ECNO

The Educational Computing Network of Ontario (ECNO) is an organization that collaboratively finds and executes effective IT solutions for Ontario’s 72 K-12 school boards (2 million students). ECNO is tasked with keeping up on the latest computing technologies as they relate to the education goals of province of Ontario. They make IT infrastructure recommendations to and share best practices with the member school boards.

The school boards are autonomous and are free to implement their own IT strategies for what works best for them. For example, one school board uses Configuration Manager exclusively to distribute applications, while another uses it only for machine imaging and a small percentage of apps.

Under the umbrella of ECNO, the Shared Technology Services Project Team evaluates, tests, and packages an app catalog of 450 third party apps for the spectrum of needs for K–12 students as well as staff.

To date, the ECNO STS Team has converted most of their apps via the MSIX Packaging Tool and the Bulk Conversion tool included in the MSIX Toolbox.

ECNO currently has around 170 apps in Partner Center, with ten school boards linked to their LOB account. Two are currently allowing access on a ‘self-service’ basis to our apps in their store. The third has Configuration Manager linked to their store already and is looking to add access to our apps that way. Six more are looking to move into software management/assignment via Intune and has requested some sample apps to work with. And another school board is finishing a project to move their iPads into Intune as an MDM tool and then will be moving Windows devices into Intune (where they are looking at using MSIX and the store as their software distribution model). They expect more boards to start switching over as they move to adopt Intune/Configuration Manager.

"It’s a push in the right direction for us to deliver software to our users that are not able to be on a school network at this time during COVID-19. AppV packages have been a boon to us for years and this next iteration using MSIX will allow us to service our staff and students with the software they require using a delivery system that is modern and seamless from any internet connection in the world." -Jason David Flannery, Systems Engineer, Simcoe County District School Board

It’s easy to configure and easy to deploy once we enrolled devices into Windows Intune using autopilot.

What benefits ECNO is getting by leveraging MSIX?

• As a leader in software deployment for the school boards in Ontario, MSIX has provided a seamless transition from our App-V processes.
• Allows our school boards to keep current in modern software deployment tools and end-point management.
• For our project team it has increased productivity, provided easier deployment and support for our school boards.

"As our IT team strives to become more agile, especially now with distance learning upon us, we are relying on the cloud more and more. The next logical evolution for our organization is cloud management. We want our school based IT staff to focus more on the successful implementation of technology, less on deployment and troubleshooting. As we work towards zero touch deployment of our devices and apps we will be working closely with ECNO's STS team to integrate the apps we all use in the classroom into our cloud managed approach." -Sean Heuchert, Manager of Information, Peterborough Victoria Northumberland Clarington Catholic District School Board