Competitive Purchasing of Technology

The intention of state purchasing guidelines is pretty simple – to ensure a competitive bidding process for significant technology purchases (normally over $5000.00). But complying with purchasing guidelines can be time consuming and difficult.

What’s a school to do?

The answer to this question varies with each financial manager. And sadly we have seen a few clever attempts to circumvent purchasing guidelines as we have bid competitively on posted items. But for purposes of this article, we will assume that your brother-in-law is not part of the equation, that you are not getting kickbacks from favorite vendors, and your IT provider has an arm’s length relationship with your financial manager. With few exceptions, we have observed great integrity with the charter schools and managers we have had the pleasure of serving.

However, the sheer volume of purchasing in a school can lead to unintended purchasing that is less than compliant. Here is a suggestion that we have found to be pretty simple and complies with the intent of purchasing guidelines.

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to know every states purchasing guidelines and this may technically not comply with the rules of your state. Check with your local state office of education.

First, let’s illustrate an important concept and consider a story of two guys selling watermelons.

Two men formed a partnership. They built a small shed beside a busy road. They obtained a truck and drove it to a farmer’s field, where they purchased a truckload of melons for a dollar a melon. They drove the loaded truck to their shed by the road, where they sold their melons for a dollar a melon. They drove back to the farmer’s field and bought another truckload of melons for a dollar a melon. Transporting them to the roadside, they again sold them for a dollar a melon. As they drove back toward the farmer’s field to get another load, one partner said to the other, “We’re not making much money on this business, are we?” “No, we’re not,” his partner replied. “Do you think we need a bigger truck?”

What does this have to do with technology? More than you might imagine.

Margins for most technology purchases are razor thin and the marketplace is very opaque, meaning you can in an instant determine the best price for nearly anything digital. Just do a quick search on Amazon or eBay. By taking this small step, the chances of overpaying significantly for technology is reduced greatly. Know what it is you are purchasing.

So why not purchase from an online venue such as eBay, Amazon, or others? Good question; and the answer is you just might! Especially for the occasional one or two items that are primarily consumer electronics/technology. However, using eBay or Amazon becomes more problematic when you need a specific type of technology, a specific quantity (often large), and with the manufacturers warranty included (or extended warranty if you choose).

Furthermore, it is a little difficult for most schools to actually specify the correct solutions, they need. That is presumably why you have technology managers in your organization. The biggest mistake we see with respect to purchasing is what to purchase rather than how to purchase, or from whom. And then there is the installation and management of that technology going forward.

But I digress…

One of the simplest ways we have found to provide our schools with a competitive bid is to take three simple steps:

1. Identify clearly what technical solution is required (this is the most important step).
2. Utilize a technology distributor that represents a large variety of vendors.
3. Arrange for a cost plus, or percentage of invoice markup for your purchases.

Let’s look at an example of how this works:

 

Assume that a school administrator comes to us with a requisition for new desktops for all staff members. Specifications are agreed upon in advance and would include features such as form factor, operating system, memory, and storage requirements. Added to that feature list is a general idea on the budget available.

 

Our next step is to provide our distributors with those specifications and obtain competing quotes from their list of vendors. Now if you are dealing with a single vendor, your purchasing program will break at this point. So be sure you deal with a distributor’s representative, not a single vendor’s representative.

 

We work with two of the largest technology distributors in the US and, with few exceptions, receive a wide variety of products that match the required specifications. We then select based primarily upon price (all other considerations being equal). The school is then presented with our recommendations and the PO is obtained, the invoice is marked up the agreed upon amount, and the items are ordered.

This simple process provides our partner schools with a fair and competitive bid for items requested. The cost plus markup scheme can be easily audited to verify fair pricing and we provide the interface for warranty claims, service, etc.

 

One of our competitors claims to sell hardware at cost to their customer schools. Perhaps this is to offset the high fees charged for services, or perhaps they just need a bigger truck!

Technology Outsourcing: In House or Out House….

That didn’t exactly come out the way it was intended, let me start over. The subject of this week’s post is the physical location of your technical support staff, particularly those doing higher level support. Providing support in house is having your technical staff on premises at all times. Providing your support remotely (or out of house) is having your technical staff work from their office.

Which is better? Let’s take a deeper look.

There is a very wide array of remote access and connectivity capabilities now available to Information Workers. This creates an opportunity for your IT staff to provide remote support in some cases more effectively than being on premises. But there can be significant perception issues in those situations and it might be problematic if not managed properly.

Before you start down this road, here are three questions you must answer:

1. Do you have a high level of confidence that your technical support staff acts with integrity?
2. Are you able to provide meaningful measures of performance and results?
3. Is your support communication infrastructure instantaneous and rock solid?

As you think about those questions, let me describe a scenario that occurred shortly after relocating our office from Texas to Utah a few years back.

 

We were providing technical support to an organization that was going through a major system upgrade. They needed someone onsite each day for a few weeks to bring all the new pieces together and train a large influx of new staff members. And they were looking to our organization for that support.

 

Only problem was, we were 1200 miles away!

 

So, we set up a remote control system on each desktop and started to provide the support needed and found we were significantly more effective than being there in person. Here’s how:

1. It is quicker to move room to room by tabbing to a new window than by physically walking there.
2. It is far less disruptive to be virtually in front of a computer than being physically present. And there is no competition for the same physical space.
3. It is more effective for technical support to actually observe new staff attempting to do a process than to ask them to describe a process or problem.
4. It is far easier to transfer support files, help documents, or simply chat when the support technician is at his workstation than at the workstation having problems.

However, there was just one small problem. Although our support of the staff was very effective, the administrator who was dealing with an entirely different set of problems was not happy about the arrangement. Her ongoing question was “Where is IT when we need them?”

 

Perception made short work of this very happy arrangement.

I’ve thought about this experience often, when discussing the manner in which we provide technical support at our partner schools and have been much more careful to ensure everyone understands the process. What appears to be very effective from the perspective of your technical support team may appear to be getting taken advantage of by an unconvinced administrator.

 Some organizations just feel the need to be able to walk down the hallway to the server room (closet in many cases) and talk face to face with technical support. Fair enough, but when we are trying to spread limited resources as far as humanly possible in a charter school environment, this may not provide the most bang for your buck.

What tools are required to do this? Good question. In short, Office 365 for education – specifically the Lync client now integrated into the latest release. Earlier versions work equally well. There are other solutions, but none as simple or as effective – especially if your staff uses Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).

Using Lync (see previous articles for more details) our partner schools have a very effective support mechanism. It starts with presence, which indicates availability of technical support; then provides an escalation of communication methods to solve the problem at the required level. For example, a simple text message exchange can solve many minor issues. If more detail is required a phone call (via Lync) may be required. And if necessary, either party can share an application or entire desktop view to the other while communicating about the matter.
And if we need to involve more folks, or just talk face to face, we do an instant video conference or video call. And all of this can be accomplished without prior arrangement, meeting invitations, or software installation.

You’ll probably want to evolve into a remote (out of house) support mechanism over time, should you decide it is practical. It is very difficult to gauge the effectiveness of your support team when they are operating remotely, if you have no baseline of experience on premises. And you will definitely need to have a proven help desk solution in place to track and report on help desk issues.

And this discussion makes a couple of very important assumptions – trust being the one and capability the other. If you don’t have complete trust that your support staff will bill you according to services provided, or if you have doubts about their capability to effectively solve problems quickly then this long distance relationship may not work.

