Liam-FD

Edit: can see creating groups in the admin dashboard - will give this a go

Hi, I've created some shared drives on our G-Suite tenancy for individual year groups. I'm looking for an easy way to allow only relevant users to these shared drives. All pupils are in the correct OU for their year group - is there an easy way to map an OU to a shared drive? I've only been able to find adding emails for individual accounts but this is long and tedious with over 100 accounts for every year group. Looking to do this without Classroom. Any thoughts appreciated!

Hi all, We are looking at moving from our Google Calendar to Office 365 as we have a O365 tenancy that all staff use for emails etc. The reason for this is so that we can link into teams, create meetings with one another that will automatically be added to 2 or more calendars etc. Our current setup is a Google Calendar that everyone has access to (through a generic Google account rather than G-Suite tenancy) and we have sub-calendars for separate people/groups such as our SBM, site staff, infants, juniors, exec head etc. Anything that is created is public and anything that needs to be private has to be noted down in personal paper diaries. What I would like to do is to utilise the calendar through O365. I'd like people to be able to create their own events for their personal calendar, but also contribute this to the "organisation calendar" if necessary. Is there a way to only share certain events created so as to keep a personal calendar but also contribute on occasion to a "public" calendar? Is there a way to setup certain members, say for example SLT, to have access to our Exec Head's calendar as she has requested (currently using a... word document shared on One Drive!!) Any help much appreciated as our only real experience so far with O365 is for emails but we are wanting to utilise more (teams, sharepoint etc) of O365 moving forward as continue to modernise and streamline our workload.

Hi all, Looking for some guidance as how to block external emails within a specified time frame, on a regular basis - to be achieved for Office 365 through Exchange. I am able to setup mail flow rules which I can setup but have to complete this week to week as there is no generic time frame, for example Wednesday 5pm to Thursday 9am, but as you have to select an exact date I cannot set this up as a reoccurring event. Any ideas as to how this could be achieved? Would also like to have an auto-responder setup for when the block is in place. Thanks!

I've gone for the cloud-hosted demo. If I continued with cloud hosted is it as easy to connect up? We are looking at having these on walls in staff rooms so I'm not sure of the practicalities of wiring these up (VGA etc) rather than a solution over WiFi - if that is possible?

I've had a look at Xibo, I like how customisable it is. My only concern is getting it up and running as it is only me (with limited expertise in this area) to setup! Android looks like the easiest way - are there any recommendations for android-based TVs/screens to use? Not looking for anything too fancy as just for staff room use rather than public display.

This is the first I've looked into this so I could mean digital signage screens - yes! We have some money, but as per usual with school budgets not a huge amount. I'm looking for 3 solutions initially as we want 1 on each site. If there are any recommendations for companies who can provide a full solution rather than me compiling all of the elements individually I'm happy to take those on board. But again, I'm also happy to look at individual software and screens and compile these - just looking at what is recommended by others that have completed this before.

Hi all, I'm investigating a digital signage system for use on several WiFi-enabled TVs across our 3 sites. These will be placed in staffing areas and so we would like to display the staff events calendar in one section, another section for other upcoming important dates, maybe a ticker for something else. I'm aware of SedaoLive software from another school within our MAT that use this, but they wouldn't recommend. Are there any other similar softwares that manage digital signage? Thanks

Brilliant, I'll look into the 3rd party tools and see what that entails. Definitely want to avoid querying database directly! This looks interesting, have you used this yourself? Could be a viable solution!

Hi, I'm hoping that there are some SIMS experts here able to help me with a solution for extracting data. I have created a PHP/MySQl based software and for this have been using pupil data from SIMS. To date I have been handed CSV files with the information that I need from the school I have been working with, that is then inserted into the database of my system, however to prepare the software for commercial sale I want to develop an easier setup and link between SIMS and my software. From what I understand there is a link between the VLE system 'Frog' and schools SIMS setup (when new pupils are recieved they are automatically transferred over to Frog that night etc). I want to be able to create a similar sort of link to make setup at academic year starts, new pupil additions etc more simpler. My software is, alike Frog, hosted offsite and as aforementioned written in PHP. Is anyone able to point to documentation to see how I might be able to achieve something like this? Is it possible for a web-based system to query internal SIMS servers (I do not really know all that much about SIMS!)? I've seen in other threads about extracting data through Windows to an XML file and then using it like this but I am hoping there is perhaps an easier way through a PHP/SQL connection to grab this data. Any information, guidance or directions for what I need to get my hands on would be very much appreciated!

Indeed, the only downside is that the costs are generally more to buy from cPanel direct, than as part of a package with a company and with a budget to consider I need to try and save everything I can!

Thanks, OVH look good, it's a shame you say their support is not so good however if it's not needed I guess this is good! Thanks for the screenshots, I guess I could always install webmin or similar if needed. I am now expanding my search to any other EU based VPS providers, still meeting the specification above (disregard UK location). If anyone can suggest reputable companies for EU based too, that would be great!

Thanks for your suggestions. Do you know if DigitalOcean have any sort of control panel as standard? Simple things like file management, emails, databases etc. I don't necessarily need cPanel but will need an easy to use interface so that others will be able to work with it.

Hi all, I've been creating some PHP/SQL based software focusing on how pupils are assessed. We have been trialling this piece of software with several classes within the school and as of September we want to be able to slowly roll it out to the entire school. I am looking for suggestions of UK based VPS providers (must be UK based due to data protection for the school - rather than EU). To this date I haven't been too particular with companies that I have hosted with but for such an important project that will potentially need to answer to any Ofsted inspections, it is important that we decide on a reliable company for our project. We have chosen to host off site rather than on site. Obviously we are bound to a budget by the school but I would be grateful for any suggestions of UK based VPS providers whom you may have had positive experiences with. Specification wise we would be looking at 2GB+ Ram, 75GB+ HDD with the option of having backups (or as standard) as well as cPanel (for easier controlled management), a large amount of data transfer as well as UK location. Companies based in the UK would be favoured as it will be easier to converse with them as we are hoping to extend our relationship with the host as the usage of the software spreads into other schools. Any suggestions would be fantastic! Thanks, Liam