PhoenixJP.info

I am not sure how many of you have seen the email from LGfL regarding the passing of John Jackson, but thought it might be an idea to post a thread in memory of him. He was quite simply one of the most energetic and capable people I have ever met. The LGfL events were always so memorable entirely because of John's enthusism. He really helped bring school connectivity and infrastructure into the 21st century, driving massive initiatives like SuperCloud broadband, securing dedicated national fibre infrastructure, and championing essential tools like safeguarding packages, the Free School Meals checker, and mass device procurement that made a tangible difference to schools daily. I am deeply saddened to hear this news. My thoughts are with his family and all his LGfL colleauges. A great loss for so many. 😭

Googlebooks are here... what do we think?

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 09:42:29 +0000

https://googlebook.google/intl/en_uk/ They look nice, they looks like they interact with Android Phone's well, they look powerful, they look like they run a pretty good desktop android operating system. They LOOK like a proper rival to the Macbook Neo, but they also look expensive... Plus they're categorically not replacing Chromebooks, so no need to worry about Chrome OS vanishing as the new Aluminium OS is introduced.

Phone systems - Suppliers

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 09:14:33 +0000

Hello, Just looking at our phone system contracts and i think its up for renewal soon, We still have cooper coming in to feed the phone lines. (Yes i know its getting switch off next year but no-one hasn't done anything about it before i started) Our current system is IPEC's on-prem and i think its around 10 years old. I've emailed Focus about our phone system and moving to a SIP line, just waiting to hear back (our current support contract is with them) Is there any other suppliers that anyone would recommend? Thanks in advance.

staff member wanting ai in the school

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:59:27 +0000

Has anyone deployed AI tools for staff across their school? We currently have Microsoft Copilot, but staff are increasingly asking for something closer to the ChatGPT like being able to easily group chats into projects, keep related work together, and generate images etc The problem I’m finding is that ChatGPT becomes very expensive once you move into the versions with proper management and security controls. ChatGPT Business/Teams seems more affordable, but from an IT admin point of view the controls still feel quite limited. For example, I can't seem to centrally/bulk disable plugins or properly lock down some of the features I wouldn't want staff using. I'm interested to know what others have deployed for staff if any ? or if you using Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or something you've built yourselves using an API?

Intune help with a missing device

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:59:03 +0000

A few devices which weren't used for several months seemed to have gone from Intune, is there anyway to get these back other than flattening them? They're also not in Entra. (Ps. I don't know the local Admin password for these devices!, so i cant local in locally and re add) Thanks in advance

The one where you just give up.

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:51:00 +0000

Some context first. I'm just getting the presenters laptop ready for the conf. It's a 2015 Dell XPS 13 9350, but there are often updated drivers around still for the Intel parts, and it only comes out to play for conferences these days as it only has 8GB RAM and an 2c\4t i7 in there. It did need a bit of TLC, and I cleaned out the fan and re-pasted the cpu, which actually made it very happy indeed! After this I did a quick search to see if a new BIOS had been released (slim chance as the last one was circa 2021) and lo and behold, there was one listed for this year. Given Microsoft's secure boot certificates requirements, I didn't think this was too out of the ordinary and it could just be an 'emergency' release to let it comply. So I asked AI to provide me with a link to it as I couldn't find it on the site, and it did indeed give me one for the new 9350 BIOS: Happy happy joy joy I thought, only to be rewarded with this when I tried to install it: It was at this point I went to bed.

Copilot Chat Image Generation Issue

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:33:56 +0000

Just wondering if anyone else is currently unable to use image generation using Microsoft Copilot Chat? Image Generation is enabled for our Tenant, but keep getting: And there doesn't appear to be a status page to check for this either. Thanks,

Moving MIS

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 22:10:22 +0000

Just out of curiosity I'm investigating how hard it is to get data out of iSams. I can use the export to excel functions pretty easily but things like the linked documents, Sen data seem more difficult. Anyone moved away from iSams?

