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I'm a bit of a Mac newbie as I'm more used to working in a Windows environment. However, there's a couple of things I'm trying to achieve. To explain the setup we have a Mac server (running on 10.9.5, Server version 3.1.2) which is integrated into Active Directory via our Windows 2008 domain controller. Also all the mac client machines are set up with the Golden Triangle too. Users can log on to any of the macs with their AD credentials with no issue at all. The problems lies in the home directory. I am able to allow users to access their Windows home directory, BUT this isn't the default Home location. That defaults to a local folder on the Mac client. This means users are saving work to this local folder, then going to another mac and unable to access these files. What I would like to do it one of two things - neither of which I seem to be able to implement. 1) Set the default Home location on the macs to be the same as the Windows home directory - and therefore not have a local home folder on the Mac. In effect having a single shared Home folder on both Windows and Mac networks. I gather this may not be ideal though at the Macs generate a large volume of data in the Windows home directory before even the first user file is saved. I would still like to explore this however, especially if what I have been led to believe isn't too much of an issue. 2) Set the default Home location to a folder separate NAS share for logging onto the Macs, and also allow users to access their Windows home location as an additional share. That way both Mac and Windows folders should follow them round as they move from Mac to Mac. My problem with implementing either of these options is that I don't seem to be able to change the "Home Folder" setting for AD accounts in either the Server Application (the option to change the folder is greyed out when selecting an AD account, however OD accounts - which we don't use - works fine) or via Workgroup Manager (which gives an Unexpected Error - 14140). As we have a large number of users, and a fair few Macs I would need to be able to implement a solution centrally. Any suggestions or pointers would be much appreciated. Cheers, LSDWho

Hi all, I have just finished the final part of my write up on the synchronisation I have set up between iSAMS and Moodle to synchronise user authentication, course creation and student and teacher course enrolment. It's a blog in three parts. You can find them here: Part 1 - iSAMS to Moodle Course Enrolment – Part 1 | Jon Witts' Blog Part 2 - iSAMS to Moodle Course Enrolment – Part 2 | Jon Witts' Blog Part 3 - iSAMS to Moodle Course Enrolment - Part 3 | Jon Witts' Blog Hopefully someone will find it useful! It should not be too hard to adapt this to work with any MSSQL backed MIS System... Jon

We currently pay WebAnywhere for our Moodle/SIMS integration and additionally have a parent portal (Insight) out of SIMS from TASC software. We're looking at alternative suppliers and I'd like to hear about any companies I should talk to and your experiences with them. So far I've talked to OverNet Data and SalamanderSoft thanks Carol

Is there anyone that could help with some SIMS integration with Secondary Schools? Happy to pay for the time... we have most things covered but could really do with some help with timetables.

Hi All, I am a NM currently planning a network overhaul, to include infratsructure, servers etc. I am planning to migrate from Novell/Netware to Windows. would like to know of anybody elses experiences of this, things to look out for, would be greatly appreciated.

It may have been covered before but I just found a rather usefull looking article about integrating device drivers into Windows images. It gives a fairly usefull looking rundown on how the whole driver searching and installation thing works and also includes some truely usefull looking scripts. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc160991.aspx

Hi everyone! Firstly I'd just like to say I'm new to the forum so I apologise if I'm asking anything that has been posted about many times before. I'm currently part of a team developing a school meal pre-order system. As part of that system we'd like to offer schools pupil data synchronisation from their SIMS service. We're not particularly keen to enrol in the SIMS partner program as it's way off cost for us as an early stage startup. With that in mind I was wondering if anyone could provide any information regarding how to connect to, and get data from the SIMS system (eg. do we have to connect directly to the MSSQL DB with a user that has access to relevant pupil tables)? Any help, or pointers would be much appreciated!

