ICT Information

Hi everyone,

As you would have already noticed, there have been some significant changes within the school regarding communications, IT, Google etc. the most notable being the new interface for the Staff Desktop. Here you will find resources, information links, links to the forms that we use throughout the year and eventually, the site will be populated with Procedures as well as the link to our SafeSmart portal for all our school policies. 

The advantage of using this new interface will be that when a post goes up on the site, you will be emailed to alert you that there is new information there and the site will also store all that information throughout the year. Your home page will be transferred over to this new interface at the beginning of the week and if anyone has suggestions about what else can be included on the site, please let me know… better yet, I will show you how to add it yourself 🙂 

This is an overview of the changes, however, I would like to meet with you on a 1:1 basis over the coming week to go over those changes with you. 

As I am unsure of everyone’s availability, I have added a calendar booking link with appointment slots for you to choose what will work best with you. Please click on the link to book your appointment time. 

Form Email Notifications

All of the previous forms used by parents to sign in, sign out etc have been re-built and are now managed totally by the school. 

Each time a parent completes any of the forms, it will send an email notification to you. This gives you up-to-the minute information regarding your student’s where abouts, as well as allowing the front office quick and easy access to checking data, permissions etc.

Please make a folder in Gmail to store these notifications so that they are able to be archived at the end of the year. If you are unsure of how to do this, please come and have a chat. 

Mailing Lists/Groups

Mailing groups for 2020 are all online. Please see below for relevant addresses or alternatively, click compose and then type 2020 to bring up the relevant list you would like to use. All staff should be receiving ‘2020 all staff’ emails, please let me know if you aren’t.

Please see images below for the 2020 Mailing Groups

To access the groups, sign into your Gmail account, click compose and then type 2020 to bring up the relevant list you would like to use. For year level groups, type the word year, the year level and ensure that you using the group mailing that contains the number 2020.

IT Tech Support Requests

Please remember to log any IT Support requests that you have. The form for this is on the links page of the staff desktop. It is VITAL that all requests are logged – this form is the basis of the jobs list that is generated for both Jacob and myself. If it is on the list, it can be allocated on a priority basis to be attended to. 

Unfortunately, our memory does not always remember conversations about issues that need to be attended too and emails may be overlooked, but if it has been logged, we have a visual to remind us. 

Please remember this the next time Jacob or myself ask the question ‘have you logged it’ – it’s not to be pedantic – it’s to ensure that we are able to address any issues you may have in a timely manner.

The log also provides an invaluable overview of the school’s IT systems, it’s users and devices as well as providing information about the state of the school’s infrastructure, which can then be used to inform planning decisions going forward.

Shared Drives

You may have noticed in Google Drive that you now have a ‘Shared Drives’ icon displaying a new file structure. 

This is the beginning of the migration over to the shared drive system for the 2020 school year. The impact of this new system is minimal, in fact, you probably won’t even notice the differences between our current file structure. The most notable change for users is that you will no longer need to ‘share’ documents – it is done automatically for you.  There are a few more technical changes behind the scenes which will make things easier but apart from that, the only changes you will notice will be the list of files located under shared drives.

 Unlike Google Drive which requires sharing permissions to be allocated, Shared Drives is owned by the school. This simply means that you do not need to ‘share’ files – any documents, slides etc created in a shared drive ‘belong’ to the school. 

What types of files can you add? All file types except files from Google Maps All file types
  SHARED DRIVES GOOGLE DRIVE
Who owns files and folders?  Your organization The individual who created the file or folder
Can I move files and folders?

Users can only move files. 

Administrators can move files and folders.

Yes
Can I sync files to my computer? 

With Drive File Stream: Yes

With Backup and Sync: No

Yes
How does sharing work? All team members see the same file set. Different users might see different files in a folder, depending on their access to individual files.
How long do deleted files stay in Trash?
  • Each shared drive has its own trash. 
  • After 30 days, files and folders in Trash are deleted forever. 
  • Members can delete specific files sooner.
Files and folders in the Trash remain there until the user selects Delete Forever.
Can I restore files? Yes, if you have Manager, Content manager, or Contributor access. Yes, if you created it.

 I would like to draw your attention to the 7. Staff Administration Folder and the 006 Shared Photos folders. The 7. Staff Administration folder is where you will find all your permission information for excursions etc. Currently, when I produce a permission form for you, I will share the spreadsheet link with the year level so responses can be monitored. I will continue to do that, however, if you wanted to check this information yourself, this is where you will find it. It is also the home for any type of ‘administrative’ information you may need throughout the year. For example, all your class lists have been produced and are currently located there as well as an ‘2020 All Staff’ List. 

The 006 Shared Photos folder is where I would like any photos taken of your classes, events, excursions etc to be moved to. This will help build a historical resource for the school as well as providing easy access to images for the newsletters, the web site, the parent community etc.

Currently I think most images may be stored on peoples own Google drives? *If* that is the case, when you get a moment, could you please move them into the shared drive. Each class has a folder listed in there and once I can get most of the images moved over, I can archive them off Google and onto the Server for prosperity.

 New Purchasing Software 

All staff have been enrolled into our new purchasing software for 2020, however, just about everyone’s email has skipped the inbox and has gone into your spam folder in Gmail. Can you please check there ASAP and authenticate your account. The program will use use your C number as your log on name and you will need to change your password. Please make a note of those details as you will need this information throughout the year if you wish to purchase. Budget amounts will be added in the coming days so that you have a visual reminder of ‘what’s left’ in your budget through out the year. To access the purchasing site, from the staff desktop you will notice under the Forms area click on the 2020 Purchase Form. This link will take you out to our purchasing site – Eschools. 

Printing Budgets 

Included in your budget figure is a printing budget. This year we will be enabling the Paper Cut Printing Management System to allocate these budgets. In order to do this, I need to allocate each of you a pin code. (Please complete this form asap so that we get this in place). Once I have everyone’s pin code, I will re-issue your accounts to reflect your budget and I will also call back in the printer cards that are currently in operation. 

While I know this is a lot of information to take in on top of everything that was discussed today, we can discuss any issues or concerns you may have when we meet during your ‘staff up-date’ meetings with me.

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