As distance learning has proven, proximity to support resources is not always necessary. And if the teacher or technician is competent and provides the right set of tools, the experience can be very effective and enjoyable. I personally think it is grand to go to work right after my workout when it is only 20 steps away – never mind the shorts and T-shirt!

If your technical support is inhouse or in the outhouse (so to speak) and you would like to explore ideas on improving it, give us a call.

What we have here is a failure… of Leadership

One of my favorite lines comes from Paul Newman, in the movie Cool Hand Luke. It is similar to this weeks blog title, and most of you over 40 have probably heard it. Newman repeats the phrase, “What we have here is a failure to communicate!” He repeats it often and until his eventual demise.

I substitute the word Leadership, because communication is the single most important aspect of the Holy Grail called leadership.

This is not an article criticizing anyone in leadership at any school. Leadership is a tough business, a worthy objective, and a never ending quest. It is very hard work for most of us average folks who don’t possess the skills of (pick your favorite leader).

And I hesitate writing about leadership, because I have my own failings. But I’ll do it anyway – mostly because I can, and also because I believe there are a few key ways that leadership can be enhanced in the area of Information Technology in a Charter School.

It’s pretty simple, really. Somebody has to be in charge and everybody needs to follow. How you get there is not so simple.

We recently had an exceptionally talented teacher approach us about a new online learning system that she was excited to share with others. Fair enough, we always welcome new ideas and ways of improving things. Problem is, she wanted us to essentially pressure the other staff members into seeing the world in her particular view. Of course we could have pushed her agenda and made it difficult to use other similar services had we been so inclined, but that would be a conflict of interest and contrary to sound and ethical leadership.

Do you have similar challenges in your organization? We frequently see these shooting stars of good ideas hurling across the proverbial campus sky, only to flash one last time and crash to the earthy reality of resistance to change and failure to get people on board. Change is hard and change requires leadership.

Again, this is not about criticism, but better ways of doing things.

May I suggest a very old fashioned approach to this very common problem? We have observed positive results at schools that have implemented these ideas.

It starts with a committee, okay if the label of a committee is a turn-off, try “focus group” or “change engineers” or whatever you like. But assemble a group of enthusiastic individuals - preferably volunteers who enjoy technology – to meet as a Technology Advisory Committee. Include one or more individuals from the following stakeholder groups – students, teachers, parents, administrators/BOD, and IT.

Establish a set time to meet and give it a high priority, perhaps even throw in some perks for participation.  Don’t waste time or meet without an agenda, be organized and serious. Then begin the process of listening to ideas, problems, suggestions, and challenges and collectively formulate a game plan that is agreed upon by the group. Don’t rush things. If more information is required, delay a decision rather than rushing forward for the sake of decisiveness.

When ideas are vetted in a fair and open manner, the best ideas will ultimately bubble to the top. A wise leader can encourage this process by maintaining order, giving all stakeholders a fair voice, and ensuring the dialogue does not become personal or vindictive.

You should observe three important principals in these interactions:

1. Most good ideas come from the troops – teachers and students are where the rubber meets the road. They often have great ideas that bubble up because they are the primary consumers of IT.
2. Wisdom and perspective comes from experience –administrators will guide the conversations to avoid the pitfalls of policy limits, government mandates,  and budget realities.
3. Practical aspects of implementing are best addressed by your IT managers – building upon existing infrastructure is often a necessary compromise with new ideas.

Individual efforts, by any one group alone will never win the day. There has to be an agreed upon direction, with buy-in from all the stakeholders after vigorous debate, and a practical implementation plan put together that doesn’t completely undo the infrastructure already established.

Is your school missing the proverbial forest for all of the trees when it comes to Information Technology? Do you apply the same seriousness to deploying IT assets as you do financial assets?
Or is the culture at your school focused on position, power plays, and pet projects? 

By implementing regular Technology Advisory Committee meetings you are more likely to have a single, rational, and agreed upon process to determine what is best for the school.

Summary

It is possible to provide concise leadership in the area of technology. In our view it starts at the top by establishing a Technology Committee, with representatives from each stakeholder group. The committee meets regularly and deliberately to evaluate the desires and needs of the students through the advocacy of teachers, tempered with the wisdom and experience of the administrators, and guided by IT.
 
Bonus: A suggested methodology for your periodic TAC meetings:

1. Start Positive: Begin on a positive note.  Report on a new implementation or project that highlights success in your efforts.
2. Train Constantly: Have a 5 minute training session about something really useful that needs wider adoption. It may be the very issue you report on in the first item.
3. Encourage Participation: Have each stakeholder representative review one or two high level technical challenges or ongoing problems. Avoid getting too deep into the details.
4. Find Consensus: Informally poll your group to discover which challenges are your most pressing issues, then discuss it in more detail.
5. Propose Solutions: Encourage each stakeholder to propose a course of action associated with your top issue(s) without interruption.
6. Debate Proposals: Open the proposal up to vigorous, but moderated debate. Explore alternatives, question every aspect of the proposal, review cost/benefits, and consider implementation challenges.
7. Assign Action: Develop an implementation plan or resolution plan for the issue. Complex issues may take multiple meetings to solidify, but act to the extent possible.
8. Require Reports: Make assignments and reports on those assignments the subject of your next meeting – agenda item 1.
9. Repeat as needed: You might need weekly TAC meetings at first. Eventually you should be able to meet just once each month.

To outsource or not to outsource… that is the question

We recently learned that one of our partner schools is proposing to hire full time staff for their IT, finance, maintenance, and other services, which had previously been contracted out. Okay, at first glance this seems like a legitimate management decision, but is it?

While I cannot speak to other types of services, we experienced this exact scenario once before with respect to IT services at a K-6 charter school and it was disastrous.

Several years ago in Texas, a Vice-Principal was hired at one of our partner schools. He quickly determined that his expertise was sufficient to supplant ours and within a few months found a way to eliminate our contract to provide IT support on one day each week. This was a school that we had built from the ground up and was operating with a high degree of efficiency.

I will spare you the details, but by the following year the Vice-Principal was fired, the school was in financial distress (which led to the dismissal of the business manager), and the technology had pretty much been re-outsourced to the Regional Service Center (the state). And the terminated Vice Principal had so maligned our service model in the process of making the case for our contract termination, that we were not considered in rebuilding the infrastructure.

The whole process diminished efficiency, caused significant service disruptions, cost significant sums of money, and accomplished nothing of value.

So are there times when it is a good idea to hire a full time IT administrator for your school? Maybe, but in the dozen years or so we have been doing this we have found very few. For starters, the numbers (as in cost) just don’t add up. Furthermore, the administrative oversight of personnel is not significantly better. And the level of expertise is greatly diminished.

Restated, these are three reasons why outsourcing IT is normally a better idea than hiring full-time: Cost, Control, and Expertise.

Cost

According to a January 2011 survey by PayScale, the average high school principal in the United States earned a total salary package between $68,167 and $101,560. The Bureau of Labor Statistics validates those numbers, finding that administrators at elementary and high school receive an average annual salary of $85,220.

On the other hand, a similar study by the BLS for computer administrators employed in the highest-paying industries, computer equipment manufacturing and securities exchanges, salaries averaged $89,840 and $89,340, respectively. The number was less in the academic world, but not by a large margin. Granted there is a wide range of qualifications for Information Workers, but even non-degreed, yet certified Network Engineers earned up to $56,000 on average.