Hi we are considering ZiLink as a tool to integrate the SIMS DB with our moodle. It seems sensible to use something like this as Linking the right Parent to the right kid and allowing the parent to log into the moodle and view the work of the kid online HAS TO BE DONE RIGHT! It is the schools intention to upload the reports into the pupils area so the parents can see this on-line. So my question: Does anyone have experience with ZiLink or similar and care to share any pitfalls or gotchas? Thanks Stephen

Whilst searching for SIMS integration options I came across this website http://www.sims-partners.com . It’s seems to contain a huge set of detail on integrating to SIMS. Does anyone know if this is a legit Capita site? Seems like it too me.

Hi All! I'm going to start off by saying I've never set up anything DNS on anything so this could be really easily solved, but I'm still learning. I'm slowly working through a white paper on OD AD integration, and before setting up all the Kerberos business, it claims I must have a fully working DNS. I have a test network consisting of a windows server 2003 R2 domain controller running DNS and an xserve running 10.5.7. To this moment it hasn't got any services running in Server Admin. With assistance from the network manager who I work with, I've added a record to the Windows DC to resolve both the xserve and testdc. On the xserve, if I use the host command to resolve both server names (xserve.bhbs.hereford.uk and testdc.bhbs.hereford.uk) both of them resolve. Then white paper then says to try it using IP Addresses, but this fails saying "host 2.3.168.192 in addr.arpa not found: 3 nxdomain" I added a reverse lookup zone on my testdc but it hasn't helped at all. Can anyone help me at all? I'll try my best to give you more information if you need

We currently have around 65 Macs at our school - a mixture of MacBooks an Mac Minis, as well as an uber sexay X-Serve for backing up all the Media projects. These are currently integrated into our CC3 network, but with CC4 looming (install scheduled for next summer), I'm starting to wonder whether RM are going to charge us for another solution in order to integrate the Macs with CC4. Has anyone here integrated their Macs into a CC4 network? If so, do you know if it requires the same product from RM as the integration into CC3? Thanks.

Can anyone give me a comparative view of Wonde vs. Groupcall Xporter? Ease of use, security, promptness of support, etc? I am coming from the service supplier side, deciding which one to buy our integrations through, so acceptability to schools is a key decision criterion for me.

Im in process to sync data from SIMS to Office 365, i need some expert advice how to match the record from SIMS to O365 as we do not have any unique fileds to map? Only think I think of is to add all students email addresses into their sims records and at the time of self onboarding it may match the correct records? Is there someone already done it?

I've been working on my PostgreSQL skills over the past few weeks after discovering in the Autumn that google sheets wasn't quite up to our demands for tracking. I want to be able to query SIMS tables and add/update data in marksheets so we're not constantly duplicating work. I find the reporting which I can access to be opaque. I'd appreciate being directed to any resources that could help.

Evening, So we've managed to incorporate our internal Wordpress news site into our external Edugeek Joomla installation, but as you can see from the link below: Newyddion Gwyr | Just another WordPress site It doesn't look right. I'm slightly confused as to which template to edit. For some reason the page title 'Newyddion Gwyr' is appearing at the bottom of the post, and the post does not sit tight to the top of the area. I'm not an expert at Wordpress but we decided to purchase the CorePHP Wordpress>Joomla integration package. Their support is awful as they will not help me edit the css files or the code files - well they will but want to charge me for the help. Useless. Anyone got any ideas on how I might edit this layout? Many thanks Gareth

Right, I'm getting a little confused now with integrating OS X and Active Directory. I have an OS X server (10.5) and half a dozen or so OS X clients. My intention is to have the server get its users from the AD, the clients get their prefs and authentication via the OS X server and everything lives happily ever after. I have got the OS X server bound to the AD domain and can see the users (only 1000, even though there are more objects than that in the AD??), and a client which has the OD server and the AD server as it's servers. So, an AD user can log in just fine. The problem is the use of the Workgroup Manager to restrict privileges etc... How do I do this? Everywhere I look, it points to 'it can't be done unless you buy a third party program or extend the AD schema' - without explaining what extensions to the schema need doing. And also talks about Mappings. I can understand the mappings issue, but what ID should I assign to the UID? Can someone provide me with some info on how to do what I want, without spending more money on software?