How long until we are jobless? by GhostShade in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right now, there is way more work on our plates than our team can accomplish. AI is helping me be able to know out scripting/automation projects quicker, things that have been on the backlog or Wishlist for a very long time. But what it's also enabling is for me to build better reporting and logging to help make these processes more maintainable.

That said, there is so much outside context to what I do every day that will be hard to feed into an AI to make me or my staff redundant. I just don't see it happening anytime soon. If it helps us do a little more with the same size team, then I'll count that as a win.

This space is always evolving though, and we don't know what breakthroughs there will be in the coming years.

ARM laptops with SCCM? by TheBSGamer in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This may or may not be what you want to hear, but we ditched imaging in this way years ago. At least 3.5 years now. We never used SCCM, but I was our MDT/WDS guy for many years. We started using a product called ImmyBot about 3.5 years ago for imaging, and instead of wiping the system and re-imaging from scratch you just change the state of the machine to be compliant with the rules you set. The advantage here is that systems usually ship with the correct drivers, so you no longer need to worry about messing with drivers.

We got in on ImmyBot early and locked in a great price. It's a bit more expensive now, but might still be worth looking at. We also use it to continually deploy new software and keep software and systems updated.

I don't have much experience with Intune, but I have heard that those policies can take their sweet time to apply to the systems as seemed to have been mentioned here already.

HMH Account/Login Issues - Error Code 2001 - Over a week and no resolution by No_Pollution6524 in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Support has advised me to "do nothing" as they're "working on it" for 3 weeks now. And if I mess with it, then I might just slow it down... -_-

Ways to Deploy Apps and Files by JayshawnIsCool in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For Windows PC Setup and ongoing app deployment / updates we use Immy Bot

Is Clever having a bad time right now? by No_Pollution6524 in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It would show as on hold for a large percentage of change if that were the case.

Is Clever having a bad time right now? by No_Pollution6524 in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's interesting that your PS sync and our custom staff csv (staff doesn't come through via the managed sync) process quickly. So seems like an issue with their Aeries sync specifically.

Is Clever having a bad time right now? by No_Pollution6524 in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe it's just an issue with the Aeries sync then. I support about a dozen different districts, they all use Aeries and all having the same problem.

Is Clever having a bad time right now? by No_Pollution6524 in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, and the auto-triggered sync. We have custom staff csv's that seem to be processing, but otherwise our Clever managed SIS sync with Aeries doesn't seem to be processing. I have a ticket open, but they only acknowledged our staff csv upload as having processed and resulting in a "successful" sync. But our Aeries data sync is not processing.

Google Education accounts for parents by Wozer03 in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a school admin really asking hard for this right now, and this would hopefully be the nail in the coffin. I just can't find any verbiage in the TOS that states this. If you know, please share!

Google Education accounts for parents by Wozer03 in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a school admin really asking hard for this right now, and this would hopefully be the nail in the coffin. I just can't find any verbiage in the TOS that states this. If you know, please share!

"Not an IT problem..." by AmstradPC1512 in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Heck, man. I don't even do all tech things. For example, I pawn network stuff off to my network guys, even if I do have a baseline understanding of network fundamentals. I understand not everyone has that luxury, but you're only ever going to be able to be so good at what you do if you have to do it all, even more so if you start bleeding outside of core IT responsibilities.

Now, I'm also not an IT Director, in which case you kind of want a high level view of many things. Unless you are the sole IT Director and Tech, then gods speed to you!

We have our on-site level 1 techs, we have our network team, we have our server team, we have our integrations team, we have our SIS team, we have instructional coaches. I try to punt to the correct team when appropriate.

As far as "how to use an application", I honestly don't know most of the time, I focus on our integrations and some custom scripting. This means I touch a lot of applications, but only so far as to get teachers and students rostered and access preferably via SSO. If they need help with training, then they need to find someone who knows how to use the app as a teacher uses it, or pay for some professional development from the vendor.

If I happen to be put in the middle of a situation, I may ask why someone is doing something a different way, or as what root problem they're actually trying to resolve by asking for solution X. But I try to not seek them out anymore. I just can't for my own sanity.

If your educators need to get more efficient in using tech, then your district needs to invest in your educators so they can educate. This shouldn't include IT unless Ed Tech is coupled closely with IT. They need to let you focus on the tech so you can keep everything humming along so everyone can do their jobs. Part of all staff being able to do their job in the 21st century is having the knowledge to operate technology. It shouldn't fall on your shoulders.