When competent Information Workers can earn nearly as much as School Administrators, it is difficult to understand the justification to hire a full-time Technology Director at most Charter Schools. This is particularly true when very few schools need full-time IT administrators. They rarely even need full-time technical support.

Our standard management model provides 1 day per week of onsite Network Administration, supplemented by the daily support required for the particulars of a school, either by a less qualified support engineer or a faculty member assigned to technology. The best scenario is having a faculty member assigned to support technology and serve as the point person in IT matters.

Let’s do the math, assuming a 50 week annual contract. A network engineer charging $65.00/hr. at 8 hours per week would cost $26,000. A desktop support technician charging $15.00/hr. for 20 hours per week would cost $15,000.  The total cost is $41,000. And this provides the full range of technical services required for most freestanding Charter Schools.

This is about half of the cost of hiring one competent Computer Administrator. I emphasize competent, because like in the experience described above, hiring to the level of your budget may in fact cause you to hire an incompetent Computer Administrator. The unintended costs of doing so can be enormous.

Control

Not long ago we had to let one of our desktop support engineers go. We were informed that he was not a good fit for one of our schools and our coaching him on his work ethic was not going well.  We reluctantly terminated this employee, only to find that the school had decided to rehire him as their employee instead of ours.

The situation went from bad to worse. Now, not only did we have the same HR problem as before, but now we had less supervisory oversight.

You will in all probability always need to have entry level desktop administration support. This is where competent Computer Administrators get started. Managing desktops, while getting training on network administration and specific line of business applications is the common pathway for information workers. And there is always an abundance of desktop administration to be done in a school.

But having administrative control of information workers is a tricky business. It is crucial that those so employed are extremely trustworthy and able to work well with others. After all, they control all of the access to information resources in the school and can without much difficulty view sensitive documents and even your email communication in many cases.

Having an outside entity manage your Information Systems can provide an important element of integrity into your infrastructure.

Expertise

You don’t hire a doctor full time to evaluate a medical condition and treat it. Nor do you typically hire a CPA full time to do your bookkeeping. And most schools only retain legal counsel for specific compliance or legal matters where specialized knowledge is required.

There are reasons, both economic and practical why outsourcing Information Technology is wise. Obtaining the requisite technical expertise is the most important reason. Some technical expertise is only required once, as in the design of your network or major system implementations. Other technical specialization may be required only intermittently when upgrading servers or network infrastructure. And much technical expertise is only required infrequently, such as network administration.

So why would you hire full-time to the highest level of expertise for those rare occasions when needed if the bulk of your technical support requirements exist at the entry level? This is a classic misallocation of resources.

Summary

At the risk of self-serving, it seems that outsourcing Technology Management is a pretty common sense approach. It costs less, provides more control, and delivers a higher level of expertise. And these are all good things.

But alas, a wise individual once told me “Common sense is not so common”. 

Please call if you would like to discuss the right mix of Information Management and Technical Support resources.

Implementing SharePoint at Your School

One of the core technologies I recommend for managing information at school is SharePoint, a core element of the Office 365 for Education system. I have mentioned SharePoint in several articles over the past two years and it continues to be a favorite tool at some of our partner schools. And while SharePoint is an enormously popular solution in larger commercial enterprises, it tends to have poor adoption in the Charter Schools community, as well as many other smaller organizations. 

While working with our partner schools, I constantly evaluate the barriers to implementation and have come to the conclusion that the primary reason SharePoint has lackluster adoption is its complexity. My purpose in the next few articles is to explore different ways you access SharePoint and what it can do for your organization.  Like many complex systems, SharePoint can be mastered - and the benefits are quite compelling.

 

SharePoint is a web based technology that allows you to share information from most endpoints with an Internet browser or from one of a myriad of applications on those endpoints. An application can exist on either a desktop or laptop (Windows or Mac), on a tablet (Windows, iOS, Droid), or on your smart phone. Understanding the difference between accessing SharePoint from the browser vs. an application installed on an endpoint is a key to understanding how it works. 

Once you understand the mechanics of connecting to SharePoint, using it becomes a little less confusing. It is probably helpful to also broadly categorize the kinds of SharePoint sites you might use.

SharePoint sites exist in two broad categories. There are public facing (Internet) websites and private facing (intranet) websites. Public SharePoint sites are just like other sites on the World Wide Web, containing images, text, forms, and features. Private SharePoint sites are collections of data that you share internally, or at least share in a controlled manner. Access rights is another very important SharePoint concept and mirror the access rights to files found in all computer operating systems. 

One of the most popular uses of SharePoint is document collaboration, which is often associated with sharing documents as we once did using “Shared” folders. But, this is not just document sharing, rather it includes a wide array of features associated with creating, sharing, storing, distributing, securing, and archiving documents. Furthermore, SharePoint provides clever notifications about your documents and automates the filing of those documents. And finally SharePoint contains a built in search mechanism which enables you to quickly located documents within a variety of site collections – like a Google search, except just for your website.

There are a number of reasons we use SharePoint instead of SkyDrive, DropBox, Google Docs, Evernote, or another cloud based sharing service. It boils down to features, function, and capacity. SharePoint has many features not found in consumer grade sharing sites, it functions well with all types of computing platforms (Windows, MAC, iOS, Droid, etc.), and has the capacity to grow with us into a fully integrated system. Consumer oriented technology that works well for a few users , does not always work well in larger organizations.

Document sharing, the most prevalent use of SharePoint, is the most common starting point for an organization. Unfortunately, many organizations don’t get beyond this functionality to enjoy the more robust features of Sharepoint.

Think of SharePoint as a cloud based shared folder, with all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages of a network “Share”. The advantages are numerous – collaborative work, document libraries, forms repository, document control, revision tracking , anywhere and anytime access, convenience in working from multiple locations, platform independence, and the list goes on.

The disadvantages associated with normal “shared” drives are significant, but do not apply to SharePoint. They include having your document overwritten or deleted by another user – intentionally or otherwise, lack of security for sensitive documents, and lack of controls to prevent simultaneous edits of a document. SharePoint solves all of these and other problems associated with collaborative work.

So how does one access documents on a SharePoint site? There are a number of ways, but they boil down to three overall methods:

1.       Browser based access

2.       Mapped Folders on your computer

3.       Apps or program that automate SharePoint Access

Over the next few weeks, we will address each of these access methods in detail giving you an introduction to the basics of using SharePoint.

With that introduction in mind, let’s take the next few weeks to consider the different ways you can access the SharePoint in your organization. And let’s approach this from the perspective of using Office 365. Few of our schools have the technical resources or capabilities to do SharePoint on premises. It requires servers, configuration, and administration resources that are not typical for most Charter schools.

See you next week...

I'll be (working from) home for Christmas!

With the Christmas Holidays (or Winter Break for those of you so inclined) fast approaching, it might be helpful to look at your options of getting some work done while you are away from the campus.

After all the shopping, parties, and gatherings with family and friends, you might just need to sneak off to the office for a while. Here are a few ideas to help you do so without going out in the cold!

The need to access resources inside your school network is the natural result of a maturing infrastructure.  Being able to do important tasks at the office while you are at home or while traveling or on vacation can dramatically improve your administrative oversight. And the ability to remotely access your computer at work is a necessity as workloads continue to encroach upon personal time.

Getting the big picture about remote access and then understanding your options might be helpful in deciding which method or technology is best suited for you. Without a basic understanding and game plan, the implementation of remote access can be a harrowing experience and very confusing. Let’s consider a few options.

