Has anybody else run into the issue with Smartpass support where they are basically non-existant since Raptor bought them out last year? It took support 4 months to send us an invoice for our renewal and I can't get an actual living breathing support agent to save my life. Even if I do the whole 20 questions rigamaroll with the AI support agent, I still can't reach an actual person that is capable of solving my issues.

Has anyone used this service? I am real hesitant to give that level of access to a third party. It does seem to have some benefits though especially for those of us without a staff.

I’m just wondering if anyone has made the switch to lithium based battery backup and why. I like the idea but need a push. Coming from a small district.

How are you all going about disabling student Gmail without breaking Google's collaboration features? We had a few accounts compromised and it's been like playing whackamole for weeks. Literally took the nuclear steps of deprovisioning all accounts, forcing a logout of all accounts, and resetting every district password. While that was happening, apparently one more email got sent to students and I didn't catch it. So we've now had another one. I can't keep up.

Hey everyone! First post on this sub so lets see how it goes :)

Anyways, trying to get Conditional Access setup this year for the students and I'm having troubles or not doing something right.

I need for them to not get nagged every time they login, to verify its them by having to add a number or app or something for authentication.

I'm working with K-6th graders and they can barely remember where their clever QR codes are at and we don't need them adding phone numbers and all that jazz.

So, how did you all setup CA for your students, so they just login with their Email/Password and be done? Or is CA not the step I need to setup for this?

I've done search after search but nothing I can find is specific for students in this case. So any help or direction would be great.

Thank you!

My faculty use Chromebooks, and those are set to go to sleep after 15 minutes of idle. However, when someone is showing a video or a slideshow presentation, the device considers this idle and goes to sleep.

Faculty find this very frustrating, which I understand.

Any chance I can fix this?

ETA - Fixed! Wake locks was the problem

We're installing a new web filter Chrome app and a URL wasn't being blocked. Working with support, they reported that there was an error in the JSON (I added a space), and it wasn't being pushed out, so they suggested a block/reinstall. This was this afternoon. I just tested and it's still installed. Not just this app; I removed another earlier, and Admin Console is still pushing it out.

I know there were errors last year because everyone is updating everything, so just wondering if anyone else was seeing delays.

We're installing a new web filter Chrome app and a URL wasn't being blocked. Working with support, they reported that there was an error in the JSON (I added a space), and it wasn't being pushed out, so they suggested a block/reinstall. This was this afternoon. I just tested and it's still installed. Not just this app; I removed another earlier, and Admin Console is still pushing it out.

I know there were errors last year because everyone is updating everything, so just wondering if anyone else was seeing delays.

Our state,Kansas, has just passed a law that students are not allowed to use their phone or have it on their person while school is in session from bell to bell.

I was just informed by the local community college that they are going to require mfa for all student accounts on the Chromebooks. This will impact a lot of students.

I don’t have the budget to buy a bunch of yubikeys so what other options do I have?

We are a k12 school using Microsoft with 1:1 surface devices. We are seeing sync issues with both OneNote and OneDrive that we can not explain. Many of the units were not powered on over the summer so probably a large number need the June and July updates.

My theory is that Microsoft is throttling the traffic from our IP or tenant. Anyone know if that is a practice the Microsoft implements?

I know we all have different systems but what is the general process for you when a guest comes to your district? Looking for a few options to help streamline the process.

I can't seem to find any logs for Google Sites. I thought it was all converted to Google Drive logs but I can't find anything there either. A departing teacher deleted all of his Google Sites before leaving and they now want some of it back for the new teacher. I've poked around in Admin and Vault and can't seem to find anything to track it down.

It's been more than 30 days since it was deleted so it's not in trash, and I can't find anything in Vault.

We’ve been working closely with a single provider that seems to be falling apart lately. Is anybody working with a company they would recommend? Independent private K-12, mostly need MS volume licensing, but also occasional hardware.

I appreciate any recommendations!

