Managed Computers Guide (for Workplace Administrators)

Schoolyear is software that ensures students do not have access to websites or programmes that are not allowed during a digital exam. When the student starts an exam, the Schoolyear programme usually starts automatically, after which the student can only participate in the exam on their computer. After the exam, Schoolyear closes and the student regains access to everything on the PC, but no longer to the exam.

Schoolyear runs as a native application on Windows, macOS and managed Chromebooks. 

• One-time installation: Schoolyear only needs to be deployed once. After the initial installation, the automatic update mechanism works: as soon as a student starts an exam, Schoolyear checks itself whether the software is up to date and installs an update if necessary. The IT department does not need to do anything further. 
  • Note for Windows: avoid conflicts with your own provisioning software. Read more about this here.
• No extra permissions needed for updates: The automatic update mechanism works without administrator rights for the student, even on managed computers.
• BYOD is also supported: Students who bring their own Windows or macOS laptop can install Schoolyear themselves via the exam start flow.

Most computers are suitable for taking an exam with the help of Schoolyear. There are a few minimum requirements that a computer must meet.

• Click here to go to the minimum computer requirements.

On managed computers, the student does not have administrator rights and cannot install the software themselves. Therefore, the installation must be carried out in advance by the IT department. This is a one-time process.

• Read: Step 3 - Setting up and testing Schoolyear on managed computers

After deployment, you can check whether Schoolyear is correctly installed by starting a test exam via exams.schoolyear.app.

• Read: Step 5 - Functionally testing Schoolyear software

Students can check themselves if their computer meets the requirements with the Device check.

Schoolyear is updated very frequently. Students must always run the latest version to be able to participate in an exam. Thanks to the automatic update mechanism, as an IT department you do not need to redeploy the software after the initial installation.

As soon as a student starts an exam, Schoolyear automatically checks whether the version is up to date. If not, the update is automatically performed.

• Read: How does the automatic update work?

For planned UI/UX updates, you can stay informed via Client Release Notes and you can subscribe for this information via: How can I stay informed about developments? 

Maintenance Releases (unplanned releases) can be found in the changelog article (changelog). 

• Read more about the release schedule in this article: Schoolyear - Releases & Updates.

During an exam, Schoolyear blocks all internet traffic except for its own application. Firewalls, VPN connections and proxies can therefore conflict with Schoolyear.

As a workplace administrator, it is therefore important to test whether Schoolyear works with your infrastructure. If it does not work immediately, consult: Error message in the network check

For setting which websites students are allowed to visit during an exam: How does URL whitelisting work?

Schoolyear offers a feature to detect whether an exam is being taken on a managed computer of the institution. This gives the institution more insight into the use of loan laptops and personal devices. The setup for this is described in Step 3 (section "Setting up distinction between managed and unmanaged computers").

• Windows - How can you use Schoolyear in combination with mandatory user profiles?
• Windows - How can I skip the pop-up to launch the Schoolyear application on managed PCs?

• PC issues (client does not start, crashes, network check fails, freezing, antivirus, Windows S mode, logout error): see the full section Resolving device issues.

Basic: Setting up and testing Schoolyear on managed computers

Extra information:
The Schoolyear application is installed via an MSI. Additionally, a background service is installed. Administrator rights are required for this combined installation. The application and service are installed in C:\Program Files\Schoolyear\Schoolyear. Program Data files are stored in UserProfile\AppData\Roaming\exams-client. The background service only becomes active after the application has been started for the first time.

NB: the names of the beta application and service are the same as production

Basic: Schoolyear is installed on the machine and not at user level. Schoolyear only runs within a user account when it is activated. This can be any type of account; from generic or shared account to a personal account. 

Extra information: 
The most common configuration is to have students use a regular educational account. Existing user accounts can continue to be used for this. Schoolyear only becomes active when a student needs to start an exam session. From that moment, the PC is 'locked' and only allowed content can be accessed. Once Schoolyear is closed again, the student can use the account 'freely'. The biggest advantage of reusing these accounts is that you can use the devices flexibly and not only for exams.

Using Schoolyear in a specific 'exam account'* is therefore no longer necessary. If you still wish to continue using your exam account in combination with Schoolyear, this is possible, but you must carefully check whether the policies you enforce are compatible with the use of Schoolyear. In this situation, especially check the one-time installation, auto-updating and starting of the application as these are the areas with the greatest chance of conflicts.

* an exam account means a user profile that is locked down by policies. This may also be known as generic accounts, exam accounts, test profiles, etc.

Basic: How does the automatic update work?

Extra information:
Schoolyear only wants to perform an update when an exam is taking place at that moment (according to the Principle of least privilege). This means updates are performed just before the start of an exam.

However, it is necessary to download the update in advance. This prevents excessive network load on the institution's infrastructure, resulting in delays when starting exams. The pre-download happens automatically via a background service, which is installed with the application.

This background service periodically polls our server to check for updates and will automatically download any new update in the background to the computer. This way the update is ready for installation when the exam starts. (the update is temporarily stored HERE or HERE).

The update for the exam is executed by updater.exe, which is located in the C:\Program Files\Schoolyear\Schoolyear folder for production, and under C:\Program Files\Schoolyear\Schoolyear Preview for Beta.

Basic: How to install Schoolyear on a Windows machine? and How to install Schoolyear on a Macbook?

Extra information:
From Schoolyear’s perspective, Schoolyear starts when a student lands on 'xxx.exams.schoolyear.app'.

On this page, we use a custom URI scheme (schoolyear-exams or on beta schoolyear-exams-preview) to automatically launch our application (Schoolyear Exams.exe). If the software is not yet installed, this obviously does not work and the student is directed to the download button.

On managed PCs, for this reason it works best to deploy/provision the MSI, and also add a policy to the browser to pre-approve automatic launching. Provisioning is best done with a detection rule on Upgrade code so that it does not conflict with the update system. 

Basic: How does URL whitelisting work? and What is a Whitelist tile?

Extra information:
Schoolyear uses a full network filter so that students can only connect to the exam and exam resources.

This filter can conflict with a VPN or a Web Application Firewall. Schoolyear cannot add a VPN or WAF to the filter; our product would then no longer function. This is because the filter would lose visibility of the network traffic.