From a practical standpoint, there are three methods of interacting with computers and resources in your organization from afar. There are other methods, including VNC, a popular open source solution, but my experience with these other solutions is that they require a higher degree of technical skill, both to install and to use. Our mandate is to keep things simple.

Depending upon the task at hand you may want to use all three of the following methods, which include:

1. Website or web browser based programs
2. Virtual Private Network or VPN
3. Remote Desktop Connection or RDP

Website or browser based programs

Using browser based technologies to connect to resources in your organization is likely the simplest way to access remote resources, unless you have a firewall with remote access features. You have probably seen ads for “GoToMyPC.com” or “Logmein.com”.  This option requires you to visit a provider’s website, create a user account, and then download and install their software.

You then complete this same process on computers to be remotely controlled, by logging into your account installing the same software on each machine to be managed remotely. As you install the remote control software on each remote PC, you will see an icon that represents it in your list of controllable computers.  And if you manage all of your computers in one account, you can control any one of them, at any time by clicking on the icon that represents that specific computer.

The advantage of this type of access is that it is pretty reliable (based upon my own experience) and relatively easy to use. The most complex part of the process is understanding which role you are playing when you are installing the software and getting it set up properly. And be sure to record your passwords or access codes.

The disadvantage of this type of access is that it costs money. It is a subscription based service that will cost about $10.00 per month per machine you wish to control. There are some free versions (www.logmein.com) but they restrict the things you can do while connected using the free version in order to encourage you to buy a full-featured subscription.

It is important to understand that when you use this type of remote access you are only remotely controlling the remote PC. Read this statement slowly three times – I am remotely controlling my remote PC. When you disconnect from the remote PC, the work you have accomplished remains there, unless you specifically transfer the files to your controlling PC or laptop. And there may be challenges associated with getting that file transferred back to your current location.

This is an important concept to understand, because if you spend an hour working on a Power Point presentation at the office. It’s at the office! Saving it back to your home PC or Laptop is not always easy. Additionally, you must have the same software installed on your home PC or Laptop to use the file just created.

Bottom line; understand the inherent limitations of remotely controlling your office computer.

Virtual Private Networks

A VPN connection is an excellent choice for remote access to your network. But it is important to understand how a VPN connection works and the planning required using it. The most common VPN scenario associates your firewall device, installed to protect your network from outside intrusion, to your remote computer via software. The software facilitates the connection by opening a secure pathway across the Internet and through your firewall, to your remote computer. These client programs are normally manufacturer specific, designed to work only with your firewall, and provisioned with a security key or token to verify your identity.

A VPN connection is like virtually connecting an Ethernet cable into your network hub at the office. Just imagine a very long cable from the server room out the door, along the street, up your driveway, and into your den at home and you will get the concept. But that is all a VPN connection will do for you…, give you a remote connection. This alone may not provide you with the remote experience you desire because of the network security built into computers, printers, servers, and other devices at the school.

Think of it this way: you can take any PC or Laptop to the school and plug it into the network, but your connection may be restricted to just a few resources. Unless your PC or Laptop at home is joined to the school’s network, you may only have a connection to the Internet and access to very generously shared resources.

When correctly planned an implemented, a VPN connection can be as close to a seamless or transparent connection to your school network as possible. But it has to be correctly implemented and you need to understand the consequence of that implementation.

For example, joining your home PC or Laptop to the Domain at the school may interrupt the small peer to peer network in your home. And changing from a workgroup to a domain and back may cause you a significant amount of grief. You may even loose important files and documents. (A workgroup is the most common way to create a shared broadband connection at home with DSL or Cable Internet service. A Domain is the network security model used in most schools.)

The benefits of VPN are quite remarkable. You simply turn on your remote PC or Laptop and do your tasks. Since you are part of the network, you will have full access to your email, your shared folders, and Client/Server based applications such as QuickBooks, Microsoft Office, Microsoft SQL, etc.

Remote Desktop

No discussion of remote access would be complete without considering Remote Desktop Connection, or Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), a very useful tool built into all Windows XP and later Microsoft Windows based computers. It is similar to web based remote access technologies in that it allows your home PC or Laptop screen to display your office screen in a real time remote control session. In Windows 7, the Remote Desktop program is found at the Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories folder.

Properly setup, RDP works great. It is quick, reliable, not subject to constant fiddling, and allows you to control both local and remote resources, i.e. local and remote hard drives, printers, and CD’s. And once you are plugged into the network, it can find computers by name.

The challenge in setting up and using remote desktop is twofold. First you must know the name or IP address of the machine you wish to control. And second you must get through the firewall protecting your network. Remote Desktop uses Domain Name Services (DNS) to translate computer names to network addresses, so setting it up can be a little tricky.

RDP is generally a set it and forget it type of configuration. Once it finds your remote desktop, it will remember the settings and allow you to connect quickly by clicking on an icon located on your desktop.

Using RDP will require your network administrator to open a port in your firewall and then route your RDP session to the correct PC. And don’t forget that the on premises user always wins with RDP. In other words, if you are using RDP and someone at the office touches your mouse or presses a key on your keyboard, you will get disconnected. And unlike a browser based technology where users on both ends can see the screen, RDP will not display both the remote and local session at once.

Summary

Technical Support has been completely revolutionized by remote access technologies. It is a fundamental component of providing support services to the schools we manage. And we use each one of these different methods extensively.

As a school administrator, the benefits of remote access should be very obvious to you. Choosing which method to use may be a little less clear and will depend in large measure on what specific task you need to accomplish. It will be further determined by your network infrastructure, Internet bandwidth, installed software, and level of technical support to set it up.

Feel free to call if you need assistance in deciding which of these remote access methods will work best for you. And don’t wait until the holidays begin, you have to set these solutions up while at school – it is quite difficult to do this entirely from home.

One final note: Remote access is not the same thing as working collaboratively with other team members who may also be remote. That kind of anytime, anywhere, access to your important files is a function of your core technology infrastructure. Search this site for articles about Office 365 for Education for more information.

Online Marketing - Part 3 of 3

Which social media platforms are you or someone on behalf of your school using?

The question is becoming more important as the communities we serve get more connected – socially. Equally important is an evaluation of how well your social media strategy and your marketing strategy align, and the extent to which they are used consistent with your school’s current and future policies.

For me personally, just figuring out how to use social media has been a challenge – one that in large measure still eludes me. But I understand it well enough to observe some less than desirable outcomes of what started as good intentions. The purpose of this article is to view social media in its entirety and discuss an overall social media strategy. It seems that there are three common challenges that exist with respect to social media.

Priorities, Processes, and Control

I addressed these issues in an article written over a year ago. And while the popularity and adaptation of the different social media platforms have changed. I believe these principals still apply to all of the variants of social media.

Priorities

It is still my opinion that your first priority, when evaluating online venues, is your school’s website. A properly constructed and managed website becomes a virtual community unto itself and the consolidation point for all of your social media channels. As hard as it is to imagine, there are still plenty of folks – especially parents – who simply don’t get the Facebook phenomena and probably never will. For them a tweet is something they long to hear after a long, cold winter, 1+ is decent Golf score for a tough hole on par 5, and Pinterest is just bad spelling.