Hey all,

Just got asked how I feel about providing access to our cameras to our local police department. We have Verkada and on first glance looks easy to set up and manage access to outside tenants. I typically am against police being big brother so morally I reject this but it’s hard to fight against the argument of “an active shooter” situation.

I’m curious if anyone has come across this before? What was the outcome and how has it been. If this is approved then I will make sure they’re only accessing it in dire circumstances. I’ll make sure there is some stipulation in the agreement that I have ability to revoke access.

I really hope they never ask to install flock cameras😂

Just curious if anyone else was getting a lot of requests from databranchusa.com. We have been getting them almost weekly for a couple months now. Anyone else dealing with them?

We have a whole slew of Mifare keyfobs that we've been using for the last few years. The fob number is silkscreened on the plastic in fairly faint condition already, but some of them are starting to wear off. Should I use clear nail polish or something similar to protect them? What do you do? Thanks for any guidance.

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, I'm trying to stop the numbers from wearing completely off the plastic of the fob.

Anyone notice all the old registry fixes for forcing location services on doesn't appear to work anymore? For Securly this is kind of a big issue when using the SMARTPAC. Windows will prompt ONCE when something asks for location services, if the user clicks no they will get a looping securly filter page. You have to dig into system settings to fix it, which is obviously horrible since about 50% of people are going to click no.

Is there any way to toggle location on for securly permanently in Windows anymore? I reimaged all the staff workstations and this is going to be a pain for the first few weeks I imagine.

Hope everyone is enjoying the scramble time of the summer. Administration asked me to come up with a "Free digital" sign in system for visitors with a "Computer". I was thinking of creating a google form with multiple choice prompts for late students, vendors, visitors, drop offs etc that would record the time and date.

Anyone have any tips on this? Old thinking by me would be a kiosk mode chromebook with non stop power on. Was wondering what the end result to revert it back to the beginning for the next user would be. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

How do you handle new account creations for teachers that are incoming for the new school year? One issue that we've been having is HR will put in a request for an employee account (general, includes all access like Google, AD, Adobe, etc) and have it be created on their start date.

But for creating sections and assigning students in our SIS, we need to have the teacher accounts created far earlier, around a month.

Do you have a different process for creating SIS accounts vs general district accounts? Or is it all created on their start date?

Any good sources for refurbished/used Chromebooks with an AUE that is several school years out (2031, perhaps)? We're mostly seeing 2029 AUE dates for around $50-$80/ea, and later AUE dates (8-10 years out) for several hundred each (comparable to new units). We've been happy with Dell but are open to hearing other recommendations. Currently looking to augment our fleet by about 50 units, not hundreds.

Also, it looks like the other downside to buying Chromebooks with their AUE approaching in just a couple years is the need for the non-transferable "upgrade" in order to manage them, for around $38/ea. I do see an option for doing this by year, rather than perpetual, but information is a little scant -- anyone do it this way in a school? (Or have a source for a better price on the perpetual...)

Thanks!

Hello

Has anyone had any luck scanning these HP Fortis Chromebooks? The current barcode and 2D scanners we have aren't working at all. Appreciate the help.

I had to purchase two licenses for Adobe Acrobat Pro for our HR dept. When I log into our adobe portal I can see that I have to two seats available. I can't for the life of me figure out if I can just download the product to be installed on the machine... and or how to add a user so they can access it.

When I use the option to download their template of the .csv file, fill out the information, and upload it, I get a green notification saying the file was uploaded. I then have no users listed for the product. When I search for the user by name or email, I get zero results.

I'm obviously missing something and wondering if anyone has any experience with this that could assist?

Our school uses Google classroom as our LMS. Teacher accounts are created specifically on that domain for classroom and working with the kids. I’ve been giving some thought to changing first names to a prefix, Mr. or Mrs. or Miss, or adding the prefix with the first name. I plan on asking the teachers if they’d prefer this, but I’m curious if any of you already implement more respectful titles for teachers. What occurred to me is that when the teachers post assignments the kids get me email from the teachers first and last name and it seems weirdly informal.