Cloud RADIUS and Cloud PKI designed for Intune 802.1X

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 21:45:02 +0000

I've been building this for months, mostly evenings and weekends, and I've got to the point where I can't usefully test it on my own any more. Disclosure first - this is mine, I built it, it's called Passbeam. Not a company with a sales team, just me. One thing to get out of the way early, because it will decide whether the rest is any use to you: it works off Entra ID and Intune. If your estate is Google Workspace and Chromebooks, this won't help you today and I'd rather say so now than waste your time. What it does. It's cloud RADIUS with a separate certificate authority per site or trust, Cloud PKI. You connect it to your Entra tenant, it provisions your CA, and it gives you an SCEP profile and the Wi-Fi and wired profiles to paste into Intune. Devices enrol themselves from there. If you're still running NPS on a Windows VM with a certificate template nobody remembers setting up, that's the thing this is meant to replace. The bit I think matters most: at authentication time it checks the certificate and then checks Entra. So if you disable the user or the device in Entra, they stop getting on the network. You're not waiting on a CRL or a certificate expiry. You can also choose to deny access to devices when they are marked non-compliant within Intune. Wired, wireless and VPN all go through the same endpoint. RADSec where the equipment supports it, plain RADIUS where it doesn't. There's a sessions view built on RADIUS accounting, so you can see who is actually connected right now, which access point or switch port they're on, and what address they hold. You can also knock a device off a live session. Kinda neat when a trust has 30 schools and you can just pop in the device name and it will show you the site the device is connected at, its session and a little "disconnect" button. There's also a path for printers, CCTV, desk phones, door access control, BMS and so on, for the things with no user and no MDM behind them. Any device that supports 802.1X. You request a certificate for the device by hand and it authenticates to the network like anything else. Useful for a port in a corridor that is only ever meant to have a camera on it, or the MFP in reception. I've tested it on my own kit - APs and switches, iPhone, Android, Windows, a printer - and nearly every problem I've fixed came from actually using it rather than from the test suite. There are a number of small users on it now who have been invaluable in finding bugs and asking for features. Which is why I want people with real networks pointing real devices at it, and school networks are their own thing - term-time load, shared iPads, kit that has been in a cupboard since 2014, and a summer holiday to do the risky work in. I'd love people who will tell me what's broken, what's missing or what could be improved. https://passbeam.co.uk Happy to answer anything technical in the comments 😄 Thanks, Scott.

Glitch in the Matrix?: A woman "disappeared" during a report on the Fragata Libertad

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 16:09:00 +0000

Google NotebookLM - Slides Deck Missing

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:49:45 +0000

Our SLT have just started using Google NotebookLM via the LGFL who syncs us into Google Workspace via USO AutoUpdate. We should have a slides deck when working on a notebook but this seems to be missing for us. From looking online, you need to verify your age for this to appear potentially. However, when trying to do this with my own LGFL synced Google Workspace account that is also missing the slides deck, I hit the attached error message. Has anyone had the same issue and found a way to make the slides deck appear for them? LGFL isn't a 100% sure on what the cause could be - I'm feeling it will be more Google related and just something we need to fiddle with in Google Workspace itself potentially. Thanks in advance!

IT Field Engineer - West London - £30-42K neg on exp

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:36:55 +0000

IT Technician Location: South West London Salary: £30-42K negotiable on experience Hours: Full Time A very well-established family IT services business, supporting principally primary schools, is seeking an experienced ICT Technician to support its schools across South and West London boroughs like Hammersmith, Ealing, Key, Richmond etc. This is an excellent opportunity for an IT professional looking to develop their 2nd line skills and their customer-focused technical skills. The successful candidate will have IT support experience working in a field role or helpdesk environment, providing remote and onsite support to a broad range of clients. Strong troubleshooting skills, a proactive attitude, and a passion for delivering excellent customer service are essential. Education experience highly advantageous. Key Responsibilities Provide 1st and 2nd line technical support mostly onsite in a field basis with some home working when not contracted to be onsite. Diagnose and resolve Windows desktop, software, printer, and network issues. Administer Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace environments. Manage user accounts within Active Directory and email platforms. Monitor and deploy Windows updates and security policies. Configure and deploy laptops, desktops, printers, and peripheral devices. Investigate and resolve hardware and software faults. Manage and update helpdesk tickets, ensuring accurate documentation. Carry out routine server, backup, and network monitoring activities. Perform hardware upgrades and maintenance as required. Assist with cybersecurity best practices, including malware and virus remediation. Deliver high levels of customer service and maintain effective communication throughout ticket resolution. Essential Skills & Experience Extensive experience in an IT support role, ideally within an Education OR MSP setting. Strong Windows desktop support experience. Good knowledge of Active Directory, DHCP, and DNS. Experience supporting Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Excellent troubleshooting and problem-solving abilities. Strong communication and customer service skills. Organised, self-motivated, and able to work effectively as part of a team. Willing to travel daily both to and between customer sites Own car and clean licence Desirable Relevant IT qualification, degree, certification, or vocational training. Experience supporting server environments and network infrastructure. This is an excellent opportunity to join a growing organisation that offers varied technical exposure, ongoing learning opportunities, and genuine career progression. Keywords: IT Support Technician, 2nd Line Support, Service Desk Analyst, Helpdesk Engineer, Desktop Support, Microsoft 365, Active Directory, Windows Support. Get in touch via our website or the numbers below

