ITea

Minus the one-off setup fee of £200, it costs us £850 (excl VAT) a year to cover up to 250 staff accounts.

The alert can be set to different tones, the standard is a Morse SOS style. There is an app-specific setting to override any silent settings on the phone. making the alert tone sound regardless.

We went for teamSOS in the end. They seem to be pretty good with their support and development direction. The individual setup of schools, from their site and building layout, to their operational structure, mean the myriad of potential scenarios make this service particularly challenging. For us, having the ability to put an app on phones for staff on sports fields/trips/away sports fixtures/part time hours/being off site for lunch, is a very useful. This is complemented by the desktop alert app, set to run on staff login.

You're not wrong! Glad we're not the only ones 🙂 We got fairly rattled by our first test (which we thought we'd only applied to one test user). Subsequent research revealed some missing details.

Thanks for the info 👍 We're looking into applocker too. You definitely need to be very careful with the parameters, which our early testing has confirmed...

Thanks for getting back. Can I ask if you have used anything to overcome this? Options to us at the moment are applocker, which isn't without it's pitfalls, as well as Sophos Endpoint/Application Control policies, which we're still testing. Air Lock Digital looks good, but we haven't got any further than a brief look, or any pricing.

Hi Oaktech Did you get any joy with MS on this matter?

Thanks D. I'll see what they offer.

Many thanks - I'll check them out.

Thanks Steve - I wish you mentioned that at the start! I think we've been rubbing each other up the wrong way a bit. You're right, I haven't seen those, which look really interesting, I will contact them for pricing and ask how may we would need for our numerous, separate and old buildings. I'll add it to the list of suggestions to present to our Bursar (who will ultimately make the decision). I can assure you that I far prefer a simple and practical solution, but I am also highly aware of the cost restraints we are currently operating under and, ultimately, it won't be my decision. Most people for example would prefer fire suppression systems in every room to accompany their fire alarms, as well as multiple security guards patrolling perimeters, but how many can afford them? That's not a cost saving exercise, it's a harsh reality. We do the very best we can within our means.

A fire alarm is a much easier and cheaper to install in buildings that already contain the power and infrastructure needed, so that's not an entirely fair comparison. Running systems externally to multiple and remote sports fields costs a lot more. For schools in tight financial situations, "whatever cost is required" might not an option, especially when money the money that is available has to be balanced and prioritized between all the other safety and wellbeing aspects in a school. A lot of schools simply rely on the likes of Netsupport Notify, which might work for some, but not for us. I will be presenting all options regardless, and you are entitled to your option (eyerolls and all) but I would be grateful if we could stick to the information I had initially asked for. If anyone does use anything along the lines of the initial request on this thread, I will be very grateful to hear about it.

All points taken and considered, and I understand your point Steve (the fire alarm was one of the first things I looked at) but our fire alarm system will not work work well without considerable cost to cover a very large and complex site. Plus, like I said, our management are of the opinion that a fire alarm (despite using different sounds) can potentially cause confusion. Ultimately, there is no one solution that covers everything perfectly, it's a case of choosing the one that best fits your situation. Data coverage in our area is very good and, if the app can be set to override all settings, sounding a load tone (much like the recent government test), there is no missing it. If anyone has any experience or advice for such a solution, I would be interested to hear your perspective. If we deem such a solution is not a good fit, then it will be 'back to the drawing board'!

Thanks for the reply Steve. Our fire alarm system however is not centralized, with many buildings on sperate systems. There is also the concern that, even with different alerts sounds, the fire alarm system and a lockdown system should not be used for the same thing, to avoid confusion. The last thing you want is groups of people filing outside into danger, under the mistaken belief there is a fire alarm. Staff/pupils can also be on sports fields, returning trips/sports teams, as well as grounds, domestic, maintenance and catering staff travelling around site - all of whom could be out of earshot of a fire alarm. Everyone's situation is different, with differing levels of complexity, which is why, for us, I'm interested in the phone app solution, which stands the best chance of reaching the most people in one go.

Hi We currently use NetSupport Notify as our method of informing people of a lockdown. While this is a good product, our setup means that many people during the day would not be near a PC to hear/see an alert. For that reason the 'capture all' solution would seem to be a phone app that all staff use, which makes a loud audible sound, with associated message, regardless of phone settings. An SMS option for those using non-smartphones would be a good option too. Does anyone use something like this that they can recommend? If so I'd be grateful for any info, including the pricing structure. Many thanks.

The solution we are after is a leased replacement for all current MFPs, service contract, and software management solution. It genuinely surprised me how much cheaper Canon were than the other quotes we received. As I said, these things are always a compromise, but for the money, and a cloud-based solution that works for our setup (a mixture of shared PCs, personal mobile devices, School Chromebooks and iPads), this seems like the way to go for us. I completely appreciate that everyone's setup and requirements are different though.

I just wanted to follow this up with a thank you for all the feedback. As it turns out, we ended up sticking with Canon/Uniflow. We'll upgrade our on prem Uniflow to the cloud version, which is currently a more mature product than Papercut Hive. Canon came in at half the price of the competitor solutions, which was impossible to ignore. We loose some functionality, not using Papercut on Prem, but gain some too via Uniflow Cloud (and some space on out VM host) so it was a no-brainer after the cost difference of Canon, as well as their fixed pricing and simpler contract. Best wishes.

Thanks for all the info, which I really appreciate. It seems that Hive is not quite there for our setup, primarily because of the shared printing issues. It's certainly something we can look in the future as we move to a 1-2-1 setup. Last question then: do you host MF on prem, or do you host it externally? And what that drove that decision?

That's interesting to hear. Can you give any specific examples re shared device issues?

Thanks folks. We use 'Follow-me-printing' on our existing Canon/Uniflow setup, which is hugely valuable if a machine is out of action etc., so I would definitely keep that. Plus default to B&W, and duplex. As far as I can currently see, MF has a of more functionality, the most useful of which (to us at least) is the inbuilt reporting, which is far superior to the very limited options in Hive, although you can spend some time setting up something similar using something like 'Power BI' if using Azure. The rest of the Hive functionality seems to cover what we want, plus Hive will Auto-update and should, in theory, be more secure than MF, which had an issue earlier this year. Has anyone used Power BI on Hive to create custom reports?

Thanks Julian, that's really useful. Did you go for Hive of MF, and what dictated your decision? We're looking at renewing our fleet of copiers (22) and the software. We currently use Uniflow on prem. Uniflow Cloud has been around for longer than Hive but, as good as the Canon devices have been, the automated toner supply has failed on a number of occasions, leaving us without for a few days, which is suboptimal to say the least. Maybe were an isolated case, or perhaps Canon put more effort into their larger customers. Either way, I'm very keen to look at Papercut which seems to be the standard in the educational sector.

Hi Our 5 year lease deal with our Canon/Uniflow (on-prem) MFP solution is about to end. I'm currently looking at other solutions, obviously Papercut being the main alternative. I just wondered what experience people have had with Papercut MF and Hive, which they chose and why, and whether or not they are still happy with that decision. Any feedback would be gratefully received.