So it seems that placing significant content on your main school website ought to be your highest priority. It might be a better strategy to liken your main website to the hub of a bicycle wheel, with all of the spokes leading to/from the hub to your various social venues. From a marketing standpoint, your online strategy, including all of your social channels ought to be designed with the purpose of driving traffic to your school website and gathering leads for prospective students.  Here are some other reasons why your main website ought to be your highest priority:

1. Social platforms, while here to stay are a bit unpredictable and your community will probably move in and out of various social channels on a regular basis. Placing a greater emphasis on social channels at the expense of meaningful content on your website could end up diluting your message over time and eliminating much of your intended audience.
2. Content is king! While social channels are buzzing and brimming with activity, it is still a social channel. Real content, including legally required notices and documents should not to be delivered in a social setting. While announcements, opinions, and chatter can drive awareness of policy and administrative processes, the clear and authorized information should still be on your main website after proper review and publishing guidelines are followed.  
3. The social media landscape is changing very rapidly, and the apparent winners today may not be the winners long-term. Your ability to move in and out of the social channels of choice will be enhanced by a clear website strategy. That strategy should not rely on the success or failure of a particular social media.

Process

Social media as a business (or school) is different than social media for personal use. Understand the difference and avoid mixing the two. If you are into social media, you have undoubtedly experienced cases of extreme over posting. And you certainly don’t want to be like that as an institution. It is not uncommon for companies to employ social media experts, whose sole focus is on developing and delivering social content. While it is unlikely that will have the luxury of such expenditure, there should be a clear strategy in your school about this process
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The last thing your principal wants is another assignment, but someone at that level ought to be the champion of the school and the school’s social media advocate. But principals and other staff members are not perpetual, so be sure that your social media account is.

It is also important to be consistent in your policymaking with respect to social media. Do you attempt to build a Facebook community, but ban the use of Facebook within your school? Are you trying to build a twitter following, but restrict use of mobile devices in your organization?

One idea is to develop your own internal social media platform. This is done automatically for you if you are using the Office 365 for Education platform. See my article about Live@EDU services.

Control

One common challenge is well-intentioned individuals, associated with your school, who create social media accounts using their own personal information and your legal name. This is a very precarious situation that should be handled sooner, rather than later. Having control over your messaging is essential, even when those individuals are key stakeholders in your organization. Much like the nightmares we have seen with domain names, ownership of Facebook pages with your official name by unauthorized individuals can be embarrassing at the least and potentially a legal nightmare in the worst case scenario.

Want to see how big of a problem this is? Just do a Facebook search using the name of your school. If you see more than one entry, you have a problem. More importantly, your users have a problem because they don’t know who to follow.

Social Media can be of great benefit to your school. Set clear priorities, designate specific individuals to manage it, and maintain control of this important piece of intellectual property. And remember, that from a marketing perspective, social media exists to obtain prospective students. So make sure there is a consistent and easy way to gather and track leads for followup.

Online Marketing Basics - Part 1 of 3

During the crucial planning year, you need to get your marketing game on. After all, the most important measure of your success is student enrollment. And unless you are deeply connected to your proposed student population through some other non-profit association or group, that means doing some good old fashioned marketing.

There are many ways to do marketing and I don’t pretend to be a marketing expertise. My experience with those who make such claims is not favorable.  However, when it comes to the basics of online marketing, or marketing driven primarily by the Internet, there are some reasonably well established ways of doing this.

Let’s consider three areas you might want to review with respect to your Internet oriented marketing strategy, we’ll review one each week:

1. Your website as a marketing machine
2. Email marketing and online communications
3. Social media sanity

Your website as a marketing machine

 

The notion of a “well designed” website is a bit  subjective. It starts with artistic style, design elements, and color combinations created by an experienced design team. But it also assumes an underlying quality of hosting platforms, server technologies, and functionality. And it assumes dynamic and current information that is relevant to your potential site visitors.

 

There are several articles on this blog addressing website construction, but let’s set that completely aside and focus on your website purely from a marketing perspective.

 

From a marketing perspective your objective is pretty simple. Help potential students (or their parents),  find your school online, make it easy for them to engage, develop a relationship with them,  harvest or gather their contact information, and develop a process to follow up and answer their questions and guide them through enrollment. You will want to automate this process as much as possible to keep costs down.

 

Improving the ability for potential students to find your school on the Internet is often referred to as search optimization. Doing search optimization well is an ongoing challenge and consists of two general categories of activities – paid optimization (such as Pay Per Click advertising) and native or organic optimization. In my mind free is always better, but good optimization always comes at a cost. You either spend money for search optimization advertising, or you spend time placing high quality content on your website that produces high organic search results. In real life you will probably want to do both, this is particularly true for new schools.

 

One of the most frequently overlooked features that will improve organic search results is to place video on your home page. A recent study I found suggested a 1200% increase in search results by using this technique alone. In addition to that you will want to tag (label) or provide keywords called meta data on each page, use sufficient headers in your articles, label each and every image or video on your site with accurate and descriptive words,  and of course write useful content. All of these things will make it easy for search engines to properly index your site. Indexing is an ongoing process by which search engines crawl or evaluate your site and quantify relevance of your content, these measurements will determine your placement on their service.

 

There is an entire industry on the Internet, indeed an inexhaustible supply of individuals and groups who claim to have expertise in Search Engine Optimization. No doubt someone out there has to be an expert, but in every case (and we have tried more than a few) that we have hired these so called “SEO Experts”, they have collected a lot of money and without exception delivered little in the way of improved results.

 

Google and the other search engines closely guard the metrics associated with search optimization, in similar fashion Coca Cola closely guards the formulation of their products. And they (search engines) are continually changing the formula for search optimization to produce better results. Good quality content that is fresh and relevant and linked to other sites and networks will eventually produce good organic search results, in the interim you may want to do some search word advertising.

 

Want to take a simple test to see how well your school does in organic search? Just open a fresh browse and clear all of your cookies and cache, then type in a few key words that you would use to find your school (hint: don’t use your school name – that’s cheating and a prospective student would not know that information). Now count the pages of results and if you don’t appear on the first few pages, you have work to do.

 

Bottom line is that a free web site put up by one of your parent volunteers, while an admirable effort, may not garner the kind of organic search optimization you need. And with that quality of website construction, you may need to spend significantly to buy search optimization.  This of course, assumes the volunteer is not one of those hard to find SEO experts!

 

Measure your progress

 

Google analytics is no doubt the industry standard tool to measure your site traffic. But many website authoring frameworks provide their own measuring tools, often in the form of raw page counts. However you choose to measure your website traffic, do so regularly. Even with just basic page counts, you can quickly determine which content on your website provides the most interest for site visitors.

 

Don’t forget the mobile platform

 

The statistics associated with mobile devices as a share of Internet search makes a very compelling argument to optimize your website for mobile devices. Mobile access is the fastest growing segment of Internet traffic. Accordingly, it would be a very good idea to ensure that your website is mobile friendly.

 

There are several ways to do this and the techniques are outside the scope of this article, but a good start is to take a look at your website through your mobile phone or smart phone.  Then enlist your friends, with different brands of phones to do the same.  Taking a look at your site and attempting to navigate it will provide you a great deal of insight into what works and what does not.

 

The simplest way of managing the mobile access on your website is to use the right technology in the first place. Mature open source platforms, such as Word Press or Joomla do a very good job of mobile optimization right out of the box. “Build your own website” tools on many of the popular hosting companies may not do an adequate job.

 

If your budget allows, it is possible to place code on your website that senses a mobile device and redirects site visitors to a portion of your website that is designed specifically for mobile web browsers.

