psynegy

Hello! In their infinite wisdom, a member of staff has gotten a grant for VR headsets before actually finding out how much they will cost... Naturally, that's now become my problem to make what they want, cost what money they've got. Of course, the sensible school VR system (ClassVR) is way outside of this budget. Has anyone used Meta Quest headsets (2's or 3's?) and if so, what is the management like? Setting up? Accounts? Deploying apps? Filtering? Charging? Thankfully we're only looking a 1 to 2 headsets, so maybe it's manageable? Just what I needed on a Friday afternoon! Any and all comments/advice are much appreciated! Thanks!

We plan to start our data tidy as soon as possible, before even having decided between Bromcom/Arbor. Do you have any advice on where to start with data tidying? What are the things that took the most time? On a separate question - we've heard that neither MIS is very capable when it comes to timetabling, and a 3rd party been mentioned a few times. Is this a universal issue with these MIS's in secondaries?

Hopefully this will be a non-issue soon: Disposable vapes: Councils call for total ban by 2024 - BBC News

We only have two A5 accounts... I think it was a big cost jump from A3 for staff, not sure about students. Do you have E5 for everyone?

Hello everyone! We're looking at implementing some sort of centralised logging on our Windows network. A few things we're aware of that might be solutions: Windows Event Collector LME (now deprecated) Azure Sentinel I suppose there's two 'problems' we're trying to solve: Enabling us to rapidly find out what happened in the event of a cyber attack. Analysis of the network health and picking up on issues before they become tickets. Would be very interested to hear what other people are using, what benefits they are seeing from them, and what some realistic costs should be. Any pointers are most appreciated! Thanks!

Ahead of our filtering/firewall renewal, I've been trying to find some guidance on how long we should be keeping our students/staff internet browsing logs for, and haven't managed to find anything. Is this just something we make up ourselves, or is there something I've missed? Thanks!

Any recommendations for centralised log parsing? I know NCSC was pushing LME, but they've deprecated that now. Anything else floating peoples boats without costing a small fortune?

After doing some testing with the SV23, we were not particularly impressed. The sensor only picked up vaping around half of the time, and if we sprayed deodorant, the "vape index" went off the charts for quite a while. Yet to have pricing confirmed, but with the way toilets in schools are going (floor to ceiling cubicles), unless you can cleverly integrate the sensor into your air extraction, you're looking at a sensor per cubicle! A very expensive endeavour indeed. Problem with the sensor in the air system, you wouldn't know which cubicle was responsible. Honestly, the whole thing seems like a bit of a waste of time...

For those considering building their own sensors, the sensor in a Verkada SV23 is an off the shelf SEN54 from Sensirion.

Thanks, we have a trial SV23 arriving today hopefully. Verkada don't seem to publish a partner list, any recommended suppliers out there?

Out of interest, who was the trial unit arranged with? Edit: also someone mentioned the new SV23's don't do vape detection? Is that not the case? Edit edit: apparently that was the SV21's...! Ignore me!

Has anyone found a (relatively) cheap option for vape detection in toilets? Verkada dectectors are mad (and ongoing) money, all the other seem to be US companies without pricing on their websites. Considering knocking up some myself with some IoT arduinos and PM2.5 sensors. Hoping I can save myself a job! Thanks!

We might very well take you up on that offer! Thanks Do you top this up with the credit card, or through a 3rd party supplier? Our vendor has told us today: "It is no longer possible to purchase prepaid credit." Very confusing!

Do you find your bills are consistent? How do you agree provisioning new services with your finance department? We currently operate very much on a "you need something, you put in an order form, we order it" system at the moment. Do we need to look at finding a more flexible (read: trusting) arrangement?

Might as well be on the credit card at that point...? I think management will be reluctant to let us have free reign over being able to just hit "purchase" on something that could accidentally cost tens of thousands.

We're trying to get our head around what the options are for billing in Azure for schools. I've seen mentions of PAYG, Open Licence, and someone mentioned Education Agreement? I can only imagine the response I'd get if I said we needed the school credit card on file for a potentially unlimited spend... Does that limit us to using credits on the Open Licence? Would love to hear how other schools manage their Azure billing. Thanks!

