The Challenge
This secondary school was awarded Specialist status in Mathematics and ICT in 2005. It has 1450 pupils, 236 staff, 300 desktops, 100 laptops and 8 servers. In recent years, the  school has expanded its ICT at a rapid rate and it was managed by a Senior Teacher and three technicians. In recent years the schools Exchange server developed problems, resulting in a third party being called in to the school, this proved both costly and time consuming with staff unable to use emails for a fortnight. The senior management team felt that they needed to put measures in place to prevent this downtime reoccurring and address issues such as backup, redundancy and resilience across the network.

The Solution
After consultation between the school and Soft Egg it was felt by the SMT that they needed support, advice and guidance in a more structured format. A Service Level Agreement was put in place between the school and Soft Egg, and the support was implemented immediately. The school received a dedicated engineer for a full day every week, in addition to this they had a bank of ten project days to be used as required with a 4 hour response time for emergencies. The Soft Egg team meet regularly with the ICT action team to listen to their ideas and determine where Soft Egg’s attentions are best focused moving forward.

The Result
This project has proven a success resulting in Soft Egg becoming a key part of the school, working closely on numerous ICT & installation projects. These have included the implementation of a new core switch, wireless throughout the school, consolidation of servers, back up and data recovery improvements. As well as this our Audio Visual team have worked on diverse projects that have included digital signage, projector replacement, audio systems with microphones and entire room refurbishments.

Ultimately, a relationship has been built on trust between supplier and school which offers value, professionalism and an understanding of long and short term goals.