ICT Services 4 Education

 

SCHOOL ICT NEWS BULLETIN No 145 - 01/05/2009

Published by Children’s Services


Web hosting upgrade implemented

The new school website hosting service was implemented successfully on Monday (27/04/2009). If you are experiencing any problems with viewing or making changes to your website since the change please contact the ICT Solutions service desk with details of the issue.

Instructions on uploading to the new web server can be found at: http://www.eficts.norfolk.gov.uk/NSIX/WebHosting/Uploading.aspx

Instructions on using the new control panel to manage your website can be found at: http://www.eficts.norfolk.gov.uk/NSIX/PLESK/UserGuideSchools.aspx

Author: Amanda Carr

ICT Solutions Training Services

Getting the most out of MS office – Tips and tricks to save time and make MS office work for you. This course is designed to enhance the ability to make better use of MS office programs, gain confidence, save time and increase productivity when using e1.

Date: 21st May
Venue: Norwich PDC
Time: 9.30–12.30
Cost: £90

Internet Skills – improve and expand your internet skills for use within the school environment. This course will provide delegates with internet skills to save time and increase productivity which are useful when navigating e1 and the school VLE.

Date: 18th June
Venue: South Green Park Mattishall
Time: 9.30–12.30
Cost: £90

For further information or to book a place please telephone 0845 303 3003 training services or visit our web site www.eficts.norfolk.gov.uk select 'Training Services' from the side bar and choose 'Book a Training Course'.

Author: Rachel Hudson

ICT Solutions is moving

From Monday the 20th July 2009 ICT Solutions is relocating from the East Wing of the Open Academy to the ground floor of The Annexe on the County Hall campus.

This will mean that there will be some downtime for contract services such as Windows Updates, Antivirus updates and remote support functions. It is expected that these services will be unavailable on Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st July and be operational on Wednesday 22nd July. Please note that due to the complexity of the move, some services might not be operational until Friday 24th July.

There will be limited service desk and support cover during the move but please remember that all telephone numbers, email address and websites will remain the same. During the move the preferred method of contact is via email direct to the ICT Solutions service desk (ictsolutions@norfolk.gov.uk). The 'Request Assistance' button on the ICT Solutions website will not function correctly until all ICT Solutions services are fully operational. The service desk telephone number will still be accessible (0845 3033003) but the recommendation is to use this for emergency calls.

All ICT Solutions services and staff will be available again from Monday 27th July 2009 but there is a possibility that the move will be completed sooner but we will keep you updated via the ICT Solutions and 'Hot Topics' area of the Norfolk Schools websites.

During the move all schools services such as Internet access, email, AVCO, e1, computers and servers at your school will continue to operate normally and will automatically reconnect to the Windows Updates and Antivirus update services as they come back online. The only service to directly affect external users is Community Access (aka Neoteris) which will be offline during the move and will return to service as soon as possible.

In the mean time please continue to use our current mailing address for letters and packages as shown on our homepage (under 'Contact us' at the bottom of the page).

We will keep you updated via future e-bulletins and our website with more information about the move and how it will affect schools.

Apologies in advance for any inconvenience this causes.

Author: Paul Williams

e1 – New Admissions for September 09

As part of the new process for Admissions and as discussed at the recent workshops and in the latest bulletin to schools, we have now uploaded the new admissions files for all Norfolk primary, infant and junior schools.

Over 230 files (which means over 6000 new pupils) have been uploaded electronically, saving hours of keying in time by administrative staff.

The checking process will continue for the remainder of this week so we would be grateful if you did not call the helpdesk at ICT Solutions until this phase is complete. A notice will be put on the ICT Solutions' Website when the checking process has been completed. We would also ask you not to try and delete any of the duplicates until the checking process has been completed.

There are one or two things to be aware of when looking at your New Intake:

  • Inevitably some changes to new intake will need to be made before the list is finalised prior to the Annual Update
  • Schools which had already entered pupils manually will most likely see a number of duplicate records in New Intake where matching was not possible on import. Don't worry, the additional records can be marked for deletion prior to the Annual Update
  • Where a school has only had one New Intake category set up for 2009, this has been used when importing the admissions file
  • If a school has multiple categories set up for 2009, the most appropriate category has been selected – if this was unclear, a new Intake group named Sep09 has been setup
  • Don't worry if you need to change the intake category, this can be done easily through multi-edit
  • Where primary schools also have new intake (albeit a small number of pupils) for Y3 or Y4, a separate New Intake category has been created
  • Where a new category has been created, an admission date of 01/09/2009 has been used
  • Where the intake categories distinguish between full and part–time pupils, the full–time category has been selected for the import. Any changes can be made through multi–edit as required
  • In most cases the pupil data, which has been imported, contains details of the main contact plus a home address. However, we would still recommend that schools follow their usual procedures for gathering additional information for new pupils (i.e. by sending out admission forms) which can then be updated onto the record as required

In a small number of schools (especially those with a significant number of new intake categories) help may be required with the tidying up process. Please contact the helpdesk to request assistance if this is the case in your school.

Author: Paul Hurst

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