Halfway through our scheduled distribution of new staff devices, the process has gone very smoothly! We upgraded 440 staff devices on Thursday (May 4th), and upgraded another 135 devices on Friday (May 5th). We began with a bang – about 30 people arrived before 6:40 AM on Thursday – but after refining our process a bit, were able to process upgrades for the majority of users within our 15-minute target timeframe.
Here are a few key pieces of information and takeaways that might be useful for staff who will be upgrading this week:
Remaining staff upgrade days are this Thursday and Friday (May 11th/12th)
Staff with district-assigned laptops (excluding paraeducators and nutrition staff) who still need to upgrade to a new device can do so between 6:30 AM and 6:30 PM at the ESC on May 11th and 12th. If you can’t make it during these times, please email Sue Harms (harms.sue@iowacityschools.org) to arrange an alternative date. Retiring or otherwise-departing staff do not need to complete the upgrade, but may choose to do so.
Avoiding congestion: Thursday will be busier than Friday
Based upon our experience last week, we expect more staff to come in on Thursday, and to come in during the early morning and early afternoon. If you have any flexibility and are looking for a less-busy time, we expect to be least busy during the day (9 AM to 3 PM), during the late afternoon (after 5 PM), and on Friday.
If at all possible, back up your data before arriving
While most staff arrived with data already backed up, this was the most time-consuming part of the process for those who had not done so in advance. Check out these instructions for backing up your data using Google Drive. Alternatively, you can copy your data to your server folder, or to a flash drive or external hard drive.
What to Bring
We didn’t have many problems with this, but just a reminder that staff should bring your laptop, your power adapter, and any software installation CDs for software that you need to have installed on your computer.