jallsop

When we wipe them in Filewave it removes them from the MDM, and 'blocks' the device id and we have to go through and manually remove the device id from filewave lists, which takes an age.

Thanks Big Bird. We already use configurator and Filewave to manage them, but configurator does not remove installed apps, which is what we need to do. The only thing we can think of is to remove the passcodes and then restore to factory settings and then push through configurator and then filewave. A very long tiring process.

MIS (iSAMS) and Data manager required, Switzerland, to start as soon as possible. Salary information is confidential in Switzerland, but will be discussed with applicants invited to interview. MIS/Data Manager & Trainer PM if you wish to discuss life in Switzerland.

Hi We need to erase the contents of 80 or so iPads, so they can be rebuilt and handed out clean to new starters. Any ideas on the best way. Filewave MDM is used, but wiping from here means a real pain of renaming them and creating new Apple IDs for them all. Any thoughts?

Congratulations on the promotion. For me my jobs in terms of NM would be Inventory the entire network (if not already done) with purchase date an ambitious replacement schedule with slightly OTT costings, including any upgrades to existing cabling (often forgotten) that the replacements would benefit from. I would also outline the performance gains from these suggestions in terms of the impact in the classrooms (sell it in terms the teachers and bean counters can understand). If you don't have a ticketing system, get one. They've saved hours of time for us. Create new staff user manuals for the network/vle/mis etc if you don't have them. Offer training sessions to all staff on any aspect of IT, from using Word upwards. Use job descriptions to assign key roles to any other techs. Give them specific responsibility (but not sole access or knowledge) for different things (vle/mis/server admin) then create a human centric approach to appraisal which not only points out the next steps for the techs to take, but recognises key successes too. After a year or so, switch those key roles over, so each tech learns and handles everything over a 2-3 year period. Create and publish a termly, or half termly newsletter to the entire staff describing your work and the ticket solution rates you've managed. Check out and invest in a centrally managed printing system, using the same devices across the board. (Expensive to set up, but we've seen significant savings on running costs) Set up and use printing quotas, and link to tangible eco equivalents. (We use trees chopped down) Try to get you, and your other techs trained in something tangible, like MS or Cisco or whatever. Don't get caught in the timetabling and exams trap.

Hi I know iSAMS in theory can import GP untis files from two export types (phoenix and SIMS), but when we try this it doesn't seem to match up well. Does anyone out there know if their timetabler is using Untis and use iSAMS and have got it working. We tried Keith Johnson Timetabler but it simply isn't powerful enough for our needs. (I'd love Nova T personally as I know it works).

I've never seen the like before. How totally odd. It will take ages to retrain the brain to go above the keyboard for the track pad. Its as bad as the old mouse 'nipples' in the middle of the keyboard. Why would you think that the laptop design, that has been pretty much nailed for the last 5 years, needed such a radical rebuild? I just don't get it. You double the hinges, and you double the weak points in the design. The whole thing stinks of an April fools day joke gone real.

Oh heck, Our librarian is just about to complete on Eclipse.net from these guys. Are they really that bad?

Depending on the age of the projector, the mounting will need to be changed anyway. We had NEC ones for a while and they were all 4:3. New stuff is usually 16:9 or similar, and if you resize the image to fit the old 4:3 screens, then it usually means moving the mount as its beyond the zoom range of the new projector.

Hi We're looking to possibly engage the services of someone who could automate various processes in iSAMS. Specifically pertaining to creating Mark Books and Tracking for the time being, but maybe more along the way. Does anyone have any experience of this, or know where we might be able to go to find someone who has? Thanks

Most true MDM tools still need you to use apple configurator at some point, just to install the MDM profile. We use Filewave. No DEP yet, as we purchased the iPads around 12 months ago, and our reseller hasn't got around to signing up yet gggrrr! The Configurator offer restrictions and the like, but the full MDM offers so much more. Indeed, this is where you can add the account info of the iCloud account you use for Find my..... Configurator won't. The only PITA at the moment is the need to manage Apps and have differing apple iTunes accounts within or attached to, your VPP account. This is supposed to be changing soon, at least in the US first, and then the EU. Hope us CH folks get it then too, as it will save so much of the headache of managing limited app purchases and allocating to specific student devices.

I have to say that both of these have their good points. I preferred T4 for quite some time, as it was fine for most 'simple' school timetables. Using modelling and construction, options etc made a nice logical sense as it followed the paper way of doing things. T6 ditched some of this and for a few years you had to use both, which was painful, and on one memorable occasion, it scrambled the entire timetable. Not fun. I'm led to believe T6 is now much better for a start to finish approach to timetabling.

TBH I have sourced used parts off of t'interweb, and fix it myself. Tend to find the parts easy to find as Apple only make a handful of products so dropped ones or ones with faulty mainboards are easy to buy, and they're not too challenging to disassemble, unlike some other laptops I can mention (Asus, Acer cough cough)

MDM will be sending a new profile to iOS, forcing Black and White, Inverted colours and large font on a select few peoples devices.

Lets face it, most home users simply will not conform to this, which is why they demand a school provided laptop, which we then make sure meets the standards we prescribe. If we don't provide the equipment, then we cannot demand that their equipment meets those standards, since it is, by definition, their property. All we can do is stop the downloading of data or transference offsite. We use a VPN into our network to overcome this.