Ephelyon

Ah, I get you. Yes, I'm very familiar with that one. I think mainly it's a user education thing. The medicine analogy proves its worth yet again here - no doctor knows everything. The GPs are generalists who know a little about a lot of things (though they often have a specialist area too) along with - I'd almost say most importantly - who and where to refer to for more specialist help. Specialists, on the other hand, have a deep knowledge of one or more areas but wouldn't typically engage in others. I understand the dilemma for our colleagues too. All they really know is that if they have a problem with X they go to Person/Team Y; they sort it and the world is once again warm and fuzzy... so when X is broken, they don't know and you don't know, they themselves are at a loss and so you get "that look". It's logical that their frustration would be directed at you, albeit not very convenient... Then again, the model that a lot of schools use for tech support is arguably broken. Either they unwittingly assemble a small team of generalists, who can cover a lot of areas to a basic degree but would struggle when things reach a certain complexity, or they take in people who would consider themselves specialists in professional terms (hence my earlier rant about "I'm a sysadmin for $deity's sake") and then expect them to know about other areas too - or, of course, there's just the one poor s*d who has to do the lot, which is even worse. Yes, this can happen in other organisations too, but if I'm brutally honest, at literally every other kind of workplace I've been into for contract work lately (and that's been mounting up lately) I can explain the whole generalist/specialist thing through the medicine analogy and they'll get it, whereas in schools it's far more likely that I'll get a blank look. But we soldier on. Build up a good set of analogies and use them if you're challenged or things go further to SLT level. If the going gets tougher at that level, I'd say most of us would probably be in a position to justify it based on a lack of training too...

I think - though I could be wrong - what the OP might mean is "Is it OK for 'I don't know' to be both your first and last answer?" It's often my first, but not always my last. Sometimes it's both though.

^ This. (Also: out! Go on! Get your coat! ) But seriously, I must admit that at this point, with this school, I do find myself saying it, and saying it somewhat more flatly than less a lot of the time. Google only goes so far - which isn't its own limitation, just that sometimes you're really not going to find the answer unless you know exactly what to look for. And sometimes, we don't know what we don't know. I used to give the "not sure at this point but I'll try and find out" answer but cynicism has got the better of me there over the past couple of years. The root of my issue is essentially "resentment". I resent being expected to know everything about printers / projectors / some arse of a program because there isn't really any reason why I should. I. Am. A. Sysadmin. That is my professional background. If you want me to have additional tech skills, train me in them. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll try and find an answer (though there are some cases where I know I haven't the faintest idea where to even begin so that's a non-starter and will result in a flat "I don't know"), and there are some things I actively enjoy finding out more about, but if I can't and it's not something we have support for, the answer is that we don't know so the school will have to somehow cope. What the school gets is the sum total of my skillset + my Technician's skillset + whatever else we can somehow find out or source. If it wanted something else, it should have hired someone else. And, interestingly, I'm actually completely fine with that happening at the moment as I can just fall back on translation if necessary...

That would require extending the AD Schema as outlined here.

They keep you safe from being prosecuted yourself for not making whatever we might wearily describe as "reasonable efforts", yes. But again, it's more about saying these problems would be a lot more rampant without a deterrant in place - essentially it's all relative. At the end of the day, yes, some people will always do their own thing, so the most you can reasonably do is outline clearly what you expect and put consequences in place for those who flout the policies. It's not a 100% foolproof solution, because there's no such thing, but it's still better than not putting such measures in place at all. I don't think anyone here is saying they seriously expect that just because they make a policy, everyone will follow it. It's more about how you deal with events post facto.

I think the keyword behind the policy-centric logic is "deterrant". It only takes one or two staff disciplinaries before the word starts to spread. Essentially, and bearing human nature in mind, it's in the same way that having laws against murder or rape doesn't totally eradicate these problems, but I think it's true to say - however depressingly - that there would be a lot more of those things going on if the deterrant were not present.

Has anyone else noticed that http://www.edmodo.com/privacy states that students under 18 cannot use the service without explicit parental consent?

We use both Impero and Securus here. The Impero wordlist is nowhere near as detailed as the Securus categories so we won't be dropping the latter and putting all our eggs in one basket unfortunately.

I'm currently testing Education with Classic Shell pre-installed and its settings pushed out via Group Policy. It's working pretty well at the moment!

* Mainly just because it's the one I'm familiar with. While VBScript and PowerShell are arguably more powerful, they often need so many more lines (particularly with VBS) to get things done, and PowerShell's syntax can be complicated. Batch script hasn't changed all that much overall since the DOS days, and as that's what I've grown up with I've just never really moved on from it. I don't touch VBS at all these days but will use PowerShell when I need its flexibility. * Yes, sorry, should've mentioned there's a Delete All entry for the Printers.ini file at the very top.

Fixed that for you!

