ColonelPanic

Hi Bankesy, We used Intune for Mac for about 3 years (2020-2023). Overall management is fine, installing apps takes an age (as with most Intune app installs), the Azure/365 SSO policies seemed to work nicely. We did almost set up a Zero-touch install for them too. The deal breaker for us was that some of the iMacs randomly dropped all configuration profiles from Intune, meaning students could no longer log in (as well as everything else that was set using a config profile). We'd be in our mac suites almost every day deleting the computer form Intune, and then adding it back to Intune manually. The manual Config Profile install from Intune then stopped working randomly (the iMacs just gave a SCEP enrolment error). Spending several days on the phone to Apple support, and subsequently Microsoft support (I'm talking 10+ hours on the phone to each), they just seemed to blame each other, and nothing ever got solved. It was quite annoying as they'd only just moved away from using Apple Configurator as the officially supported method of provisioning iMacs, and insisted that an MDM is used instead. As we've never used them for anything other than mooching around the basics of Adobe Creative Cloud, and opening Microsoft Teams, I made the executive decision that enough was enough, and installed Windows 11 on them. One of the best time-saving decisions I've made. If you do need a hand with anything, feel free to reach out via DM, I have a library of shell scripts that we deployed using Intune that were integral to making things work.

Can also +1 for Dataspire, they won the DfE bid when our trust opened a UTC, can't fault their technical knowledge, and the account manager they gave us to start with was very prompt. With every MSP though, as has been mentioned above, will monopolise all procurement, and probably overcharge for services. Always an advocate for an in-house team, but I am biased. I understand it does require more effort from the trust in terms of recruitment and management.

Asset Tracking - Microsoft Lists, allows us to assign 'loanees' using their 365 account too. Helpdesk - Spiceworks cloud too, we used to host in on-premise Instructions (MS Teams) - we have a 'Tech Tips' channel in our All Staff team We do still have fairly hefty on-site server infrastructure, cashless catering, BMS, access control, CCTV, digital signage, all the various MIS link tools, AD/DNS/DHCP, AAD sync, print server, Config Manager, Wireless Management off the top of my head

That's a tidy over you bowled, I'd be very happy if any of my overs went for 3 I've just started training again (for the first time in 10 years), threw some dodgy off-spin into a net for 2 hours, and my shoulder still feels like it's about to fall off!

I'm not sure how it would work with regards to potential data issues, but I share a folder on one of our Sharepoint sites that "anyone" can access - and run the URL through a link shortener (our primary domain is 23 characters, otherwise I'd run it as a subdomain) to access IT support files on machines at different schools (patches, Veeam installer, ISOs, etc) Have also done the same thing in the past, but added a password and expiry date for the links. All our internal users have seamless SSO, and all of our feeder schools are set up with Cross-Tenant access into our Entra tenancy, so they can be assigned permissions in Sharepoint to access stuff. This was to accommodate a "Trust Portal" Sharepoint site, to share HR files, finance docs, and CPD docs with all our staff in the trust.

I believe teaching staff having their own laptop is much the norm now, particularly in larger academy trusts.Our school opened 4 years ago with one-to-one staff devices, so at least we didn't have on persuade them. As for how we do it, The laptops are hybrid joined to Config Manager and Intune, they pick most of the config up through Group Policy still, and the odd setting in Intune. The credentials for the laptop are cached (I think for 3 months) or until the device can see our domain controller again. Each staff member is licensed for M365, we install OneDrive and Office (using shared device licensing) to the laptops. Any shared drives we put in Microsoft Teams (or Sharepoint) The last school I was in (before our trust put me in the new school) used/uses desktop devices in each classroom, and they have the same argument every year with the new starters, about how they are expected to prepare lessons at home without a suitable device. They provide communal PCs for the staff to use in department offices and the staff room, and they're expected to complete all work during school hours. The only thing stopping us from rolling out staff laptops at this school is the lack of HDMI connectivity in every classroom (the transition from 4:3 VGA projectors and Smart boards to 75" promethean screens hasn't quite been completed yet). If you've any burning questions, feel free to drop a DM, I can also be available to talk on the phone.

Thank you We're running 8.6.22, and it's in a dump as recent as last week. I've emailed [email protected] anyway, see what they say.

A pupil handed a very important and sensitive password to me today that they'd found in a ImperoClientSVC memory dump file on one of our student PCs. All the PCs seem to have a handful of memory dumps. The file is in a location that is set to readable for all authenticated accounts by default (buried in programdata/Impero). Not sure whether to be concerned or impressed with the student. Edit: The password is the proxy password that's set on the Impero server software.

