hi PeterF, Funnily enough, I saw this feature earlier today on an unrelated job and wondered if that would be useful - I will try it out! Thanks

I have actually managed to do that and managed to get the teams to appear in order of scores (enter the score on the laptop and it updates on the projector/tv). I just wanted to see if there was something a bit more visually pleasing than excel but I guess it will do.

Hello, We have a sports day coming up in a few weeks and we want to put up a scoreboard using a large TV or projector, however I am struggling to find suitable software or apps that can display scores for more than 2 teams. It only needs to show a simple interface with points (with a bar chart perhaps) for 6 teams. Does anyone know of one? Perhaps an iPad app or a program or web based app? Because we are off site we won't really have an internet connection (although I could probably tether a 3G connection to a laptop). Any help appreciated!

Hi, One of our departments have just received funding for new tablet computers. We would like to go for the Samsung Ci5-2467M, however if we were to buy 15 we would need a decent way of charging them all. Ideally we would use a multi docking station which exists for iPods and iPads but I can't seem to find anything for tablets that are not Apple branded. Anyone know of any multichargers or good way to charge and store them? Cheers

Brilliant thanks, I will take a look at this. These are student machines and students do not have access to Mail, iCal and Address Book so that's not an issue. In regards to program preferences, again the standard preferences are perfectly fine for most people. We have done some testing and so far not had no adverse effects of these files and folders being deleted (manually). Now just to either redirect the folders or get them deleted automatically. If anyone else has a good reason why the Library folders should not be deleted I would be grateful to hear them! Thanks

Hi, We have an ICT suite of Apple Macs which have recently been put onto a Mac server, authenticated by AD. The Mac server basically locks down student accounts. However it has been discovered that for everyone that logs into a Mac, it creates a Library file in their documents which is rather large, between 150-200MB. Is this file necessary? It is safe to delete and if so will programs on the Macs continue to function - I would assume so as someone who have never logged into a Mac before does not have the Library file, the Macs just creates it for them. The reason we ask is because at an average of 175MB across 1300 users (all of whom will log into a Mac at some point) this uses about 225GB plus a further 2.3TB on our backups. We are thinking we could create a script to delete the Library folder upon logoff but obviously we need to be sure that the folder is not essential! Thanks