LGfL Onboarding
Technical Setup & Milestones
We want to ensure that the transition to the new LGfL connection is achieved as smoothly as possible.
Once you're set up as a Nominated Contact, you will have access to the Support Site where you can view the 'Technical Milestones" that need completing, prior to the 'Go-Live' date. Please find below more detail on the pre-requisites for the transition phase to your new LGfL connection.
In order to access support with transition to the LGfL service and raise support ticket as part of the service, the school need provide details of staff within the school that can act as "Nominated Contacts", who are users that have the permissions to access a range of resources to configure and manage their establishment’s service. An establishment can normally have up to five Nominated Contacts.
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Nominated Contacts are the only users able to access the service support resources, configure service options and obtain assistance relating to any aspect of the LGfL service.
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A Nominated Contact can also view and manage the transition process, via the LGfL Support Site
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A Nominated Contact is created by authorisation from the Head teacher/Principal, or other legal ‘data controller’.
LGfL use Adobe Sign to simplify the process of providing detail of Nominated Contacts, and for the Headteacher to sign online or on their mobile. Headteachers will receive a link to the documents to sign.
We have produced a quick guide for Nominated Contacts, "Get Started with the LGfL Support"
Details of the your new LGfL assigned IP range, can be found in the LGfL support site, https://support.lgfl.org.uk. Please familiarise yourself with the records shown under My Account | LGfL deployment | IP addresses
Each subnet should be in the format 10.x.y.z and have a corresponding mask similar to 255.255.255.0. These records represent the VLANs that will be configured on your new network connection.
Primary schools will be assigned a /22, providing 1022 addresses, Secondary schools will be assigned a /21 that gives 2046 addresses.
To let us know you have reviewed these, we would ask you press the ‘Subnets Verified’ button found on the Deployment Page
LGfL will try to replicate your sites current IP scheme. If you have already made us aware of these, please make sure the details on the page match. If you need to request changes, please provide details in the text box and press the ‘Submit Feedback’ button.
Note: It is not always possible to assign IP ranges requested and your school may need to re-address.
If the site need more IP addresses than the default, this will need to be negotiated with LGfL and could incur an extra charge.
LGfL operates a secure network and this means that our firewall policies are set-up to protect the schools across our network. This default configuration may be different to your current firewall configuration. We can make changes to the firewall rules on request, and will provide advice on the risk of any requested firewall configuration changes.
Please ensure that you have spoken with your previous service provider to ascertain whether changes need to be made to the default firewall configuration. It might be that a particular service used in your school relies on ports being opened on your firewall. These settings will need to be replicated and it’s important that we know about these before you switch over to the LGfL service.
It is recommended that before plugging your local network into the LGfL firewall, that appropriate testing has been carried out. To do this, we would suggest plugging a laptop into the LGfL firewall and testing services that you would usually expect to be able to access.
Filtering policies can be amended by a filtering administrator in your establishment, so there is a large degree of flexibility available to schools to modify the policies to suit local needs and levels of supervision.
Nominated Contacts can access the WebScreen filtering service by going to https://webscreen.lgfl.org.uk. You use your LGfL user account to access this service.
Schools can modify existing policies and create additional ones, by allowing or blocking whole categories, individual sites or even keywords. Schools also choose how, when and to whom each policy is applied.
As part of the service, LGfL can host and manage your DNS free of charge. If your current Internet Service Provider manages your DNS, you will need to move this to LGfL.
If you need to do this, raise a ticket via the LGfL Support Site
In order for your establishment to make full use of our services and resources included with your LGfL connection, LGfL user accounts should be created for staff and pupils. LGfL user accounts can be created and maintained by several methods:
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We can use information (normally overnight) from your establishment’s MIS system (where supported) to provide tailored services, such as a class mark book, the automation of user account creation and updates (for example, joiners and leavers). The Headteacher, as the Data Controller for the establishment needs to authorise this first. Once authorised, the AutoUpdate from MIS will need to be configured, for details, see How to configure AutoUpdate
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Alternatively, a Nominated Contact may create a single account at any time via the LGfL Support Site, and click on the the "User Accounts" tab, select "User Request (Single)" and fill in the online form.
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If your MIS system is not supported, LGfL user accounts can be created for a whole school by submitting a spreadsheet. A pre-configured spreadsheet template is available to download from the LGfL Support Site. Output from a Management Information System (MIS) such as SIMS can be imported into this spreadsheet template and the file uploaded via a dedicated page on the support site. More details on how these techniques work are to be found in the online LGfL Support Site User Guide.
If your school uses a Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony system, you will need to test it prior to switch over to the LGfL connection, as their may be specific configuration required to ensure it works. You may need to arrange changes to your system with your VoIP supplier.
Please discuss this with your Customer Success Manager.
Please discuss with your Customer Success Manager the date you plan to switch over so it can be added to the Technical Milestones on the LGfL Support Site.
If you have questions that aren't answered on this page, please email customersuccess@lgfl.net
