Public sector

Case Study:

New e-mail system at Norwich School

30 April 2008

An independent day school in England, Norwich School has 800 students and 120 staff. It wanted to offer e-mail accounts to both students and parents, but the existing system couldn’t handle such a large user base. With help from Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Onsite IT, the school implemented Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 to improve administration and increase communication among parents, staff, and students.

Traditionally a school for boys aged 7 to 18, with a coeducational sixth form, in 2008 Norwich School will begin to admit girls aged 7, 8, 11, and 13 and thereafter throughout the school, so enrolment will increase to at least 1,000 students. The rise in pupils, along with the need to offer them a modern, progressive learning experience, required an upgrade of the school’s e-mail system.

Until 2008, the school was using Navaho TeamCAT, a Linux-based security server appliance providing e-mail and Web access. The school’s administrative staff were using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 messaging and collaboration client, while other staff, including teachers, used the Navaho online interface to send and receive messages and schedule meetings and appointments. In addition, the school’s IT administration team used Active Directory service to manage user network access.

This system presented the school with a number of challenges. Personal folders (.pst files) running on the Navaho system frequently corrupted, adding to the workload of IT administrators. At the same time, the number of e-mail addresses the system could provide was insufficient for teachers, administrators, pupils, and parents. The software also required a third-party support contract, which was an additional drain on the school’s IT budget.

“We wanted a system we could manage ourselves and that everyone could use with confidence,” says Steve Banyard, network manager at Norwich School. “Above all, we wanted to manage user access to ensure that e-mail was there to support teachers and students, and that there was no risk of the system being abused.”

In October 2007, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Onsite IT conducted a full review of the school’s e-mail requirements and wrote a proposal for a new system based on Exchange Server 2007 running on the existing Dell PowerEdge servers. Onsite set up a pilot project in December 2007, and within two weeks the entire system was deployed.

Administrators now use Active Directory to set up security policies, assigning different levels of access for users. This applies to both documents and e-mail. For example: staff can send e-mails to anyone; students can send them to each other and to teachers; parents can only send e-mails to staff.

Administrators continue to use Office Outlook 2007 as their e-mail and scheduling software. All other parties use Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, to send and receive e-mail, read documents, set up meetings, and create appointments.

“Exchange Server 2007 met all the school’s needs, above and beyond its expectations,” says Scott Lyle, director at Onsite IT. “One feature that we specifically wanted – document browsing – has been on the wish list for the past three years. Now the school has it.”

Exchange Server 2007 has streamlined administrative processes and improved communication between parents, teachers, and students. Additionally, Norwich School’s online presence now reflects the professional image needed to attract students and parents.

The learning process has also been enriched through students using e-mail to keep in touch with teachers and access work from home. The whole system is easier to use so teachers and administrators are using e-mail more frequently. Ease of use has also dramatically decreased the number of support calls by 25 per cent, improving the workload for the IT team.

For parents, having their own e-mail addresses means they are more likely to receive important information. The solution also spells good news for the environment – less paper is used because documents are accessed online, and a newsletter that was previously printed and sent to 800 parents each term is now e-mailed instead.

“The learning curve for using Outlook was so much easier because many of our staff already use it at home,” says Banyard. “The Navaho interface was very clumsy and a bit old fashioned. Now we have Exchange Server 2007, there is much more enthusiasm for learning all the features.”