IT DEPARTMENT UPDATE

Welcome Back!

The RRVSD IT Department would like to take this chance to welcome back staff to our school buildings! They have been very quiet and it has been nice to see many of you in person.

We want you to know that as you transition back into your buildings, that if you need any support, PLEASE put in a Service Desk ticket and we will do our best to help you asap.

Can You Please Do us a Favour?

If you haven’t already, can you please take a minute and pick up the receiver on your phone (if you have a new one) and make sure it’s working? You probably haven’t had a chance to use

it, so if you need some help, HERE is our help page if you need it.

Move files to Google Drive...

Many of you are using Google as your central storage for your files. If you are still using the local school server, we are asking that you move your files to Google (the Cloud). There are several reasons for this: 1) If your school server ever ‘breaks’ your files will be gone forever whereas if you store your files on the cloud, they will always be there, protected in the massive Google architecture: 2) Google Drive is more secure than your local school server: 3) All files stored on Google Drive are accessible from anywhere that the internet is available, but if you store things on the local school server they can only be accessed when you are at your school building. Covid-19 was a really good example of why Google works better to support universal internet access inside and outside of the building.

If you are unsure of how to move those files over, Dennis is available to help you! Please contact him by emailing servicedesk@rrvsd.ca or book a time slot with him here: book time with Dennis.

Also, for those of you who work with video regularly, or use a program that would need local storage, please let the IT Department know. We will find a suitable option for you.

Here’s What We’ve Completed…

• Asset Management (which is a fancy name for doing inventory) was done by Dennis & Laurie in schools in the division over the past 2 ½ weeks. Thank you to everyone for your cooperation and for helping make this job as easy as possible for us. If you are a staff member that didn’t fill out a Google Form letting us know what tech ‘stuff’ you had at home, please let your administrator know. They are reviewing the sheets and can add it in.

• We distributed 33 MiFi Wifi devices to homes in our division that currently don’t have wifi, or have very poor wifi. These devices work off of a cellular network and work great! We still have 2 extra devices available. If you know of a family that needs one, please let us know.

• Alexey worked to get Rosenort School internet up and running after their basement was flooded. Thank you Alexey, the Maintenance Dept., the Rosenort School Staff and a big shout out to custodian Jay Wiebe for doing such a great job getting the water cleared and the internet up and running quickly.

• A special thanks to Mr. Curtis, who was able to get the division 50 free Lenovo Desktop Computers, 50 keyboards and 50 mice from StandardAero in Winnipeg. We were able to purchase 50 monitors for VERY cheap from Powerland computers. So… what’s awesome about this? That means we have 50 computers for families in our division who do not have computers for students’ to work from at home. We have already delivered 4 of these to families, and the rest will be sent out in June.

• We also closed or resolved 295 Service Desk tickets, please see below:

What We’re Up to Now…

Here’s what we’re working on:

• We are continuing to assist anyone who is having issues logging into computers or using apps for teaching/learning.

• We are finishing up our asset inventory at the colony schools.

• Two generators have/are being installed at Morris School & JA Cuddy School. These generators will provide immediate backup for power for our servers if there is a Division wide or local power failure. We will be working on our part of the installation.

• Some of us will be doing some much needed training so that we can support you directly. The more knowledge we have, the better we can solve problems independently.

• Something we are always working on is ServiceDesk requests, so if you are having any tech related issues, please let us know by emailing: servicedesk@rrvsd.ca

Here’s what we’re working on in the next 6 months:

• We are experiencing some minor connectivity issues at times, so Alexey is hard at work troubleshooting those issues.

• We’re also using this time as an opportunity to do some much needed training.

• We are also working on finding a solution for password management for students so that secretaries/staff can access/reset passwords when needed.

If You Need Support…

• If you need any technical support, please contact us and we will respond as soon as possible.

• Please put in a service desk request: www.rrvsd.ca and click on the link on the right hand side of the page and login from there. If you can’t remember your password? No problem, email Laurie Keck @ servicedesk@rrvsd.ca

Check out our website here!