 

Summary

 

Your online marketing begins with a well designed and constructed website with fresh and relevant content, particularly video. Your website should be the communications hub, much like a bicycle wheel, that serves as the end point for all of your Internet communication. Invest the time and money necessary to develop the search results you need. This may include paid search word advertising, Facebook Ads, and other venues. And don’t forget the ever growing audience of mobile users.

Next week we will address email and other forms of communication that will improve your marketing reach.

OneNote – The Swiss Army Knife of Collaborative Work

Being a good Boy Scout, I appreciate having a single piece of equipment that serves so many purposes. And growing up in the troop, I always admired the Swiss Army Knife with so many functions in one little package.
 
Enter OneNote, a versatile and clever piece of software that does many things on many platforms.

As you go about organizing your digital assets, there seems to always be something that doesn’t quite fit. Over the years I have attempted various ways to track snippets of information I knew would come in handy, but did not have a rational way of organizing it. And for about the same number of years, I have noticed this little program in the Microsoft Office suite – OneNote- that I really did not know what to do with.

Recently my need to organize and my curiosity, compelled by a couple of glowing reviews, caused me to take a more serious look at OneNote. Now I use it every day and it has become an indispensable tool.

One Note is a free form (this is not insignificant) program to collect, store, and share information of every imaginable type. It can do text, images, links, tables, video, and all the variants of digital content of which I am aware.  It can be designated public or private, and can be shared with as many or as few individuals as you like in a number of cloud based storage/sharing platforms.

Free form simply means that you can place your pointer on any location on a page an add content in the exact location you desire. Unlike Word, where you start at top left and work your way down the page adding words and images as you go.And once your information is upon the page, you can easily rearrange it without difficulty
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OneNote is similar in function to an old fashioned Notebook, which has tabs or dividers, and pages. And it is useful to think about it in this manner. You can use it as a scrapbook to collect newspaper articles, photographs, handwritten notes, and drawings. You can use it as a small database to track all of your user names and passwords (and make it password protected). You can create tables which will actually calculate totals, much like a spreadsheet.  Then you can organize the various pages where this information resides in a hierarchical fashion with sub pages.

All this is good, but the most impressive feature of OneNote, for me, is the ability to synchronize my collection of information across all of my endpoints. It does little good to take notes on my iPhone, that are not synced to my laptop, my desktop, or iPad. And when I make changes to a notebook in OneNote while working at my desk, I want that information available on my mobile devices as well.

And now we arrive at the point where, with a little background, you can begin to see the potential of this program in the classroom. Imagine creating an instructional document that you wish to share with your students. You have a great teaching platform with OneNote, especially if you want to collaborate with your students on the document. And I don’t mean just share the document, I refer to real time collaboration, where notes and ideas from each individual in a group are simultaneously experienced by the rest of the group.

OneNote has deep integration into the Windows desktop, with special tools that allow you to take snippets of information from your screen and place them right into one of your OneNote pages. Just press the Windows logo key on your keyboard, followed by the letter “S”. Once you define the area you wish to save, the utility prompts you to select a OneNote location.

Another handy ‘built-in’ feature is the “Print To” function within windows, which allows you to redirect any print output into a OneNote page. This is very handy when you need to make a printed copy of something, but are without a printer.

And finally, the wide variety of “Save As” functions provides a way for you to save OneNote pages in a wide variety of formats, including .pdf.

Microsoft Word is great at composing and editing documents, Excel does a great job of organizing rows and columns of numbers, and PowerPoint does a superb job of creating slide shows. But sometimes you just need a place to organize a few paragraphs, a small group of numbers, a few pictures for clarity, and then add hand written notes. Then you need the ability to share your content with others and gain valuable feedback.

OneNote is the one program you can use to do a little bit of everything.  I ignored it for years, but now use it every day. And unlike the trusty Swiss Army Knife, you can actually get OneNote through security at the airport!

Give it a try, you'll be impressed!

Mind Your Manners - Use a distribution list!

One of my pet peeves is receiving an email message that contains dozens and dozens of email addresses  in the “CC”, or worse the “To” field. Sometimes the list of name is far longer than the actual message sent.  This has long been considered poor etiquette in the world of email communication, but continues to happen frequently.

The primary reason this is a no-no, aside from annoyance of format, is security. While everyone on your list is happy (presumably) to receive email from you, they may not wish to disclose their private email address to everyone else you are including. You should think twice about doing this.

So how do you send a single email message that is personally addressed, yet delivered simultaneously to a group of intended recipients, without recreating the message over and over for each recipient?  You do so through the use of a distribution list.

Distribution lists have been around for many years and found within most email systems. The idea is simple enough. You build a list of recipients in an administrative interface of some sort, you give that list a name, and create an email address associated with it. Unfortunately, there are many systems that only go this far, which is well short of the features you will need to use distribution lists successfully.

In order to fully enjoy the power of a distribution list, you need to have a few controls in place to manage it, otherwise your distribution list can become an annoyance unto itself.  Here are four things your distribution list should be capable of doing, to keep your recipients happy:

 

Private/Public access control.

 

The only thing a Spammer likes better than a valid email address, is an email that feeds a valid distribution list. Imagine their joy knowing that Viagra add gets replicated automatically through your distribution list. So be sure your distribution list has the capability of restricting email messages if the list becomes compromised. One way of doing this is a Public vs. Private setting, which restricts access to only  those individuals found on the list. I other words you should be able to make the list private, if necessary.

 

Blacklisting or White listing  

 

Occasionally your distribution list gets hijacked by one individual with an agenda. While shutting down the entire list (by making it private) is possible, you may not want to limit communication in this manner.  Be sure your distribution list capability includes the feature of adding senders to a black (disallowed) list. This will help ensure the integrity of your list, while keeping it accessible to the public at large.

 

On the other side of this scenario is a distribution list to which a user must subscribe. This is called white listing. By using an approved list of senders, such as parents in committees or volunteer capacity. You could create a large, but manageable directory of approved senders to your distribution list.

 

Moderating or Approving

 

As your distribution list grows in size or importance, you may want to ensure that each message is approved for distribution. This might be useful when conversing about sensitive subjects. This is different than white listing in that you approve specific message content as opposed to specific senders.

 

Ensure your distribution list has the capacity to require approval before messages are sent. Recognize that some view message approval as censorship - so be careful out there.

 

Message Addressing

 

One last requirement of your distribution list is message addressing. Although I have not seen this issue for some time, I have seen messages from distribution lists that displays the distribution list email address as the sender, such that your reply is automatically re-distributed. Don't go there!

 

If you want to create as self-induced  SPAM event in your organization, try using a distribution list with this deficiency. You will quickly overwhelm everyone’s inbox in a matter of a few replies. And it will be nearly impossible to follow the conversation.

 

A sophisticated distribution list system will display the original sender’s email address as the Sender, not the distribution list per se. And your reply to the original sender would not then be distributed to all on the distribution list. This is an important feature!

 

Summary

 

Distribution lists are great tools to expedite email communication to a predefined set of recipients.  This is particularly true if the messaging is primarily in one direction. Verify the email system you are using is capable of the above features. Ensure the capability to exercise administrative oversight of message traffic, then enjoy the few extra minutes each day gained from not having to select a dozen or more recipients from your contact list each time you wish to send an email to your favorite group.

Help Desk Perspectives

A recent experience over the use of a help desk caused me to revisit the subject, with a little more insight. It went something like this:

After completing a major upgrade at a small (25-30 users) organization, we were anxious to get feedback about improved performance and user experience. So I instructed the office manager to provide a list of issues which would help us to quickly identify individual PC’s that might be having problems.

