WebWhiteboard_Richard

Big thanks to those of you who have been testing and experimenting with WebWhiteboard - an update will be deployed tomorrow to resolve various issues that have been reported when using the app on tablets with smaller screen sizes. If you have a tablet and are able to test how WWB runs on it, I'd love to hear your feedback. ADFS SSO integration will be available when WWB is released commercially - if you wish to get a head start and test out how your AD infrastructure will link in with it, please do get in touch. Speaking of commercial release - exciting news, we're planning to officially launch WebWhiteboard on the 24th November 2014. All of you wonderful beta testers will get a free, perpetual personal account as a thank you for helping us squash those bugs. That doesn't mean that we'll be closed to suggestions any time soon (or ever, for that matter!), please do continue to submit your ideas for improvements!

Update on Google Apps OAuth - it should be possible, but isn't likely to be ready when WWB is released to production. We want to ensure that the currently planned feature-set is as good & stable as it can be, and can then look at additional items. We know you won't be the only school wanting it though, so if it can happen - believe me it will!

Ah, I see - OAuth 2.0 isn't currently supported for authentication, but I will investigate the feasibility of adding it in today.

Hi @machin05, Firstly, apologies for the delay in replying. Integrate in what way? If you mean in terms of importing from it, then it should already work as WebWhiteboard works with Google Drive (which I believe GAE uses) for file imports. Exporting presentations from WWB to cloud services such as Google Apps in a transferable format is pretty high on the 'planned features' list. If I've misunderstood completely, please do put me right!

Yes indeed! I'm just waiting on the RM Unify team to approve my application for a developer account and can then get started with the integration. The app supports SAML2 authentication; from reading the Unify documentation the integration process shouldn't be too hard. If the board hardware you're using requires a pen for input, you'll still need to use it. WebWhiteboard just handles the software side of the IWB system. It's designed to work with any touch-enabled device however, so once you've got the mouse moving on the board - be it by pen or by finger, you're set.

Just a reminder that if you have been testing WebWhiteboard (and we've been getting a pretty good crop of testers - so thank you!), that we'd really appreciate any feedback you may have - either send it via the in-app 'Feedback' links, email us, or of course just PM me. If you've not get signed up to be a guinea pig and feel like doing your bit for (computer) science, then click me!

Excellent! No rush at all, I was away from the office today so didn't get a chance to push the updates out to the live beta anyway - that'll happen tomorrow/Weds. As for getting ADFS set up, we have a draft guide to actually integrating it with WWb, and would recommend the MS Office 365 team's guide (pt 1, pt 2) to setting the thing up in the first place. Parts 1 & 2 deal with ADFS, you can skip part 3 as that's integrating it with Office 365. It refers to Server 2012 R2, but the core process is similar across Windows versions. I know our guide is missing a section on what users need to do to log in (each establishment will have a unique login URL), which will be added in shortly.

Update: Single Sign-On using ADFS is very close to being ready for testing - it should be deployed to the live beta site on or before Monday. (WebWhiteboard will be able to talk to any SAML2 Identity Provider, but I imagine the predominant product in schools will be ADFS). @dhicks, @Norphy - fancy being guinea pigs? Anyone else is more than welcome too, PM me and we'll get you set up. You'll earn my everlasting gratitude and perhaps something a little more tangible/edible as well.

If you like any of the ones mentioned so far, I can definitely recommend Neon Genesis Evangelion - also not for kids, but a fantastic series.

Indeed - using direct integration with a school's ADFS setup, automatic sign-on will be possible.

At the moment, I'm not sure. I shall check into it, hopefully do some actual testing of such a set-up later today and report back. Absolutely. All files can be exported as IWB CFF, which can then be imported into any decent whiteboard software - the IWB format conversion isn't perfect (I don't think any IWB software gets it completely right), but will be improving all the time during beta.

I can't see an option to edit my previous post, but I thought it worth saying that a preliminary pricing table has now been published. (Mods: feel free to merge this into post #11, apologies if I'm being a pudding brain and not seeing the edit button!)

For raw Active Directory integration, there would be two options: the simple, slightly-inelegant way or a more complex, more elegant one. Simple Somewhere on your network you set up a scheduled task to run a script (the template would provided by us) that takes an export from Active Directory, turns it into a CSV file and uploads it to a URL. How often it runs would be entirely up to you, and you could of course create accounts manually or run the script manually should you need to. The obvious downside here is that passwords wouldn't be synchronised, so it wouldn't be a single-sign-on. Complex Option 1 - You expose an LDAP endpoint against which WWB runs authentication checks (these can include group membership checks). Exposing your DCs to the public internet is almost always a bad idea, so you'd want to consider using AD LDS, but that'd be entirely up to you. (In answer to your other question, LDAP is the protocol used to query directories, SAML2 is a little more complex.) Option 2 - You set up an ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) server - that's where SAML2 comes in. WWB queries ADFS and authenticates from there. I'm not going to deny that ADFS/SAML2 can be complicated, and I personally wouldn't recommend setting it up just for WebWhiteboard. If you've got ADFS already for something like Office365, that's obviously different. The upside with these two methods is that your user accounts are only stored in one place, and users won't have to remember multiple passwords. Documented APIs are indeed on the roadmap, as is investigating VLE integration possibilities. As for cost we were going to have a pricing model based around FTE count, but realised that would introduce needless complexity. We're now going for a model based around pupil count, as is fairly standard in education. The exact pricing bands are still being worked out, but I can say it'll almost certainly be cheaper than the prices you mentioned. I imagine it'd be around £500-600 per year for a school the size of yours.

Just to keep you all in the loop - work has begun on SSO using SAML2; using Shibboleth isn't practical due to our app's technology stack. We're initially looking at integrating with RM Unify and Impero YouID if possible. The ability to link directly to individual ADFS setups is also being looked into.

@Norphy - Thanks, with SSO it looks like shibboleth is the way to go. Not at present, but I shall add it to the list of things to look into. As for Firefly, I can't see any information on whether it supports shibboleth (which it'd need to as a prerequisite for use with YouID, I believe), but I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me will be able to confirm either way.