FAQ
Implementation
How long does an implementation take?
We expect most customers to finish their AVD implementation, including a base set of images, within one month. However, this is completely dependent on your experience with Azure and Azure Virtual Desktop.
What kind of roles do I need for an implementation?
The following roles should be involved in the implementation:
- Azure Virtual Desktop specialist
- Azure Admin
- Schoolyear Admin
- Workspace administrator
The same person might fulfill some of these roles.
Partners, how can they help me?
We train and certify a select number of IT services partners in the implementation and management of Schoolyear AVD setups.
These partners are able to do the full implementation and management of your implementation. Contact us if you want to get in contact with one of these partners.
What kind of Support does Schoolyear offer?
Schoolyear provides planned email and meeting support to up to three of your Azure Specialists responsible for the implementation and management of your Schoolyear AVD implementation. This support is charged in increments of 15 minutes. The first 5 hours of support are available to all Schoolyear AVD customers. Additional hours can be purchased.
The three support-eligible contacts must be registered with Schoolyear. For questions about exams that are using Schoolyear AVD, we refer users to these three contacts.
| Channel | Contact | Availability |
|---|---|---|
| avd@schoolyear.com | Within 2 working days | |
| Meeting | Book here | As per availability |
Additionally, Schoolyear provides a 24/7 Incident Support package. Our technical support engineers will try everything in their power to help resolve your Schoolyear AVD related incident. This package is reserved for high-priority incidents and will incur a charge of €750,-.
Why don’t you offer a SaaS solution?
Microsoft does not allow us to offer a SaaS version of Schoolyear AVD. We hope they see the light one day and do provide this option, but until then, you can only deploy Azure Virtual Desktop in your own Azure Tenant.
Costs
How much does Schoolyear AVD cost?
Schoolyear AVD is a 35% add-on to your yearly license fee. The 35% is calculated based on our most recent pricing model, which may differ from the license fee you now pay for Safe Exam Workspace.
Does Schoolyear charge money for individual exams?
No, Schoolyear AVD is a fixed yearly fee. Schoolyear does not charge anything for individual exams.
However, you do have a cost per individual exam in Azure.
How much does an exam in Azure cost?
This is, of course, entirely dependent on your agreement with Azure and Schoolyear will never be able to give you a quotation for this.
However, we estimate, based on the public list price of Azure, you will spend between €1.50 and €2.00 per exam session for normal, Office-like, workloads.
Your IT department will be able to calculate your Azure cost estimate using the Azure pricing calculator and our publicly available deployment templates.
What kind of license do I need in Azure?
Based on the information that is publicly available to use, our understanding is that each student that uses Azure Virtual Desktop, must have a Microsoft 365 A3/5 or E3/5 license.
Security
Does Schoolyear validate the security of our images?
Schoolyear does not validate the security of images that you or any other third-party make in AVD. You can either validate the security yourself or use a third-party pentesting provider.
Keep in mind that our EULA does not allow penetration tests on our VDI Browser.
Capacity
How many concurrent students can use Schoolyear AVD?
Schoolyear does not limit the number of concurrent users that can use Schoolyear AVD.
This limit is set by your resource quotas in Azure. Contact your Azure distributor for information about your quotas and their underlying SLAs.
Which region should I use for Schoolyear AVD?
Microsoft urges customers to use their larger core regions, not their edge locations.
E.g., for West-European customers they recommend deploying in Germany,
not westeurope, as their capacity is energy-constrained in The Netherlands.
My deployments are failing because of capacity problems, what to do?
You have two options:
- Move your workload to a region with more capacity. E.g., for Europe, you can consider Germany or Sweden.
- Increase your deployment time, so you can retry acquiring capacity manually in your region of choice when a deployment fails.