Rob_D

Hi Guys, We've been asked to "urgently" look at the Studybugs app, as the school would like to use it to manage attendance. Does anyone use it? If so, is it any good? Does it work well for albescence reporting, automatic late messages, and weekly reporting to show trends in absenteeism? Also if anyone is using it with Bromcom, does it hook up okay? And does write back into the attendance and communication logs? As always, thanks in advance for any help.

Well, you'll need fiber for that distance ( )

Sounds like you need to tweak your "known locations". Maybe you've missed an external IP address, or you've not got them set on the right policy or something.

Depends how it's set up. If you're using conditional access with known location exceptions, then I'm pretty sure you can set it that they can't login externally without completing MFA setup. And if they don't want to use those services from outside the school network then it's no biggie. Give maybe a week or so's grace and then block MFA setup from outside the school network and leave them to it. If they change their minds they can sign up, if not their accounts can't login from outside the school's network so they're not a massive security weakness (as long as you've got it set so MFA can only be set up from your school network). Aside from that, it's about getting SLT on side so they can mandate it.

I mean, technically they're still on 2FA, because the fact that they're physically on-site is your second authentication factor. So your SLT are using 3 factor? (Location, password and phone/token) The way it was explained to me is that MFA should interrogate the user based on things from 2 or more of the following categories: what they know (password/pin/ect), what they are (biometrics), what they have (key fob/phone/physical access to site/ect).

They do say the best defense against a cyber attack is to have the computer turned off... unplugged and berried in concrete. But on a more serious note. If you've got WOL set up (which most of us probably do) then it's fairly believable that an attacker could boot the PCs. In fact I could totally see a situation where an attack WOLs the desktops, infects them, and shuts them down again.

We've still got some of the mobile hotspots the DfE provided during lockdown that we've recommissioned for if students (or staff) need them.

Just tested it and once it's been set up, the Microsoft Authenticator app works offline for OTP codes.

Microsoft authenticator app for most people. And Ubikeys for the (in the end, 1 person) who didn't want to use their phone. There are probably a few more people who just don't log-in remotely. (Conditional access is set up to only need the second factor when logging in from outside the school) We tied it in with SSO into Bromcom, and managed to get a couple of key SLT on-side so not much pushback at all.

Have you asked @ICTDirect_Dave if they've got anything suitable?

Mailbox sweep rules are your friend.

Hi all, We've wound up having to get a lot of privacy screens (the ones that go on monitors to reduce viewing angles) over the years and move them around a fair bit. Does anyone know where you can get replacement sticky strips for attaching the privacy screens? Or if there's a good alternative method now we've run out of them?

As intimated by the other replies, I think you need to speak to your collage's IT Support team. They'll be better placed to answer your questions than us, and I'm sure they'd be able to do something to help.

Have you looked at the "Working Hours" option in Office 365 Outlook. I get a tooltip telling me that this email is being sent out of the the recipients (or my) working hours and do I want to schedule send when they are next in. Or Auto-replys can have a start and End time in outlook.

I could see this being part of the "system status dashboard" type thing most departments seem to have. We've got a homebrew thing running in the techs' office that flashes red if any of the servers or switches stop pinging, although normally the teachers are much quicker notification service that something's down.

AFAIK, there is technically no such thing as "externally rated"/"external grade" Cat6. As in, that there's no official standard a cable has to meet to be called "external grade". So the cable runs would need to be enclosed otherwise the cable is installed out of specification.

But uniform policy tends to cover other aspects of appearance. Like hair and jewellery.

When I was at school, coats and bags had to be "dark coloured" and no logo or slogan (I don't remember anything about hats or gloves). But this was only ever enforced if someone had something inappropriate written on their coat/bag. Where I work now, jackets can be any colour, but have to be plain (no logo/text/pattern). (although most students seem to wear dark jackets anyway) Some years back I was supporting the "new family induction evening" on the hottest day of the year. Part of the presentation was current students modeling good uniform standards. The poor girl who was modelling "winter cloths" with blazer, jumper, and puffa-jacket in 30 degree heat, got across that stage very quickly. I think uniforms make things easier. If you didn't have a uniform you'd still have a "dress code" which is inevitably going to be a larger, more complex set of rules slightly open to interpretation (and are probably still somewhat arbitrarily based on the tastes/sensibilities of the people making the rules).

Based on the demo I saw at BETT last year Fortigate can do per channel unblocking.

We block YouTube as standard for the students (with exceptions made on request). - although we might be behind the times on this. AFAIK, blocking it for students was pretty standard up until 8ish years ago. Are the Restrcited:strict/moderate things you mentioned something from youtube/google or part of your webfiltering solution?

Aside form "whatever came with the PC" we've got a lot of logitech k120 keyboards that seem to have lasted pretty well.

Does anyone just use Computer Config>Windows Settings>Deployed Printers GPO rather than loopback? I've had equal success with both in the past.

Favourite Doctor: Peter Davison/David Tennant Favourite Villain(s): Daleks Favourite Companion: Rose Favourite Episode: Resurrection of the Daleks

We've got Qvis NVRs and their Cortex viewer software. But we've got quite a large system.

Can't you use group based app deployment?