Digital Helpdesk Team Lead - Warrington - £35,917–£40,414 DOE - Closes 7/10/26

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:24:11 +0000

Warrington & Vale Royal College is seeking to appoint an experienced and proactive Digital Helpdesk Team Leader to oversee the day-to-day operation of our Digital Helpdesk and support the delivery of a responsive, customer-focused IT service to students and staff. The successful candidate will provide hands-on 1st and 2nd line technical support while coordinating helpdesk activity, supervising team members and acting as the first point of escalation for more complex technical issues and customer concerns. Salary: £35,917 – £40,414 FTE (dependant on experience) https://www.fejobs.com/careers/wvr-ac/job/it-helpdesk-team-lead-1574925

Infrastructure Engineer - Warrington - £35,917–£40,414 DOE - Closes 7/10/26

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:19:56 +0000

As our IT Services team continues to grow, Warrington & Vale Royal College is seeking to appoint a skilled and motivated Infrastructure Engineer to join our IT Services team and play a key role in maintaining, developing and securing the College’s digital infrastructure. The successful candidate will provide third-line technical expertise across a range of technologies, including servers, networks, cloud services, Microsoft 365, virtualisation and security platforms, while contributing to infrastructure improvement projects and the continuous development of IT services. Salary: £35,917 – £40,414 FTE (dependant on experience) https://www.fejobs.com/careers/wvr-ac/job/it-infrastructure-engineer-1574924

Caught on Camera: Deer vs Rhino at a Polish Zoo

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 12:37:30 +0000

Senior 1st Line IT Support Technician - Woodford Green - £30,000 - £33,000 - 28/09/26

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 12:16:24 +0000

Are you an experienced IT Support Technician looking for more responsibility and the opportunity to develop your 2nd line skills? ESP are recruiting a Senior 1st Line IT Support Technician to support the Bancroft’s Family of Schools across three sites, with an initial focus on Woodford Green Preparatory School. Working as part of an established IT team, you’ll provide high-quality day-to-day support while acting as an escalation point for 1st line colleagues. You’ll also gain exposure to more complex 2nd line work including networking, servers, cloud platforms and infrastructure projects. You’ll ideally have experience with: Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace Active Directory and Group Policy Windows and/or macOS Networking including DHCP, DNS, VLANs and Wi-Fi Device setup, imaging and deployment Classroom technology and AV Troubleshooting and resolving escalated support issues Previous experience within a school or multi-site environment would be an advantage, along with experience supporting or mentoring junior colleagues. This is a great opportunity for an experienced 1st Line / 2nd Line Technician looking to broaden their technical experience within a busy education environment. Benefits include: contributory pension, generous holiday entitlement, free term-time lunches, private medical insurance, Employee Assistance Programme, cycle-to-work scheme and access to school fitness facilities. An Enhanced DBS check will be required. You must also be willing to travel between the three school sites. https://www.esp-recruit.co.uk/esp-job/senior-1st-line-it-support-technician/ Contact Tom Wyatt at twyatt@esp-recruit.co.uk for more information

PapurCut Sync of Users

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 08:34:45 +0000

Good morning - Does anyone know if a user sync on PaperCut to an on-site AD runs for all OUs under the main one? So if I sync to 'OU>Students' will anything under that sync : 'OU>Students>2026', 'OU>Students>2025' and so on? At the moment we seem to be choosing all of our OUs manually - but just choosing the top ones would be great.

ClipUpgrade

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:22:04 +0000

I have inherited a number of laptops running Windows 11 Home. I was planning to buy upgrade licenses for them, but then came across this article, which explains the upgrade can be done for free for schools. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/education/guide/1-windows/upgrade-windows-11-home-windows-pro-education-k-12 This worked successfully on the first two laptops, but I can’t get it to work on the third laptop. I have tried different admin accounts in case there is a limit per account. I won’t be able to test on a different device until later in the week. The error that I receive is: The segment or domain may be ineligible for this upgrade offer. Please contact Microsoft Support for assistance. Nothing has changed in our M365 admin centre. I have followed all of the pre-requisites. I have opened a case with MS and am waiting to hear back. I have tried a fresh install on this device and applied all Windows Updates, which hasn’t resolved the issue. Has anyone had a similar issue? Any suggestions to try and resolve this?

