hot potato workers

gjacobse

But RDP is not an option. (yet!)

in his environment - I don't think RDS would ever be an option. The infrastructure changes needed are quite involved.

Dashrender

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

@jasgot said in hot potato workers:

I keep thinking about this. It's the kind of problem I love to tackle.

If the scanner redirector from terminalworks does indeed allow you to use the scanner with you insurance/single use issue, then mandatory roaming profiles may work well for you.

BTW: for some reason, I think the termnalworks software disconnects the link to the scanner if the RDP session goes into a disconnected state. This should work well for insurance/one user issue.

Personally - I'm not a fan of the RDS solution - it's so expensive.

I'd like a solution at the desktop instead... not sure I'll get one, but it's where I'm currently trying to aim.

Will the scanner work in the following scenario?

User A logs in and scans

User A locks the screen and goes away

User B logs in

User B unplugs the scanner physically and then plugs it in again

User B starts working and scanning

Do you think what I'm thinking?

Not likely - because the software is still actively running under user A

Dashrender

@pete-s said in hot potato workers:

@dashrender

Is it possible to run a script with admin rights that terminates the scanner software when a new user logs in?

Now there's an idea...

So -
User A logs in - locks
user B logs in - script kills software, software auto relaunches - user b locks.

The question is - when user A logs in again - is that seen as a new user logging in? or just a resume of previous session? If the script can be made to run every time, this would be a possible solution to that specific issue.

Dashrender

@jasgot said in hot potato workers:

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

We have an insurance card scanner at each desk. I don't see this changing.

Not sure how to read this response.
TSScan is software not hardware. It will allow a session on an RDP server to see that locally attached twain scanner. But RDP is not an option. (yet!)

The insurance card scanner is not a twain device. It's it's own connection over USB (so far as I understand) - to TSScan wouldn't work for the scanner anyway.

Dashrender

@gjacobse said in hot potato workers:

Having spoken to @Dashrender just yesterday about the environmental differences between his org and mine - it's amazing.

We use the same EMR, just accessed differently. very very differently. So we have the same issues, do a differing level, application wise,.. network/computer wise - we are 10x more involved. (would you agree @Dashrender )

His org goes direct, whereas we use RDS. And there are a number of other differences. We use the AmbirScan card scanners and TS Scan on the desktop to the RDS session. We also have nearly fifty printers and and Zebra printers. Our RDS Pool is suspended over night for cost. Everything is across a VPN...

yeah - Frankly your situation just sounds weird to me, but not unheard of considering that you can get Azure on-premises.

Gene's environment appears to be a singular session running in Azure, not a cloud session like mine.
Gene's company then uses RDS sessions in Azure to grant access to their users.
As Gene mentioned, there is a VPN between his office and Azure allowing local printers direct IP printing from the RDS sessions, and his client workstations to access those RDS sessions.
Gene also mentioned that the performance of their athena in this manner is significantly better compared to accessing athenaNet directly from their devices in their office via the internet.

But my question is - what is the cost of this setup? I'm guessing 10's if not 100's of thousands of dollars a year on top of the athena cost itself (which is significant).

Dashrender

@gjacobse said in hot potato workers:

@jasgot said in hot potato workers:

But RDP is not an option. (yet!)

in his environment - I don't think RDS would ever be an option. The infrastructure changes needed are quite involved.

Well - I'm the one who tossed out the idea of using RDS/RDP in the first place for this particular situation.

And since your ambir scan's are working withe TSScan, we could switch to those for the insurance card scanning if the solution fit within our requirements.

Dashrender

athenaNet recently added the ability to do direct scanning from within the chart (before that, the only option was - scan to a file, then upload that file through the uploader). using either TWAIN compliant or Snapscan scanners.

Sadly as mentioned repeatedly above, athena specifically blocks the use of network attached twain scanners.

Making matters worse, the process for getting an insurance card into athena is yet another process.

The insurance card is scanned (typically using Inuvio or Ambir scan software) to c:\card\cardab.jpg.
The athena add-on software (athena device manager) will - when the correct button is pressed inside athena - look to that directory and if a file is there by that exact name - check how old the file is. If it's more than 5 mins old - it will warn the user that this file is more than 5 mins old and are you sure it's the correct one? - assuming you choose upload anyway - the jpg is uploaded into athena.

This process makes it extremely painful to use a single device to scan files AND insurance cards into athena from a single device. In the case of scanning, the twain driver is used. in the case of the insurance card - local scanning software must be used to place the image into c:\card.

JasGot

Okay. Let's look again at the idea of a script to kill and restart the software. Once you have a script working that can kill the software on demand, and start the software on demand. move the script to a GPP.

Use GPP (Group Policy Preferences) to create scheduled tasks that uses the "On workstation lock" and "On workstation unlock" event to trigger your script.

