Katy

Depends which free version of Meraki you have. The first one (free unlimited devices) isn't updated, but the later "free for 100 devices" is - we're on this up to 100 device plan and can device assign apps without messing about with Apple IDs etc.

Microsoft changed the default behaviour recently to prevent any external forwarding. See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/external-email-forwarding?view=o365-worldwide Basically the Outbound Spam filter setting by default blocks it, you'd need to set it to allow forwarding here. You can then further control forwarding by configuring Remote Domain settings, or individual mailbox permissions, however both these are independent of the spam filter setting so the most restrictive of the two applies.

We had the same thing - staff laptops in 2008 ish, then we merged with another school and joined a trust in 2012 and the rule was "desktop PCs in classrooms, no staff laptops". We're now looking at mobile devices again (partly as a cheaper way to do an AV refresh - scrap the IWBs, use projectors or display screens with MS Wireless Display adapters in them, touch screen device with a pen for writing things "on the board") so are hopefully going to be pushing Surface for staff from next year. Main points I'd say are: - GDPR: You can't really enforce encryption of somebody's personal device, you can't set password policies etc. and you have no control over the device. Also if it's lost there's nothing you can do but hope it was encrypted. Managed laptops you'd ideally have a way to remote wipe them, and know that they were encrypted etc. - Support: Much easier to support when everyone has the same kit. - Fairness: If you're making people do work from home, and making them do that work on a computer, you should be providing them with a device. Some lower paid staff might not be able to afford to buy something decent to work from home. Why should they anyway? Doesn't just apply to teaching staff either. - Actually increases efficiency in the classroom - assuming you're using a wireless method of presenting - as they already have their device, already logged on, possibly already with their files open ready to go. Don't have to wait for the PC to boot (if the last person turned it off), log on, wait for OneDrive etc to connect, wait for the programs you need to open.... etc. The main reason I wanted to get rid of laptops back in 2012 when it was forced on us was the faff plugging VGA cables in every lesson meant half the laptops had faulty VGA ports, half the rooms had damaged VGA wall plates etc. - going to something wireless gets rid of this problem. Besides this I don't think I had that many issues with the laptops besides the odd one where a teacher had it hidden in a pile of text book/marking book which he slammed on the table when angry at a noisy class, that needed a new display and new HDD. But that's a rare case.

We were using a Gamma provided 100Mbps connection which was rock solid, we have since changed to Aspire provided 1Gbps - again rock solid but things like ping times are higher than on the Gamma link (but it was the cheapest we could find, it's over a Virgin connection, which itself is over OpenReach as there's no virgin in the area).

As per the other replies, on our Casios which have USB ports they run fine off them - and on the few TVs we have put them in, runs fine off the USB socket. Everything else we just use iPhone "uk plug to USB" adapters, with a 5m USB lead in it to get down the projector pole to the display adapter.

Not seen that with mine yet, it was installed the week before lockdown back in March this year. I've got the boiler with its box at the back of the kitchen, the hub thing at the front of the kitchen, and the thermostat in the living room so they're all pretty close to each other.

I went with Hive so just have the thermostat in the living room, and the app on my phone. The heating system was only put in 3 years ago, just didn't have the money to do a proper smart system with sensors everywhere however for what I wanted from it - turn the heating on without having to go and alter the clock on the boiler - and for it to stop heating when it reaches temperature - it's been great.

We've not had any year groups going off yet, most of the cases we've had happened during holidays so well out of time for anyone in school to need to isolate. Although we have just been very lucky so far.

We're trialling them in a few rooms at the moment and not heard anything bad yet, I think @BKGarry uses them in lots of rooms? (Sorry BKG if I've remembered the wrong person! haha)

Ours is virtual, with the hall open for staff to (individually) visit the memorials if they want to...presumably pre-recorded, I don't know, will find out when I watch it at 10:45. Probably makes less change to the timetable this way as normally we run two services, a "light" one earlier in the day for lower school then the full one with the external guests and the piper around 11am.

Yes for PCs, no for laptops (because laptops are only used in the prep and reception class kids can't manage C+A+D) If you have the "Legal message/warning shown at logon" set, it only shows once if you don't have "Press C+A+D" enabled, otherwise with it enabled it shows every time C+A+D is pressed to log on.

Main server room's switch rack runs off the same UPS as the servers, the larger comms rooms have either a relatively small Tripp Lite unit covering the switches, or in the case of the Prep server room (which has zero servers now) it's still got 2 x APC SmartUPS. The smaller wall mounted cabs are unprotected as there's no room in them for anything.