We've been doing PowerShell SIMS extraction for a little while, but never got round to making image extraction work until now. (farewell SalamanderSoft!) Here's a little script to help get anyone started with using SIMS data in PowerShell: [color=#333333][font=Consolas][color=#0000ff]Clear-Host[/color] [color=#ff4500]$SIMSDirectory[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#000000]'[/color][color=#8b0000]C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net[/color][color=#000000]'[/color] [color=#ff4500]$SIMSServer[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#000000]'[/color][color=#8b0000]SIMS\SIMS2016[/color][color=#000000]'[/color] [color=#ff4500]$SIMSDatabase[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#000000]'[/color][color=#8b0000]SIMS[/color][color=#000000]'[/color] [color=#006400][i]# Set the console encoding to UTF-8[/i][/color] [color=#006400][i]# This is the encoding that SIMS uses in it's reports, and we must honour it, otherwise special characters in names will become b0rked.[/i][/color] [color=#ff4500]$[/color][color=#008080]null[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] cmd [color=#a9a9a9]/[/color]c [color=#000000]''[/color] [color=#006400][i]# This is a fix for the ISE. [Console] doesn't get initialised properly until an executable command is run - stupid.[/i][/color] [color=#000000][[/color][color=#00008b]Console[/color][color=#000000]][/color]::OutputEncoding [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#000000][[/color][color=#00008b]System.Text.Encoding[/color][color=#000000]][/color]::UTF8 [color=#006400][i]# Get SIMS Data[/i][/color] [color=#0000ff]Write-Output[/color] [color=#000000]"[/color][color=#8b0000]Running Staff SIMS Report[/color][color=#000000]"[/color] [color=#000000][[/color][color=#00008b]xml[/color][color=#000000]][/color][color=#ff4500]$SIMSXML[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#000000]([/color][color=#a9a9a9].[/color] [color=#000000]"[/color][color=#ff4500]$SIMSDirectory[/color][color=#8b0000]\CommandReporter.exe[/color][color=#000000]"[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]/[/color]QUIET [color=#a9a9a9]/[/color]TRUSTED [color=#a9a9a9]/[/color]SERVERNAME:[color=#000000]"[/color][color=#ff4500]$SIMSServer[/color][color=#000000]"[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]/[/color]DATABASENAME:[color=#000000]"[/color][color=#ff4500]$SIMSDatabase[/color][color=#000000]"[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]/[/color]REPORT:[color=#000000]"[/color][color=#8b0000]SIMS Powershell Export Staff[/color][color=#000000]"[/color][color=#000000])[/color] [color=#006400][i]# Check for errors running the report[/i][/color] [color=#00008b]If[/color][color=#000000]([/color][color=#ff4500]$SIMSXML.CommandReporterError[/color][color=#000000])[/color] [color=#000000]{[/color] [color=#0000ff]Write-Warning[/color] [color=#000000]$([/color][color=#ff4500]$SIMSXML.CommandReporterError[/color][color=#000000])[/color] [color=#00008b]Exit[/color] [color=#000000]}[/color] [color=#006400][i]# Example export photos by name[/i][/color] [color=#00008b]ForEach[/color][color=#000000]([/color][color=#ff4500]$Record[/color] [color=#00008b]in[/color] [color=#ff4500]$SIMSXML.SuperStarReport.Record[/color][color=#000000])[/color] [color=#000000]{[/color] [color=#006400][i]# Check that the record has a photo[/i][/color] [color=#00008b]If[/color][color=#000000]([/color][color=#ff4500]$[/color][color=#008080]null[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]-ne[/color] [color=#ff4500]$Record.Photo[/color][color=#000000])[/color] [color=#000000]{[/color] [color=#006400][i]# Convert image from Base64 to byte array[/i][/color] [color=#ff4500]$ImageDecoded[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#000000][[/color][color=#00008b]System.Convert[/color][color=#000000]][/color]::FromBase64CharArray[color=#000000]([/color][color=#ff4500]$Record.Photo[/color][color=#a9a9a9],[/color] [color=#800080]0[/color][color=#a9a9a9],[/color] [color=#ff4500]$Record.Photo.Length[/color][color=#000000])[/color] [color=#006400][i]# Check first 2 bytes of image for a valid image header, and determine image type[/i][/color] [color=#00008b]Switch[/color][color=#000000]([[/color][color=#00008b]System.BitConverter[/color][color=#000000]][/color]::ToString[color=#000000]([/color][color=#ff4500]$ImageDecoded[/color][color=#000000][[/color][color=#800080]0[/color][color=#a9a9a9]..[/color][color=#800080]1[/color][color=#000000]]))[/color] [color=#000000]{[/color] [color=#000000]"[/color][color=#8b0000]89-50[/color][color=#000000]"[/color] [color=#000000]{[/color] [color=#ff4500]$FileExtension[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#000000]'[/color][color=#8b0000]png[/color][color=#000000]'[/color] [color=#000000]}[/color] [color=#000000]"[/color][color=#8b0000]FF-D8[/color][color=#000000]"[/color] [color=#000000]{[/color] [color=#ff4500]$FileExtension[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#000000]'[/color][color=#8b0000]jpg[/color][color=#000000]'[/color] [color=#000000]}[/color] [color=#000000]"[/color][color=#8b0000]42-4D[/color][color=#000000]"[/color] [color=#000000]{[/color] [color=#ff4500]$FileExtension[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#000000]'[/color][color=#8b0000]bmp[/color][color=#000000]'[/color] [color=#000000]}[/color] [color=#00008b]Default[/color] [color=#000000]{[/color] [color=#ff4500]$FileExtension[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]=[/color] [color=#ff4500]$[/color][color=#008080]False[/color] [color=#000000]}[/color] [color=#000000]}[/color] [color=#00008b]If[/color][color=#000000]([/color][color=#ff4500]$FileExtension[/color][color=#000000])[/color] [color=#000000]{[/color] [color=#006400][i]# Output image[/i][/color] [color=#0000ff]Set-Content[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]-[/color]Path [color=#000000]"[/color][color=#000000]$([/color][color=#ff4500]$Record.Forename[/color][color=#000000])[/color][color=#000000]$([/color][color=#ff4500]$Record.Surname[/color][color=#000000])[/color][color=#8b0000].[/color][color=#000000]$([/color][color=#ff4500]$FileExtension[/color][color=#000000])[/color][color=#000000]"[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]-[/color]Value [color=#ff4500]$ImageDecoded[/color] [color=#a9a9a9]-[/color]AsByteStream [color=#000000]}[/color] [color=#000000]}[/color] [color=#000000]}[/color] [color=#006400][i]# Example export to CSV[/i][/color] [/font][/color] [color=#FF4500][font=Consolas]$SIMSXML.SuperStarReport.Record[/font][/color][color=#A9A9A9][font=Consolas]|[/font][/color][color=#0000FF][font=Consolas]Select-Object[/font][/color][color=#333333][font=Consolas] Forename[/font][/color][color=#A9A9A9][font=Consolas],[/font][/color][color=#333333][font=Consolas] Surname [/font][/color][color=#A9A9A9][font=Consolas]|[/font][/color][color=#0000FF][font=Consolas]Export-Csv[/font][/color][color=#333333][font=Consolas] Names.csv [/font][/color] Screenshot of SIMS report: With the data in XML object format, it's super easy to work with. We used to do export to CSV, then read the CSV, but this is much cleaner. Hope this helps someone!

