mrforgetful

I feel I need to come back and post again. I spoke to their technical support and they had the system running smooth for me again. Our situation was caused by having logging enabled on every client, leading to hundreds of thousands of entries. I've removed the log feature, cleared the database and it's working great now. Historically, back on v6 we needed logs but now we have alternative safeguarding software, the AB logs are superfluous.

Interested to hear people's experiences of this. We used Senso over lockdowns and it worked ok for something over the internet, but was too much latency for classroom suites (we have 300Mb here)

We've used AB Tutor since 2007. Stayed on V6 until last year as it still did everything we needed, but it was starting to show it's age, particularly with mulitple monitors. So we upgraded to v9. Finding it laggy and buggy, shouldn't have bothered. Used Senso over lockdowns as you can have groups show users, not devices, which is really useful on laptop trolleys where students can get things from other locations mixed up. At the end of the day though, it's Cloud, and lag was inherent to viewing screens. Looked at Impero and NetSupport years ago but were massively more expensive than AB Tutor, albeit with many more features. But we just didn't need those features for the cost. Veyon, whilst free, was very basic. A small step up from TightVNC!

Good luck getting hold of the SDS Tool from Ruler. You complete contact details and receive an email a short time later asking what your requirements are. You reply saying you want the free SDS Tool and get no response. You chase it up a few days later and get no response.

Which is your best bargaining tool of all. Hi, I like them both the same, what's your best price as whichever comes in lowest gets bought.

I had a demo of Impero and liked the look of it, pulls a lot of things together into one package - not had a price yet as not in a position to be buying, but will definitely keep it in mind. Thins like shutdown policies can be more complex than AB Tutor that we use right now, as in you can tell shutdown to only happen if nobody is logged in, or to refrain from shutdown should a certain program be running.

Have you looked at e-safe? We get it through out LEA and it's monitored solution so no workload to analyse for us.

How much is it for you? Will cost us around £10 per pupil for 3 years.

AB Tutor. Cheap and easy to use. We are still on 6 though as it does all we need.

Do you want to send encrypted emails? Here http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/163048-sending-encrypted-emails-external-users-o365.html

Wow, thank you for this, have been looking at installing encryption certificates for months and debating whether the work was worth it. This is a much better solution and works good.

It was approved on a level above our, and involving multiple LEA(s) and they signed up to it so that's good enough for me.

Whilst I would just Switch User, it is possible with AB Tutor to send a Lock command and then Unlock. This is intended to be used to get a students undivided attention but we've found it will also unlock a computer left logged in by a user. Can be useful if it's an office machine with work files left open that you need to do something on.

I can recommend ESafe for the fact it's a monitored solution so from an administration point it's very low maintenance. http://www.esafeeducation.co.uk/ Or it's available through Smoothwall.

Yeh we unofficially (as there is no SLA) will close a ticket that hasn't had a response in 10 days. Not had any complaints. I think the sample SLA here will be a great start and gives me some ideas. Thanks guys.