The primary school in Mirošovice u Prahy for Grade 1 (small class) was struggling with problems in the management of its facilities. Often there was a so-called hurrah event, where a dedicated parent put his hand to work and "somehow" set up the facility. Helping a small elementary school with administration is commendable, but lacks systemic anchoring and the necessary professional support... Because our company has family ties to the Mirošovice community, we agreed with the principal that we would provide our services at a professional level for a small financial contribution. So whenever there is a need to sort out issues regarding the school website or anything else IT related, the headmistress has a direct line to us and no longer has to persuade willing parents to help out.

Challenges

As the school is based outside of Prague, it was a challenge for us to ensure continuity in IT administration, especially in the beginning, while everyone gets used to the new environment and different style of work. 

As part of the customer's on-boarding, it was necessary to perform a comprehensive analysis of all the resources and design a simple, secure and system solution - i.e. replace all the default settings of the device and create a professional system solution.

Objectives

1. Provide regular support for Mirošovice Primary School, especially online, due to the nature of the school's location outside of Prague.
2. Perform a comprehensive analysis of the current situation and eliminate interventions that have not been carried out professionally, i.e. create a systemic solution.

Solution

In our analysis, we found that the state of the art is not as bad as we expected. The equipment used by teachers for teaching is modern and timeless in performance. However, the quality of management in terms of software was deplorable. Teachers were using one shared local account, their own freemail accounts (list.com, gmail.com, etc.) for communication with parents and other work-related issues, and there were no permission splits.

We set up a free Google Workspace for the school to use a professional cloud solution for email, data sharing and event calendars. However, our main priority was to manage all the devices in the school. We therefore decided to create a new tenant in Microsoft Azure and invest in Microsoft Office A3 licences, with the school only paying for each tribal member of staff and pupils having free licences.

Next, we proceeded to set up the entire school's tenant, especially EntraID and Microsoft Intune, through which all management of school equipment takes place without the need for a technician to be physically present on site. The devices are automatically configured using Autopilot, so even if a new device is purchased, there is no need for a technician to come on site, but just an internet connection and the new device is automatically configured according to the rules we set.

Users can use domain accounts from Microsoft Azure or EntraID on school devices (PCs, laptops, tablets). They no longer share their data with other users and the data is synchronized via the cloud. They always have only what they need at hand, not only on school devices but also at home. 

Of course, the accounts are protected by multi-factor authentication with passwordless functionality (no need to enter a password and authentication is done via an app on the mobile device), so parents can rest easy that their offspring's sensitive data is not compromised.

Result

Thanks to the chosen solution of the new tenant in Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365 A3 licenses, we have achieved convenient and efficient management of school devices that do not require the physical presence of a technician. Therefore, there are no unnecessary delays in our support and everything can be handled instantly via the cloud. In exceptional cases, however, it is not a problem for the technician to come to the customer personally.

In the Intune portal, we have a detailed view of what's happening on all types of devices, and we can instantly make adjustments through various settings, scripts and configuration templates.

The school only pays for A3 licenses for its core staff, but thanks to Microsoft's advantageous program, students also have access to the licenses, completely free of charge. Pupils can use the licenses on up to 5 of their home devices, just log in using the instructions which are personalised for each pupil or their parent.

Conclusion

The cooperation with the school has been going on for several years and the mutually friendly atmosphere never ceases to fascinate us. We are happy to help the principal and all the teachers and pupils to have a quality, intuitive and safe environment so that they can concentrate only on what their goal is - quality education and upbringing.

If you too are looking for a solution that will make your colleagues' jobs easier, increase the availability of resources via the cloud and speed up technical support, do not hesitate to contact us. We are happy to offer you solutions that meet your requirements.