[Responding to Jollity's PM just now, posting here so I can attach files. Shout-out to @ZeroHour: is there any way to enable sending files through PM please? ] Quoting PM: "The way the 'after the desktop is presented' approach is achieved is by not using a logon script per se, but instead placing a link to the script in our redirected Start Menu's Programs > Startup folder. Those startup items are executed by Explorer, not by the WinLogon process, so it will inevitably execute once the desktop has been presented." I'm attaching a screenshot of a sample GPP INI Files entry for a printer along with the script I've written to apply them. We write to the INI file in %AppData% and append to the [Default] INI file section. The property name is the printer's share name on the print server, e.g. \\print-server\Room1 yields the property same "Room1". The value is Yes if the printer is to be set as default, and anything else (I tend to use No ;D ) if not. The disadvantage of that approach is in how you order the GPP INI Files entries, though we've never had an unworkable situation so far... The script reads these entries and uses "con2prt" to add the printers - deploy this utility (Google it) to workstations through GPP Files if they don't have it already. It also logs to %AppData%. Modify the script to replace "mhs-print" with your print server name and place it somewhere globally accessible (it's on the NetLogon share in our case). Set the GPP Preference Shared tab option to run in user context and target as appropriate. You can then create a shortcut to the script in a redirected Start Menu's "Programs > Startup" folder, choosing to minimise by default so it's not painfully obvious to the user logging on that the script is running. Bonus: this fixes our issues 99% of the time, but for those exceptional situations where it doesn't, you can always add another shortcut to the script in another Start Menu folder, so you can instruct users to run e.g. "Redeploy Printers" (as we've termed it) as a first-response fix if they don't get all the printers they're supposed to the first time round. DeployPrinters.zip

We're not.

True, and I did point out at interview that the Strategic IT Manager spec was (and remains) a lot closer to what their person spec and advert asked for, but naturally "a certain person" was having none of that, citing the fact that "these are generic job specs" - so the school is perfectly well aware of that factor!

Or, in fact, because AAAE5012 is a generic job spec that dates from around 2006...

Wondering if @Leeoakley could shed any light on NEOS' training offerings for iPad deployments.

All good points. But the inevitable question will be... "Why didn't the last guy make all these stipulations? Why is it that we can put it under one person and they just get on with it [however ineptly they did so isn't a factor for us as we've no conception of the ins and outs of it], yet when we try to put it under you / your team we get a whole list of demands plus a £4K bill?" DISCLAIMER: I am only playing Devil's Advocate and looking at it from an SLT point of view here.

Have a look at this from NEOS: Mac OS X and iOS Integration with Active Directory training course It looks dated but I'm sure they'll have revised it in the meantime, might just not be on the website yet. Only £895...

The first three would cover the Magic Triangle setup (plus other bits and bobs), which is only really needed if you're integrating Macs into a Windows network and you need to go for full-blown AD authentication and login on the desktop, mapping home drives and locking down the UI etc. Number 4 would be the most pertinent, with 5 as a nice-to-have on the side.

Out of interest, could I ask where that £4K figure is coming from?

Package it up. Workload is essentially a time issue and training takes time too. You can fit it all within the same context of the impact on the team. It may well end up minimal after some initial outlay, but then again - depending on how they're used within school - it might not. If staff are wanting new apps every week and the trolleys are never left charging properly, it can quickly become a pain in the backside...

Just thinking about this in NJC terms... @CyberNerd is (unfortunately) correct in that increased workload isn't traditionally seen as increased responsibility in some JE schemes including this one, although this can sometimes be challenged by reference to the percentage of time expected to be allocated to particular tasks (this is normally on the front page of your JDQ unless it's a really old one, which AAAE5012 is if you're still on that). None of that stops you from querying it on a "common sense" basis by presenting information on your team's current workload and demonstrating how it would be affected (suggesting that you might need to drop something else, as mentioned above, is a possibility here too). In these trying times staff must surely do their best to cope with increased workloads - not replacing people who leave is a very common strategy in use these days and is understandable - but there is always another side to that and the employer should have regard to the amount of time that is actually available to colleagues, even with all the will in the world. Now, if the school can afford the non-free edition of (say) Meraki, that would make things a great deal easier. Appropriate professional training should also be provided as a matter of course. You'd see an initial spike in set-up time but the devices are a good deal easier to manage once the initial onboarding process is complete. That first block of work could perhaps be scheduled for the upcoming half-term holiday. If the school is unwilling to budge on both of these positions then you may need to seek union advice.

@Badaz52, I think I may know where you are... Testing: has "a certain person" mentioned in our e-mail correspondence in March put you up to this? [EDIT: Confirmed via PM.]

Again, you're right, but I doubt most primaries would see it that way when, from their perspective, they already pay an hourly/monthly/annual fee for an in-house expert.

The only trouble with that is that many such schools - often woefully underfunded - would seize the opportunity to add this role to a peripatetic Technician's already long list of duties... :/