So we don't use RDWeb, if that's what you're asking? We have the Duo client on the RDP session hosts. We distribute an RDP file that connects users to a full session, we don't bother with remote apps anymore. We haven't had any issues with any of the various RDP clients connecting in, even the old RDP app for MacOS works fine.

Where have you managed to find less than £4? We're just about to renew and have only found £4.08 so far. Thanks

It doesn't sound like it, no. Best place to look at stuff like that, I've found at least, is the Azure AD > Sign Ins section, you can usually see some fairly detailed logging there. Good luck!

We have found that reboots do not always resolve this. MS do give a recommendation of using the web apps if a reboot does not resolve it, so, they know very well that it's not a fix for everyone.

You think going 20H2 might solve the issue then?

I work with petben. We are still seeing the issue this morning. Affecting Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, seemingly at random. We do use Smoothwall, but we have taken a broken session, put it on a completely unfiltered/firewalled network and the issue has persisted. We run Azure AD Sync, with password hash synchronisation.

Possibly not - unless they switched devices. For calls where it's only certain classes, that has usually been where the teacher hasn't activated the class before starting the lesson. We usually hear from the teacher in those instances though "no students turned up to my lesson!"...

This is just a heads up, we've had a number of students and parents contacting us saying that they are missing the "Join" button when trying to access Teams meetings that have been started in a channel. There's a number of reports of this online as well, with the only solution being "reinstall Windows"... It turns out it's just the time being set wrong, but looking correct. My theory is that people are setting up laptops without changing the timezone, then later noticing that the time is wrong, and manually setting the time to be "correct" without changing the timezone. Teams then thinks the meeting start time is in the future, so doesn't display a join button. So, to fix, set the timezone correctly, and adjust the time. I hope this helps someone!