Hi Mark, This website has worked to unlock all our DfE Dells: bios-pw.org Regards, CP

We have 3 hosts that live on their own domain, a DC on each in HV (a .internal domain) The production servers then live in Failover Cluster Manager on their own domain. We could lose 2/3 hosts and still get by. Hugely overkill for a school though

Yes, there are many software KVM solutions: I've not used it for a while, but Synergy has worked for me in the past: Software KVM advantages (symless.com)

Hi bleach - the Key1 and Key2 (and KeyGND) wires are used to connect to an old (or aftermarket) steering wheel control button/stalk. Are these the cables from the car, or from the head-unit wiring?

Our ISP offered a WAN connection between 2 sites across town (~3 miles). AFAIK the cost wasn't substantial. Was secured as DfE funding when the new site was built. Internet speeds to site 2 are 1Gb, between site WAN traffic (backups) speeds are ~10Gb.

This sounds great, I've emailed in

Yes, happening here a lot with both the client and web versions. The issue hasn't made it to the 365 Admin Health Center yet though

One of our assistant principals puts together 5-10 slides with upcoming events on a weekly basis. At the moment we've got a couple of careers things going on this week, and the Year 11 exam/revision timetables are circulating. When we have open evenings/parents evenings/other community events, I play our promo video on loop There was a push to have exemplar work on there too, but the teachers got tired of taking pictures of books and emailing it in. We're also using Xibo btw

Morning, 60 VLANS seems like far too many IMO - unless you need to segregate network traffic in each building. We use 10 VLANS on our site Windows Clients Mac/iPad Clients VOIP Wireless management (access to AP configs) Guest Wifi BYOD Wifi CCTV/Security Switch Management Server iLO Hyper-V/VM management We probably have too many to be honest, but having them on separate IP ranges helps with web filtering, and access control between networks.

This might be the unpopular opinion... After getting used to it, we've not had a terrible experience with SIMS connected. I'm on both sides of the wall - as I teach (only part time) as well as being the NM, but the main reason we use SIMS is because the other proper cloud-based MIS solutions don't have the complete functionality that we need for exams/TT/data reporting as much as the data team would like. The TPC server sits fairly happily, other than the passwords expiring for Wonde/Groupcall fairly regularly, I've set up a couple of custom schedules to run the SIMS reporting command line tool for some custom jobs, but the rest of it is well automated. Now for the gripes... It is woefully underprovisioned in Azure by ESS, so the server grinds to a halt during peak times (read: 8:30am). We managed to offload the SIMS ID logins to the data team, but from what I gather, it's a bit of a faff. Cross site staff (between two SIMS DB instances) requires an ESS technicians intervention, and never seems to work first time (this links one SIMS ID account to two SIMS sites). Having moved from hosted (downloading RDP files every time you want to log in), and not having it onsite for decades, it wasn't a difficult decision to move to SIMS Connected.

Do you force SafeSearch in your web filter? We find our smoothwall appliance blocks all embedded videos in PowerPoint for this reason, otherwise the kids would be able to bypass the safesearch/adult restriction filter by just embedding the video. Edit: just saw the bit about Windows 11 - really not sure about that now.

https://www.coomberaudio.com/uploads/pdfs/Old_Manuals/1858%20Instruction%20Manual%20English%20NEW.pdf The 24V variant of the 1858 power supply has a centre positive output. The 15V variant is probably the same

+1 for locker We have a team created for every class that's in SIMS, all of our learning is now on Teams.

Hi Si, It should be as easy as swapping them over in Apple School Manager - when they're re-enrolled (reset or wiped) it'll pick up the new MDM. We did the same thing moving over from Meraki to Intune Cheers, Ol

We've used Intune for a couple of years now - it looks after a few things... iPad MDM - formerly Meraki and Apple Configurator iMac MDM - formerly Apple configurator/blueprints AV installation and management with Microsoft Defender Hybrid enrollment with SCCM for the Windows machines, so no real additional effort once SCCM was talking to AAD. Remote install of apps (still on top of a golden image though) Deployment of PowerShell scripts (for random things, adding a scheduled reboot to task scheduler comes to mind) We autopiloted the DfE Dell Latitudes, as the 64gb emmc storage wouldn't take our image over a USB network adapter - this enrolled into Intune, and installed the O365 suite. Windows update rings (much like Chaplic) work so much better than disabling updates, or keeping on top of a WSUS library Happy to answer any questions, it was all done in house.

We've got ours enrolled in Intune, and seem to work perfectly fine for our Creative & Digital Media bunch. One thing - do buy the ones with SSDs, our 1tb fusion drives are terribly slow in comparison.

Defold is a great alternative to Game Maker - although Game Maker Studio is now free to use as well Can't help on the music front I'm afraid though...