ICT
Weekly Update
12th February 2007
I am writing to give you an update on current
issues and activities in the ntschools environment. These
updates will be provided weekly to keep you informed and allow
you to ensure your users getting the best possible service.
We will also continue the monthly newsletter articles to will
provide more detailed information on new developments to the
entire user base.
Service Desk Delays
The problems with user account management (see below) combined
with the increased activity at the start of the school year
has overloaded to the help desk resulting in long delays in
picking up calls. We are very aware of the problems this is
creating in schools and have placed DEET Staff with the Editure
help desk to reduce delays. In the meantime can callers please
help us by being clear and succinct in identifying your issue
or requirements so we can ensure all calls are picked up in
a reasonable time. Please also restrict calls to the service
desk number 1800 756657 to ensure they are logged correctly.
User Account Management
As you would know we are relying on an interim cumbersome
manual process to add or move user accounts which has really
slowed down the process and cause a lot of frustration in
schools. We had planned to have the ePass service available
as part of the ntschools rollout to provide self-service account
management however system development fell behind schedule
and the introduction on 28 January was halted when we experienced
performance problems. At this stage we are aiming for the
introduction of ePass the weekend of (24 -25 February) but
will confirm and advise later this week. One downside of the
rollout is that all user accounts will be reset to a standard
password (again) to synchronise the identities and user will
need to reset their passwords when they logon on the Monday
after the implementation. We will provide information for
you to distribute to your users when we confirm the rollout
date.
Email
We have been experiencing intermittent outages of the Exchange
email service which is affecting both webmail and the exchange
client. These are related to the configuration of the hosting
environment and should be corrected this week.
Thank you for the feedback on my query regarding forwarding
of LATIS email accounts. There was a range of views but on
balance most comments favoured retaining the forwarding feature
for a bit longer (perhaps to July). We will keep the service
going but are looking to introduce a service that allows individual
users or whole schools to disable the forwarding feature for
their own accounts.
There were a number of queries regarding the new anti SPAM
features. We have introduced a "appliance" based
service which users a dedicated server and custom developed
software to detect and remove SPAM based on a number of characteristics
including registered block lists, volumes of mail with particular
subject lines or sender addresses and malformed email text.
While this has been much more effective than the old service
which relied only on block lists, we are considering an upgrade
to Exchange 2007 which has in-built SPAM blocking features
as the long term solution.
The service desk has been receiving a large number of calls
seeking assistance on the features available in the Exchange
mail environment. Please encourage your users to use the help
features in the mail software as a first point to obtain information
and limit help desk calls to technical problems.
Management of Computers in Schools
I notice from the list that there have been a number of issues
with machine names in the new domain. Please note that under
our new model computers need to have a unique name across
the entire ntschools environment and this is being generated
by using a central naming convention. Unfortunately this means
that schools cannot use local names and be assured that they
are unique. Please use the instructions on the ICT website
to join new machines to the domain so you can ensure they
get a unique name. These can be found on fact sheets 14 and
15 on our website.
Dell Orders
The standard Dell workstation has been upgraded in line with
technology advances. Unfortunately we have had delays in getting
the standard ntschools image configured for the new hardware
so the Dell purchase website currently does not offer a workstation
option. We are aiming to have this resolved this week so that
you schools can order new workstations. We will let you know
as when you can order the new model workstation.
Feedback
Please let me know if you find this information is useful
and any issues that you would like us to cover in future editions
of the weekly update.
Email: gregory.moo@nt.gov.au
back
....
|