Sennheiser Outlet

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 23:57:34 +0000

I know most of you are aware of sites like the Dell Outlet, but this may be one you didn't, Sennheiser has one too, and there are some great deals to be had if you or your schools need something that is a bit more wallet friendly - https://uk.sennheiser-hearing.com/collections/outlet

Edugeek Minecraft - FTB Skies 2 Aero

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 19:08:12 +0000

A new modded server for everyone to have a go at. FTB Skies 2 Aero. This is a quest book driven skyblock pack, but with a Create Aeronautics twist. Pick your start type and start growing your existence. The pack is currently version 1.10.0. Available via the FTB Launcher or Curseforge. Whitelisting is currently manual, PM me here on on Discord and I'll get you set up.

Edugeek Minecraft - Cross-Platform server!

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 12:49:19 +0000

We now have a cross-platform capable vanilla Minecraft server running. It is running 26.2 at present, as Paper, the server system doesn't yet have a stable 26.3 release. If connecting from a Bedrock device, use the default port. Bluemap is here. DM me to get whitelisted, as always. Or message me on Discord.

Sage 200 budget holders - test something for me?

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:36:35 +0000

Would you mind logging into the Sage webclient and then going here: https://app.sage200.co.uk/Sage200SelfService/Workspaces/my-budgets-overview (or via the menu route Nominal Ledger > My Budgets Overview) and time how long it takes for "My budgets" to populate and the "Nominal Account Budgets" list. For mine (single budget, 202 nominal budgets beneath it), it takes 12-14 seconds to fully load from a refresh. It's noticably slower to load this term, both in-school and working offsite. For our finance manager and CFO (~100 top-level budgets) it times out and falls over both onsite and working offsite. 36 seconds to timeout on the web client. On the desktop it doesn't timeout (we got bored after waiting 5 minutes). It last definitely loaded reliably for them on 3rd August. All the Sage domains are exempted from HTTPS interception and filtering and I've double-checked to see if Sage snuck anything new on there and didn't tell anyone. cheers Pete

Bromcom Support

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 09:11:43 +0000

We are looking to move away from our local LEA support. Have reached out to Bromcom Direct, TurnITon and SCOMIS. Any recommendations or feedback on either. SCOMIS were brilliant with SIMs but not sure what they are like with Bromcom.

My Fluke LinkRunner has a fault...

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:31:01 +0000

The trusty linkrunner I acquired from the old boss many years ago now shows intermittent cable faults that don't exist. The new ones are sooo expensive! I have an even older one that still works perfect but she's hefty and can't just sit in the tool box. So is there a non-fluke tester that is worth anything? The current one is the size of a walkie talkie, can do dhcp, ping and show cable lengths for every pin. (super duper handy), send a tone with an 3rd party sniffer and it can check cables. (1" mono lcd job, not touch screen) Also it uses AA batteries can be left for months and just work!

iOS 27 BYOD and Smoothwall web filtering - Connectivity Assist causing issues?

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:07:27 +0000

We use our Smoothwall appliance (Maiden-38) to filter BYOD devices. At the moment, we do not ask students to install the Smoothwall cert onto their personal devices due to the support overhead, so effectively just do DNS based filtering. With iOS devices, we "instruct" devices that support iCloud Private Relay (which a user gets if they pay for iCloud storage, and effectively bypasses DNS based filtering) that our network is incompatible with the feature. This is done with our internal DNS returning an NXDOMAIN for mask.icloud.com and mask-h2.icloud.com. The user gets a friendly notification via iOS that iCloud Private Relay is not compatible with this network and prompts them to turn it off for the SSID. So far so good, however iOS 27 seems to have added a new wrinkle to this. It now includes a feature called "Connectivity Assist" that can be enabled/disabled per SSID, but that is at the users discretion. From our research and testing, when this is turned on (as it is by default) the DNS server provided by the Wi-Fi network will be ignored and the DNS server that connectivity assist uses will be enforced instead. This means the phone never gets the "instruction" from our own DNS server to bypass iCloud Private Relay and the user can browse the internet unfiltered. The Smoothwall web filter log shows the user browsing to the restricted site (shows red highlighting in the log, but not denied). If we turn off connectivity assist, filtering works as expected - not sure our students are going to be willing to comply with that request though... Is anyone else observing this behaviour in their environment (appreciate it's early days for iOS 27!)