And this was not a casual effort without communication infrastructure. The manager had direct access to me via Instant Messaging, with presence, using Lync 2010, email, and my cell phone. We conversed about other matters routinely, in fact on a frequent basis I asked about any upgrade issues specifically and the response was “thumbs up”.

Unaware to both of us was a collection of little slips of paper, post it notes, and torn off pieces of yellow note pad pages accumulating on the bulletin board next to the refrigerator in the break room. Neither I nor the office manager had the slightest idea that a major problem was causing a significant slowdown for a large number of users.

That experience did not end well, but reinforced an important lesson about how not to manage your help desk. For a review about the benefits of a help desk, please see my earlier post here.

How you identify, communicate, prioritize, assign, and account for technical support issues makes all the difference in the world with respect to how well technology works in your school. And there are a large number of help desk systems available for you to choose from. Here are the features that I would look for in a help desk system:

Universal Communication Medium

Help desk issues need an agreed upon standard communication protocol organization wide. The most practical is email, but only if you have a robust email system that provides you synchronized messaging anywhere on any device.

Email is accountable, easily distributed, actionable within automated ticketing systems, and universally used in most schools. Little post it notes (or big ones) probably won’t meet this standard, and have you no (eco-green) shame.

Filtering and Consolidation Mechanism

With the capacity to easily fire off an email to help@yourschool.com, any help desk solution will quickly be overcome with redundant and sometimes ridiculously simple support requests (computer unplugged, network cable disconnected, etc.). So there needs to be a way of collecting daily support requests in some sort of queue, in order to quickly evaluate and act upon requests.

If fifteen teachers report that a crucial website is being blocked by your content filter (for example), then it is entirely counterproductive to think about creating fifteen support requests, or even creating a single trouble ticket for that matter. In the span of time required to create a trouble ticket, you could easily log-in to the firewall and resolve the issue. Then happily delete all fifteen emails reporting the issue!

The most common mistake in designing a help-desk system is the requirement to create a support request (case, incident, ticket, or whatever you choose to call it) for each and every issue. Where a simple notification and action request exists, most ongoing support requests can be resolved as a matter of course.

This is especially true when you are fortunate to have daily onsite technical support resources.

Escalation Process

Any technical problem can be solved with sufficient resources, co-ordination of effort, documentation of actions taken and proposed, and feedback. But, complex or persistent issues may require escalation to a more experienced team member, or an outside vendor. This is not something you can do effectively with a post-it note, or even a three ring binder.

The capacity to resolve complex support requests requires documentation that is available to all parties involved. This includes desktop support technicians, network engineers, software vendors, and most importantly – the end user.

At a minimum, the documentation should include date and time stamps, priority, resolution status, technician assignment, and notes for those involved documenting steps taken and subsequent actions required. An enormously helpful feature would be automation and integration with your internal communication systems, this will facilitate status updates, expected resolution timeframes, and resource requests.

Knowledge Base and Performance Metrics

The accumulation of knowledge about your infrastructure is an important by-product of a well-designed help-desk. Issues that repeat infrequently can be more easily resolved by referring to case notes of a previous support request. Knowledge bases can also be made available to your end users and encourage more self-support in their daily activities.

Performance metrics really speak to the effectiveness of your technical support staff. The most equitable way to measure the effectiveness of your technical support team is through the reporting that comes from the very system they use to resolve your technical support issues. If one of your technicians routinely resolves a significantly larger number of support cases (or queues) in a specified period of time, you might want to consider giving him a promotion!

Summary

Getting frustrated about the difficulty in using a help desk is understandable if it is too cumbersome, complex, and available to only a few individuals. But don’t give up, the benefits of a rational help desk are significant and worth the investment of your time and resources. It can pay big dividends.

Find a simple and reliable communication method (we recommend email) that can be used by anyone having a support request.  Incorporate a practical filtering and issue consolidation process that helps you assess priorities, gauge relative impact (many or few users), and provides a working list for your support staff. Then develop a time or severity based escalation process that formalizes support requests and starts the documentation to resolve and account for more serious issues. And finally, look more long-term at the reports coming from your help desk to assess the effectiveness of your support staff and technical support organization.

And if you really just can’t give up your yellow post it notes, do your support team a favor. Place them in a prominent position and don’t scold them when they miss the support request posted to the bulletin board in the break room next to the refrigerator they never use!

Let us know if you would like to explore ideas about how you can improve your help desk experience.

One Server or Seven – How many do you need?

One Server or Seven – How many do you need

Over the summer I have had occasion to visit a number of new schools. As I have done so, it is quite interesting to hear of the experiences of various school administrators.

One thing that surprised me is the wide variety of resources, measured by server count, which these similar schools possessed.

It would seem, given relative size and complexity that you would find an average server count – such as an average of 2.5 servers per school. But our experience suggests a much wider range of server capacity than you would expect. And while that is an interesting statistic (quite unscientific, I might add) what is even more surprising is the level of satisfaction we found between schools at the opposing end of the spectrum.

The school we observed having the most rational and functional information technology infrastructure had exactly one (1) server.  That school also reported the greatest degree of satisfaction in being able to manage their information systems effectively with very few outside resources.

On the other end of the spectrum was the school with the highest server count, seven (7) to be exact. Contrary to what you would expect, this school complained about irrational IT infrastructure, higher than desired management costs, and a very dysfunctional environment. 

I confess this is a very narrow sample and not a scientific study by any means. But, these are two very real schools, with very capable administrators and staff, each reporting a widely different technology experience.

One of the fundamental challenges we see with Charter Schools is that they are usually operated by administrators who come from traditional school districts, with conventional ways of doing things. That convention sometimes does not work in managing Charter School technology. Size and complexity of technology really does matter when managing a single campus freestanding charter school.

Without a thorough review of systems in either of these schools it would be unfair to characterize their technology providers as being irresponsible, but it begs the question – why so many or few. Sadly the answer may have more to do with the financial well-being of those recommending high server counts than what is best for the school.

Here is a list of common server roles and how you might outsource them at great savings:

Domain controller and active directory server

This common network environment provides user access control and group policy management to simplify administration of users. It requires a unique network ID or login for each user and individual passwords. While this may be necessary for schools that enroll older students, it can be very cumbersome for the younger grades. Students younger than 5^th or 6^th grade have great difficulty remembering usernames and passwords, so there is often a standard username and password published, which in effect invalidates your security policy.

Alternative – Office 365

Consider moving your user authentication to the cloud, where access is anywhere, anytime, and on any device. After all, the most common benefit for having active directory is so that your Desktop, Favorites, and My Documents follow you around.

Web server for hosting your website

Most organizations abandoned this practice years ago as hosting companies began stepping over each other to offer you website hosting facilities for a few dollars each month. But there are still a few diehards who insist on hosting their own website on their own hardware. This might be more of a job security play than a practical solution. Not only is this expensive, but the security ramifications are enormous. If your website sits inside your network perimeter, the chance of a security breach is greatly increased.

Alternative – West Host, Blue Host, or any other Web Hosting company

You honestly cannot even power a webserver inside your building for the cost associated with an annual hosting agreement at a website hosting company. And even if the power to run your web server was free, it would still cost you to maintain it. Only in the most unusual of circumstances does it make sense to host your own website.