I usually stick something like this in after the installer line, before :END, if I wasn't sure if it was running or not: echo "Done" > c:\corel.txt then if it's running the script it'll drop a text file saying so - not as useful as a proper log but at least it rules out "it's not even running the script".

I use Config Manager now, but in the past I knocked up a .bat file and set it as a startup script: @echo off if exist "c:\program files (x86)\program\program.exe" goto :END setup.exe /qn :END exit Replacing "program\program.exe" with one of the files it installs - so at each boot, if the program's EXE isn't there, install, otherwise do nothing. It'll run as system as it's a startup script.

Same here - in them closing in March and still being closed. I was waiting for them to re-open but guess they won't do now hopefully most of the stuff they sold will end up on the shelves pre-packed, used to spend a fortune on the deli counter every time I visited.

Don't know but I had this yesterday but with Meraki, buying the app through School Manager (never got apps here before, it's always been the VPP store) then syncing VPP on Meraki the app appeared as normal, so not sure if that must be a Jamf specific issue then?

Classic bright neon blue please (I found an even more classic pair of the mostly plain grey ones in the back of the sock drawer last week!)

You won't be able to do it that way, as %OneDrive% contains "C:\Users\Katy\OneDrive - MySchoolHere". You'd have to parse that to swap the colon for a dollar, then stick "\\computername" on the front. I do it using subst instead of mapping a drive, so: subst n: "%onedrive%" It appears as a local drive rather than network.

+1 for VeryPC for new stuff, not bought any for a while but back before 'rona we got 40 Lenovos the spec I wanted and beating everyone else's price. Also Col's the best. (Is this nice enough for some more socks? ) I don't buy refurb laptops but for all my other refurb needs I go ICT Direct, for the servers we just purchased they were half the price of their competitors on the same model/age/spec refurb kit.

We do something similar - mapping to %username% fails if you have a broken profile taking up that name, and your actual profile is eg Katy.DOMAIN.0.1.2.3, we use subst and the %OneDrive% variable to achieve the same thing - an N drive showing OneDrive contents, but we only have this for programs that can't see OneDrive sync client (e.g. finance software that runs as a Remote App with different usernames on a different forest with no trusts) You'd also still need the sync client running for that path to exist on disk.

You can do it with the onedrive mapper powershell, or a paid for product, but as far I can tell they both just use WebDAV which I've found awfully slow - we just use the sync client so it appears in Explorer (not as a drive, but just as "OneDrive" in the tree).

With 365 you can change the default retention policies to keep deleted data for as long as you want, and for general user foolishness the recycle bin (and 2nd stage recycle bin) are quite good.

We moved everything a couple of years ago. Started with "My Documents" moving to OneDrive (with the sync client/files on demand running so they can still access it via File Explorer). Then we moved the shared drives to Teams/Sharepoint - pupil drive went to one massive Sharepoint site, staff site was split into departments and then went to separate Teams. No more mapped drives. It takes some organising but people get used to it. The fact we did this over a year before lockdown, and then everyone teaching from home during lockdown where they find all their resources are accessible (as they are on Teams/OneDrive), has helped a lot with the people who were trying to resist. We stuck our 6TB video and photos drive into its own Sharepoint site and they just access that in the browser. We've retained a little bit of on site storage for Art and Design - for them to store large files whilst working on them (i.e. videos and photos), rather than expecting Photoshop etc to constantly be writing large files to OneDrive without anywhere local to work on them, but this "isn't backed up" (it is, but they are told it isn't backed up to discourage them using it as actual file storage). Years R-3 still have "local storage" instead of OneDrive as we don't give them Office 365 until Year 4, however that's just mapped over the VPN to a disk on an Azure VM.

Another thing to try - when I was testing it was trying to sync the local AD account on PCs which were not hybrid AD joined, once I sorted out hybrid AD join for the PCs it logged in with the Azure accounts and synced OK.

Our last 5 year one was a few thousand cheaper to buy vs 5 year lease, basically because there was no finance charge and the supplier offered the same price for purchase vs what they would invoice the finance company if it was leased, but yeah depends on your supplier. Not sure which method I prefer really - leasing does have the advantage of it going back when it's worn out and you can't be made to just sweat the asset when it's really just jamming daily with parts no longer available (was I glad to see the back of our last leased lot! Different supplier than we currently use...)