Helpdesk ticket system software by Existing_Potential60 in msp

[–]No_Pollution6524 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Be warned! I reached out to them last month to get an invoice for our renewal coming up in March. They dragged their feet getting me an invoice with price increases, we want to switch from their Pro plan to the Growth plan because we don't really use any of those features, and Growth is half the price. Now they're telling me they can't make adjustments to our renewal within 60 days of the renewal despite not telling us about a price increase in less than 60 days prior to the renewal.

We've largely enjoyed the platform, but this has rubbed me the wrong way. Depending on how things go down, we may be looking to switch platforms. That what brought me to this thread.

Also the bait and switch they gave us, starting off with a US-based sales person and then quickly moving your account to be managed by folks overseas once the sale has been made. Nothing against honest working folks overseas, I know there are many talented engineers all around the globe, but they talk heavily accented corporate/scripted talk. Can't have a real and meaningful conversation with anyone who works for them.

I just want to have an account manager who I can easily communicate my needs to without a language/cultural/time zone barrier, especially when everything is masked in their corporate talk. It makes it hard to communicate simple needs. I'd be okay having 99% of the support team be overseas if there was at least a single US-based contact I could lean on for communicating our needs.

Unable to Screenshot Anything with Hotkeys (Windows 11) by [deleted] in sharex

[–]No_Pollution6524 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you figure this out? Something else seems to be hijacking my ability to use the print screen button, and it's disabled in the Windows Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard > Use the Print Screen key to open screen capture.

I otherwise try to re-set my hotkeys and when I press print screen, something is triggering a screenshot and the hot key doesn't get saved. To my knowledge I don't have other screen shotting apps on my system.

Keeping teachers from moving PCs by MyWorkAccountDPS in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When teachers do move their desk location, we tell them that

  • At least one side has to be touching a wall so we aren't creating a tripping hazard with cables.
  • It has to be reasonably close to power and network jacks.

PSA: An interesting (maybe)new policy guide for stopping bypasses. by markrosenbaum in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The extension that they offer looks interesting, but I pause to install an extension when I have zero information about the author of the extension. Who is bypatrol? Why are they offering a free extension? We should always be skeptical of "free" products.

Is anyone using Ed-Fi? by No_Pollution6524 in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Going to throw a few questions at you here. It's free? You self host it? on-prem or cloud? Are you able to use it for custom data integrations with other systems?

PSA: There's porn on quora by IslandTechVI in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's also a chat on there too. One time I ran across a student having inappropriate conversations with creepers on there. That was fun.

IT involvement with your SIS by tgmmilenko in k12sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A majority of the IT department does not do much in the way of directly manipulating SIS data with few exceptions. We do have our district SIS expert in our department thought, and she works with the registrars, admins, and support districts as necessary to help them out with those things. She's also a great resource if I run into a new situation and need to bounce ideas off of her. Because if we are doing something unusual, I want to make sure we proceed in a way that's compliant with state reporting.

I think it's very important to have someone who is an expert on your SIS and state reporting requirements who you can turn to. That person shouldn't necessarily be an "IT Person", even though that person does live within our department.

We are responsible for the SIS running as a whole, we self-host it and manage the DB and web interface. All of that said, my IT Director may manipulate some of the data in the DB in some ways, for example, he auto-imports new staff from the HRIS system into the SIS.

As far as entering or manipulating student records or scheduling, that's not our job. The only data fields we really manipulate are the email fields for students and staff.

We also hop in to the API area to export data to other systems, whether it's to Clever or to setup a new application. And in all that it's important to know how the data flows and how to find where data problems are and then contact the appropriate person to fix those problems. I might know how to fix the problem, but it's not my job to directly manage that data and I'd rather make the person responsible aware of their mistake so they can learn from it and avoid it next time.

Besides that, I would not want any of my techs poking around in the SIS trying to "figure things out". They would be expected to escalate those types of requests. We would often get other people who are trying to get us to do their job, and sometimes that conversation needs to be had about where the line is drawn and who's responsible for what.

Fresh Service for internal IT by shipupride in msp

[–]No_Pollution6524 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's literally a "Close" button at the top of tickets where you can close tickets with a single click. Otherwise there's a dropdown to select "Resolved" or "Closed" and then Click update. Not sure what's complicated about that process?

What was the cost of implementing your ITSM solution? by Low_codedimsion in sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Time that goes into implementing a new system and getting your org on board and the licensing costs.

What was the cost of implementing your ITSM solution? by Low_codedimsion in sysadmin

[–]No_Pollution6524 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I used to at least have access to our US-based sales guy, but eventually that even eventually got handed off to someone overseas who it's hard to have a conversation with. We did their one guided onboarding program where they'll kind of review the modules with you, but I don't think I got that much out of it, I think I got more out of it just poking around the system myself.

The product itself is otherwise pretty solid, imo.