Dashrender

@jaredbusch said in hot potato workers:

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

This also solves the Lastpass situation, as once it's setup under the shared user, it should just remain there.

But it won't be logged in to the right user.

Browser sessions won't be the right user.

Just an all around bad idea.

I'm back to working on this for a bit and re-reading the thread.
The browser would be set to clear cache upon closing and LP would be set to log out upon closing.

So browser sessions shouldn't be an issue for either LP or any of our web apps.

Dashrender

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

@jaredbusch said in hot potato workers:

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

@jaredbusch said in hot potato workers:

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

This also solves the Lastpass situation, as once it's setup under the shared user, it should just remain there.

But it won't be logged in to the right user.

Browser sessions won't be the right user.

Just an all around bad idea.

LP will be set to log out upon the browser closing -

There's only so much I can do for the users - They have to log out of Outlook, they have to log out of athena - they need to close the browser or log out of LP... so that's really not a big concern in my mind.

IF - IF they can log out those things.. this is not an issue. tons of places use shared computers with the full expectation that once you are done YOU will log out when finished to prevent the next person getting access to your crap.

Force Edge to always use porn mode. That should help.

that helps as long as the browser is closed when the user is finished -

an additional concern here is getting add-ons, like Lastpass, to work in porn mode.

Dashrender

@jasgot said in hot potato workers:

Okay. Let's look again at the idea of a script to kill and restart the software. Once you have a script working that can kill the software on demand, and start the software on demand. move the script to a GPP.

Use GPP (Group Policy Preferences) to create scheduled tasks that uses the "On workstation lock" and "On workstation unlock" event to trigger your script.

Good idea - though I'm guessing logon is not the same as workstation unlock, so I'd need a third option there for a new user logging in while the station is locked for a previous user.

Dashrender

Something new I just discovered, M365 Business Premium includes Azure Virtual Desktop.

I need to dig into this more, but if it's what I think it is, and RDS session, This lower price might make it make sense to use.

scottalanmiller

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

I need to dig into this more, but if it's what I think it is, and RDS session, This lower price might make it make sense to use.

Their docs refer to it as VDI, so it's either RDS or something that acts like RDS. But would be crazy not to be RDS given that it is MS' own solution.

scottalanmiller

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

M365 Business Premium

You already have Premium? Or you are just looking at the upgrade delta?

It's funny, in Central America "premium" is used as a derogatory term. It's funny to hear it in product names.

Dashrender

@scottalanmiller said in hot potato workers:

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

I need to dig into this more, but if it's what I think it is, and RDS session, This lower price might make it make sense to use.

Their docs refer to it as VDI, so it's either RDS or something that acts like RDS. But would be crazy not to be RDS given that it is MS' own solution.

More specifically I'm trying to determine the limitations?

They just started offering full Windows desktops to businesses a month or so ago through some other, non Azure plan - but the prices I saw were like starting at $80/user/month. A VM could be configured with more resources and the price was much higher.

I'm trying to figure out what you get here as part of your $20/m/u subscription - if you get a full RDS session, then the other pricing seems way out of wack.

Gene mentioned that they pause their RDS sessions at night to save on Azure costs - So I'm wondering what is happening here for these included sessions?

Lot of things to learn/understand.

scottalanmiller

Also noticed the logo is the RDS logo, so pretty sure it is RDS.

Dashrender

@scottalanmiller said in hot potato workers:

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

M365 Business Premium

You already have Premium? Or you are just looking at the upgrade delta?

It's funny, in Central America "premium" is used as a derogatory term. It's funny to hear it in product names.

Yes, we use MS office locally here (don't get me started). The lowest package that includes both MS email and Office is M365 Business Premium for $20/u/m (even cheaper when bought through someone like DCW @Yonah-S )

Dashrender

@scottalanmiller said in hot potato workers:

Also noticed the logo is the RDS logo, so pretty sure it is RDS.

Of that I never actually had doubt.

dbeato

@scottalanmiller said in hot potato workers:

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

M365 Business Premium

You already have Premium? Or you are just looking at the upgrade delta?

It's funny, in Central America "premium" is used as a derogatory term. It's funny to hear it in product names.

Premium is no a derogatory term in my country (Dominican Republic). It classifies as service higher than normal.

scottalanmiller

@dbeato said in hot potato workers:

@scottalanmiller said in hot potato workers:

@dashrender said in hot potato workers:

M365 Business Premium

You already have Premium? Or you are just looking at the upgrade delta?

It's funny, in Central America "premium" is used as a derogatory term. It's funny to hear it in product names.

Premium is no a derogatory term in my country (Dominican Republic). It classifies as service higher than normal.

Here it is used to mean "trashy". More money than taste.