Microsoft Exchange Email Server

Email is a critical business system in most schools, so up until recently we had an MS Exchange Email Server in every school we managed. But email as a hosted solution is a much more practical, reliable, and inexpensive solution.

Alternative – Office 365

 Don’t walk, but run to http://www.office 365.com and sign up for Exchange based email services that are now available free to academic organizations. It will be more reliable than your in-house email server, much less expensive to own and operate, and it will eliminate SPAM and Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE).

Exchange based email has so many advantages by way of features, security, and compliance that it is the gold standard communication platform for many organizations – large and small. If you are still using the email accounts that come free with your hosting account then your being negligent and probably spending much more time and energy than you would imagine dealing with the ramifications of such services.

Accounting Application Server

There are some really robust accounting packages used for education and hopefully you have found the right solution. But I have never understood why a charter school enterprise that has essentially one source of funding (State or Federal programs) needs an accounting program costing thousands of dollars each year, when a copy of QuickBooks will do.

But QuickBooks needs a server, right? Well, perhaps not  – a decent business class workstation, yes. A multi-core server with advanced drive arrays, gobs of memory, and expensive tape drive? Probably not.

Alternative – QuickBooks Online

And if you really want to simplify and cut costs, consider QuickBooks online. It requires “0” hardware and is available from anywhere at any time. And that’s pretty handy for allowing administrators access to reports when they are relaxing at home.

Server for Staff Shared Drive(s) or Student Shared Drive(s)

There are many challenges associated with managing documents on a “Shared Drive”, yet this seems to be a standard setup in every school (well except those we configure). This is a classic case of “We’ve always done it that way”, without considering the great improvements of technology advances.

SharePoint has been one of Microsoft’s fastest growing technologies for the past decade. It is the modern day version of a Shared Drive, with many advantages.  It provides all of the sharing capabilities of a shared drive, without the limitations.

Here are the challenges associated with shared drives that SharePoint eliminates:

·         Security – By definition a shared folder is available to pretty much everyone,  at least that is the common scenario. And some things just should not be shared – like HR records, medical records, employment contracts, etc.

·         Overwrites – Ever wiped out another staff members document changes after they spent hours  on a joint project. That’s not a fun experience, but happens routinely with a Shared documents.

·         Versioning – Have you ever edited a document only to discover that the version you had two iterations back was better? Or have you collaborated with someone on a joint project and needed to revisit changes of a month ago? Or do you simply not know which copy of your document contains the latest revisions? That is a common shared drive experience.

·         Notification – Want to know when a document is changed or a document is added to a Shared Drive – good luck, without SharePoint.

Alternative – SharePoint in Office 365

In addition to solving the above challenges associated with Shared Drives, SharePoint also provides real cost savings to your school in the form of reduced IT management costs. Here is how:

·         Eliminating servers will eliminate hours billed at your highest technician rates

·         Eliminating USB drives will save costs and improve access to documents

·         Eliminating access issues (remote access, different classroom access, etc) eliminates IT requirements

Summary

Charter schools, which typically have fewer resources for IT management, can tap into the economies of scale that are the basis of cloud computing. Many traditional “server” requirements can now be outsources with improved security, functionality, and cost. If you have more servers than you need, consider moving that functionality to the cloud.

Virtualization - Part 2: Which Virtualization Solution Should I Use

Wading through the vast array of virtualization solutions is a challenge and frankly it will mostly be a waste of your time, until you focus on a specific solution needed for your school. I emphasize “specific”, because sometimes the process associated with the high tech virtualization strategy is a very low-tech and practical need to just get something done without an army of Network Engineers and a couple of hours on the phone with technical support.

You can virtualize servers, if you have a need to either consolidate physical hardware or add another server for a specific application. You can virtualize desktops and launch them in thin client sessions to create a sterile computer lab environment (such as required for testing). Or, you might want to use virtualization as part of your backup strategy for mission critical applications, such as computers running your financial software.

Whatever your circumstances, be sure you have a solid business case for implementing a virtualization strategy. Don’t get sucked into the IT department’s love affair with virtualization without a compelling solution attached to it. The one certainty about virtualization is that it will virtually guarantee (another intended pun), that your IT team will be on the payroll for as long as you keep that virtualized environment in place. This is a pretty complex solution, even for those of us in the business.

Here are three very specific examples of where we have used virtualization to the benefit of our school partner:

VoIP Management Server: Due to growing pains, one of our schools needed to setup a remote administration office to accommodate temporary office space during new facility construction. They did not want to spend on infrastructure that would be replaced within a year, and space was very limited.

The VoIP system they setup for the temporary offices required a server for the call manager (PBX functionality).

Using Microsoft Hyper-V technology, we created a VM (Virtual Machine) which had the sole purpose of running the call manager software. There were specific system requirements that differed from the configuration of the host server, otherwise we would not have needed a VM in the first place.

It ran flawlessly for the period of about 24 months (ever heard of construction delays) and then we decommissioned that VM and moved to the new facilities. Mission accomplished.

The business case for this virtualization was temporary computing requirements with the least amount spent on hardware, software, and electricity.

Server Migration: A rather old and inefficient server at partner school needed replacing. Simple enough, right? Well yes, except the school financial system was installed on this server and the orders were to not to interrupt it. It also did after hours synchronizing with a district system, which required point in time coordination.

Quick is not something that can be guaranteed with a single network engineer managing an entire school on one day per week (our model). So we employed a virtualization strategy.

The solution was to configure a VM and work through all of the network connection issues, configuration, and testing. Then at a pre-appointed time we quickly took a snap-shot (image) of the operating server and virtualized it. This VM then ran for a period of several weeks giving us plenty of time to install and configure the new physical server, without pressue on our part or interruption on theirs.

Why did we not simply keep running the financial system as a virtual machine? Good question, although it could have in theory been easily done. There were ownership (as in the district’s property) and licensing issues that drove the decision.

The business case for this virtualization was a time critical server migration. Not just the length of time it took, but the point(s) in time requirement as well.

Computer Lab:  A thoroughly trashed computer lab at one of our partner schools needed replacing, but budgets were very tight. We needed to find a way to refurbish/replace the computer lab for well under $10, 000 with the specific requirement to make them easy to use for state mandated testing.

If you read between the lines, what the administrator was trying to avoid was that very stressful “day of testing” computer problem nightmare you have all experienced.

Our virtualization solution in this situation was Windows MultiPoint server connected by HP Zero Clients. Using MultiPoint server, we were able to reduce the cost of the lab by 75% (we set up in a conservative 5 – 1 ratio) and provide a sterile computing environment on testing day.

The setup was easy, because MultiPoint Server 2011 is designed specifically to recognize and configure the HP Zero Clients. And after downloading the states thin client setup utility, we were able to quickly boot into a “Sterile” testing environment. That is where all computer sessions are identical, locked down, ready for testing, and capable of being administered by a proctor.

The business case for this virtualization was not only cost, but in delivering a sterile computing environment, (as we defined above).

Summary

Virtualization is a mature and well adopted technology used worldwide in a variety of circumstances. It may indeed be appropriate for you to consider. Before doing so, identify a specific computing problem and desired outcomes and a budget before calling your IT provider.

Hopefully your IT provider is wise enough to guide you in selecting your virtualization strategy, software provider, and configuration to accommodate your business case. And if you have a requirements for a temporary, time critical, or specific computing environment; then virtualization is likely a good choice.

And that’s virtually all I have to say about it… until next week. We’ll look a little deeper at virtualizing your computer lab.