SIMS…On a Chromebook!

Are you wondering how you can get your core Windows applications (such as SIMS) working seamlessly on Teacher Chromebooks? The answer is not as complicated as you might think…

There are plenty of schools that have given Chromebooks to teachers as part of their migration to a Cloud First IT strategy…and why not?

Users get unlimited storage in G Suite for Team Drives and their own Google Drive that can be accessed from anywhere with no downtime, every application is securely sandboxed (or just a website that the user is accessing), updates are fast and automatic and every device is ready to go in less than 10 seconds. What’s not to like? Ok…sales pitch over! For IT and end-users it is a great solution!

Then, as schools buy in, the same question comes out at some point. “Ok then, how do we use SIMS to take our registers?”.

This isn’t a question Cloud First advocates should run away from. There are powerfully embedded Windows applications that schools still rely on. It’s a reality that can’t be ignored. CrossOver and Droplet are great ideas for running Windows Software on ChromeOS, but in reality they don’t offer 100% compatibility with all Windows software. Nor do they provide solutions for mass software deployment. If we are Cloud First advocates, we need a Cloud First solution to this problem!

In most cases, schools find amazingly powerful web and cloud based alternatives to almost any product, and these are often good. However, the migration of an entire MIS from one platform to another is going to be a massive project. Features and third party integrations will be lost which is never nice. Alternatively, you could wait for Capita’s Next Generation Web Based Cloud SIMS to be released. Although, as of April 2019, it’s been two years since the press release was made and we still lack any firm ETA.

The ideal solution would be to package up existing Windows applications as HTML5 websites that can be accessed straight through a web browser and from anywhere in the world. This would be even better if it could be done by schools themselves, without expensive external services, and using only the Google Chrome Browser and officially supported Microsoft Server tools.

Well…it’s more than achievable! I give you…SIMS on a Chromebook. Running in a browser and accessed just like a normal website:

How?

The solution is not that complicated. It is essentially Remote Desktop Services, running on Windows Server 2016, and set to stream individual applications. The key difference is that Microsoft’s HTML5 Web Client has been installed on the setup so that these applications can be streamed to the web browser.

To get up and running, this guide assumes you are running Windows Server 2016 for all backend servers. However, it is also compatible with Windows Server 2019.

Step One: If you have not setup a Remote Desktop Service for your school you will need to set it up. This excellent tutorial from slashadmin explains how to set up Remote Desktop with just one instance of Windows Server 2016.

Note: If you need to a large number of simultaneous users (e.g. 40+) it will be best scaling up your solution by adding new session hosts in a larger Remote Desktop Session Host farm. Microsoft have released official documentation that you can access by clicking here that outlines how to do this.

Step Two: Ensure that SIMS has been setup as a client on your Remote Desktop Servers and Session Hosts. In Server Manager, click Remote Desktop Services, QuickSessionCollection, click Tasks, Publish RemoteApp Programmes, Select SIMS (Pulsar.exe) and click ‘Publish’. You may delete other applications.

Step Three: After this has been setup click here to follow Microsoft’s official guide on setting up the HTML5 Remote Desktop Web Client on your Remote Desktop Service. This will turn anything that runs in Remote Desktop into a HTML5 stream to your web browser.

Step Four: As this service needs to be accessible inside and outside of school your Remote Desktop Gateway will need to be assigned a Public IP address and a registered with a unique subdomain/domain.

Done!

Now your users can access SIMS from a web browser by accessing the public URL of your remote desktop gateway.

If they have a Chromebook, then accessing SIMS is as easy as logging into a website from either inside or outside of your school! Enjoy!

Further thoughts…

If you’re feeling a little adventurous this setup could be built in Microsoft Azure or Google Compute Engine. That would make the solution a 100% cloud based solution. However, on-site tin provided a much more cost effective solution in our setup. In my case I have a 1gbps symmetrical fibre connection with a lot of resilience for my Trust. I realise not all schools are this lucky!

If you want to make life super easy for end users you could even install Chrome App Builder, paste in the URL of your remote desktop gateway, register the application on the Chrome Developer Dashboard and push and pin it for all your staff members. That way SIMS is always ready to go in a single click on all of your staff Chromebooks.

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