speakercon

Even less fancy... we just use a spreadsheet, each week a seperate sheet along the bottom with all trollies and lessons listed, staff just put their class in the correct box to book it.

I only deploy CDM, the risk of files not syncing and then the profile getting deleted was too much of a concern. For example if a user logs off immediately after closing a file, not allowing it time to sync and then the profile getting removed. V1 did not allow mail merge but V2 does now work with them. Once you open an office document from a drive autosave is enabled by default and multiple people can work on the document (as long as your using 365 desktop apps). My advice to users is to always use the web version and use the 'open in desktop app' option to open files, but (for now) the drives are still available if you must do it that way, and they will of course continue to do it that way until they don't have a choice. @DavR & @Tefters you can set a folder redirection policy in the dashboard now to deploy as part of the licence key. Only caveat is if the drive doesn't map for whatever reason the folders stay pointing to the local profile - Creating a folder redirection policy

In theory I would rather not use CDM, and use the OneDrive client, but it doensn't seem to work well in a shared PC enviroment such as schools, for 1:1 devices its okay, but sync issues still happen in my experience. I do feel it is pandering to the old 'we've always accessed files through mapped drives and will not have it any other way' bridage but it does work well and the new V2 lets you easily redirect all the know folders without a load of regedits. And no sync issues to worry about.

It's a controversial way of doing it but 3rd party software such as cloud drive mapper can be less of a headache I've found.

You can just remove the folders by removing them from the registry, I remember trying this a couple of years ago but I seem to remember it causing some other unintended issue but I'm afraid I can't remember what it was. For example, videos: [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{f86fa3ab-70d2-4fc7-9c99-fcbf05467f3a}] I guess MS is thinking is the music and video folders will be containing loads of large media files that they don't want people to sync to OneDrive, but obviously that doesn't work in an education environment, we can't have users saving things locally. What with streaming platforms how many avarage users actually have folders of music and videos on their computer in this day and age. Known folders aren’t really needed anymore are they, just a simple OneDrive folder would suffice, they're just inherited from the past.

I have in the past redirected them to C:\Users\Default\*RELEVANT FOLDER* which then blocks them saving anything in there.

Yes as above they will tell you that you can't so it makes their lives easier but they can't stop you. I've not used it myself but Arbor have their own finance package now, maybe worth a look? Arbor Finance | Simple accounting software for schools

Ah fair enough, we do you use the local copy feature to off site NAS's (with 2fa every time admin access) and most servers are no more than 100G in size so it doesn't take long to download the VHD and create a new VM if it was needed. The VM's are also all replicated to other hosts so in the event of hardware failure they can be booted up quickly and that creates an additional backup of sorts to protect against host failure.

Another alternative - Redstor, unlimited storage for onsite servers, O365 and Google workspace and no on-site box needed as it’s all in the cloud. Priced per pupil head count.

Securly has a built in 'safe' AI engine which can be redirected too if any 3rd party ones are tried to be accessed. If the student policy isn't applying to the correct users I would think there is something amiss with the setup, I always advise using the browser extension not the pac file.

Been there, done that. Started calling from mobiles or 141'ing it... Transfering them to a special call queue that doenst't go anywhere works quite well. I do feel abit bad as Micheal says they're probably just doing what they've been told too by their superiors.

For the primary's I would put a router phone as the reception phone, and then connect the other handful of phones to that. Only downside really is if they unplug it for some reason not knowing it will cause all the other phones to stop working, but pretty rare and gets plugged back in sharpish. For secondaries two SBC's in a HA cluster. I have dabbled with the idea of using maybe ten router phones in admin areas and then connecting 10 or so normal phones to each of them but never done it as it seemed abit messy. I do like the idea of doing away with the SBC's and each phone just going to back to the server, but currently as only the higher end phones support being a router phone it would be expensive. I guess if you have a solid WAN connection it wouldn't be a problem for internal traffic.

It's a question I've thought of before, but always used a SBC in the end. I can’t see any reason not too, I have quite a few sites with a router phone and then a handful of other phones connected to that. Apart from having to buy more expensive router phones, but if you already have them… I think the SBC is a great improvement from having to open ports and hope the sip helpers don’t break anything, but also does create a single point of failure (unless you setup a failover) and extra hardware dependency. I think it would be great if every model of supported phone could connect directly to the server as a ‘router phone’, maybe that will come in the future. One benefit of the SBC is internal voice traffic stays on the lan.

I've seen this too, URL in the allow list but its not gone away let, no noticeable issues.

A simple site to site VPN should work?

Intune for Android management is pretty good to be fair, I've never tried tablets but works well for mobiles. Personally I'd avoid the android tablets having used them in the past and push for the £250 ish per iPad, will last longer most likely.

Anyone

+1 for Securly, it can do this excellently and you won't need to alter your WAN/firewall arrangements if you don't want to.

I used to have DHCP on the server vlan however I now do DHCP on the firewall or core switch. I'd at least run the guest on the firewall if that's what your using for routing.

This, but most establishments won't even consider such a terrifying change is imaginable.

+1 for Redstor, well priced, easy to use. Backup on prem servers, O365 and Google Workspace in one place. Unlimited storage.

I think I know the answer to this but... there's no way of allowing access to just WPD devices like with GPO but not USB sticks ect? Looks like all or nothing in the admin centre. How do you handle uploading of photos from iPads (where signing into OneDrive/Google Drive) is not ideal when they are shared devices?

We use Edge, so it signs the user in silently without further prompt. Not the answer to your question sorry but maybe an idea.

I imagine a few champagne bottles were popped open on Friday night.

You could do it for about 5-6 grand with Ubiquiti assuming like for like placement and existing cabling is cat5e or better.