SchoolProtect - FAQ
How do I log in to manage SchoolProtect?
Please visit schoolprotect.lgfl.org.uk and sign in with your USO account. Google and Microsoft accounts can also be used but you will need a USO account to associate to the first time.
You must have the Web Filtering Adminstrator permission applied to your USO account to access the management portal. If you do not have this permission, please ask a Nominated Contact to raise a request on the Support Site.
What are the basic essentials to know about the system?
The system allows for very granular control to be exercised by schools and as a result has a lot of built-in functionality.
However, the essence of SchoolProtect relies on just several key points.
1. Filtering policies need to be created and defined in a way suitable for each school.
2. Groups, either of IP Addresses or users, need to be defined in each school.
3. Policies and groups need to be mapped to each other so that each Policy applies to either a group of IP addresses or a group of users.
Once the policies are set up, you can easily edit category definitions and URL/keyword definitions using overview pages.
How can I apply different policies to different users in my school?
To have different policies in establishments using DHCP you will need to set up at least one IP-based Policy. This Policy should be suitable for the youngest pupils likely to be using the internet. The Policy should be associated with the school's IP range. Once this is in effect, the school administrator can set up user based policies - as many as may be required. For example, there may be a general Policy for all staff, another one for senior staff, yet another for Nominated Contacts and policies for different year groups.
The filtering administrator also needs to create the relevant User Groups to which the policies can be applied. Once the User Groups and the policies are in place, an association between each Policy and each User Group must be made.
When this is done, per-user filtering is in effect and will allow different users to be filtered by the appropriate policies. When members of staff access the internet, initially they will be doing so under the generic Policy that applies to all IPs. However, once they get blocked from accessing a particular site, they will be able to use the login button, found on the block page, to log into the filtering system using their USO accounts. It is after this point that the user will be given the Policy that is appropriate for them.
When users who have logged in this way finish their browsing session, they should log out, using the button provided in the pop-up window which opened when they logged in.
Some blocked websites do not show a block page. Why does this happen?
When any HTTPS (secure) site is blocked under a filtering Policy, the user will NOT see a block page displayed when access to the site is denied.
The message likely to be shown will simply state that the page cannot be displayed and it might look like there is an internet connectivity problem. The user is likely not to be aware that the reason for the lack of access is that the site has been blocked.
This is due to the way in which HTTPS traffic works and the behavior cannot be controlled.
However, if the school is using HTTPS Decryption, they will be presented with a block page when visiting HTTPS websites.
My filtering policy is not working the way I was expecting. How can I figure out why this might be?
SchoolProtect offers a variety of reporting options to filtering administrators. These can be used to begin troubleshooting unexpected behavior.
Every user's web access is recorded within the system and reports can be run to identify when individual URLs are causing an issue. They can also highlight instances where particular target sites are being allowed unexpectedly. The best type of report to use for this purpose is the on-demand IP report. This report should be used when the IP-based Policy is in effect.
If authenticated web access has been enabled and the issue has arisen from a user-based Policy, the on-demand User report should be used for troubleshooting.
More information on the reporting functionality, please refer to the Reports section of this manual.
If a particular site has generated a block page then there should be enough information on that page to begin troubleshooting.
I have placed an HTTPS (secure) website in the blocked list but the computer filtered by that policy can still access the site?
When a modern browser is prevented from accessing an HTTPS site via its URL, it will automatically try to access the site again by using its IP address instead of the original URL. This is browser behaviour that cannot be controlled.
To prevent this from happening, make sure that the category Host is an IP is blocked in all the relevant policies, particularly those used by pupils.
What should I do if a website has the wrong category?
The system scans over 10 million websites every day and assigns a category. Sometimes, however, sites are not assigned the correct category automatically.
Where schools find incorrectly categorised websites, they can use the 'recategorisation request' button in SchoolProtect to alert us of this and have a human review the website to assign it the correct category. Please find more details here.