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Trainers in CloudLabs

You are the trainer of a lab when the organiser marked you as one — when adding participants, or in the group the lab was generated for. You then get:

• your own environment in the lab and an invitation email with a link to its access page (and a link to download the Trainer Tool),
• a Trainer badge next to the lab in My labs,
• the list of the lab's students and the hours in which they may connect,
• the Trainer Tool — your students' screens, their requests for help, and ISO image uploads.

Trainers are not restricted by login schedules or working-time limits. You sign in and work on the desktop just as students do — see the participant guide.

Your access page

A trainer's access page has the same cards as a student's (remote desktop, time remaining, instructions) and two more:

• Trainer Tool — connects your tool to this lab (see Trainer Tool).
• My students — the list of students and the lab's login hours.

My students

My students on the access page opens the Students page. For each student you see:

• their name and email address, their access dates and the state of their environment (Ready or Being prepared),
• Time used — as "used / limit" when the student has a limit,
• Resend invitation — for a student who has lost the email with their link; available only for environments that are Ready,
• Copy link — copies the address of the student's access page, to pass it on by other means (for example when invitations do not arrive). The link is for the student: where the organisation requires sign-in, it opens only for them, signed in with their own account. For an environment that is not ready yet, a note that it is not ready yet is shown instead of the buttons.

What to check on the list before class

• Access dates are shown as "from – to" (YYYY-MM-DD). An environment is available from the start date until the end of the day after the end date; after that the access page stops working. A student with a time limit also loses access once it is used up — see the Time used column.
• State of the environment: Ready — it can be started and its link sent to the student; Being prepared — the machines are still being created, so the link and the resend are not available. If the state does not change as time passes, tell the lab operator.
• The list shows every student of the lab, not only those assigned to you.

The lab's login hours

On the Students page, the card Login hours for this lab sets when students may connect to the lab — for example only during classes.

1. Add windows with Add window: a day of the week and the hours From and To.
2. Tick Students follow these hours.
3. Press Save hours.

• No windows means no restriction. The hours are in the lab's time zone. Trainers are never restricted.
• Outside the hours students cannot connect, and when a window ends the desktop signs them out.

Which hours take precedence

A student may have a schedule of their own (given when they were added to the lab), and the lab may have an organisation schedule (chosen when the lab was generated). What applies depends on whether Students follow these hours is ticked:

• When an organisation schedule applies to the lab, the page says so. Saving hours here does not change the organisation's schedule itself (many labs share it) — it gives this lab hours of its own, starting from the windows of the organisation's schedule. While switched on, those are what applies in the lab instead of the organisation's schedule.
• Untick Students follow these hours and save to go back to the students' own schedules. The saved windows stay and can be switched on again. Note: after the first save the lab has a schedule of its own and the organisation schedule that belonged to it no longer applies there — unticking does not bring it back, and the portal has no action that restores it on the lab.
• The change is recorded in the organisation's audit log (Login hours set by the trainer).

Trainer Tool: installing and connecting

The Trainer Tool is a Windows application. Download it from the link in your trainer invitation, or with Download the Trainer Tool on the Trainer Tool card. The tool never knows your password — you connect it to the lab with a one-time code:

1. On the access page, press Connect the Trainer Tool.
2. Press Open the Trainer Tool — the tool opens and signs in by itself. If it does not open, or runs on another computer, enter the code shown on the card in the tool (Copy the code puts it on the clipboard).
3. The code works once, within 10 minutes. When it expires, create a new one.

Once connected, the card shows how many devices the tool is signed in on. The connection lasts until the lab ends, 30 days at most. Disconnect signs the tool out of this lab on every device.

The connection code and handling it safely

The connection code (for example ABCD-EFGH, eight characters) is a one-time pairing code: the tool exchanges it with the portal for a session token of its own, bound to one environment — yours in this lab. It is not the password to your account or desktop, but in that session the tool acts as you: from it you run the class, see thumbnails of the screens of students who agreed to it, receive requests for help and upload ISO images.

• Do not publish the code or pass it to students — whoever enters it in the tool within 10 minutes gets a trainer session that lasts until the lab ends (30 days at most) and applies to all of the lab's students. A code can be used only once, and a new code replaces the previous one that was not yet used.
• The same applies to the link to your access page: the code is created there, so holding the link is enough to connect the tool to the lab (unless the organisation requires sign-in on the access page).
• Signing the tool out on one device leaves the others signed in. Disconnect on the Trainer Tool card ends the sessions on every device and cancels a code that was not used yet — use it when you see more devices than you use, or when the code may have reached someone it should not. It can also be used after the lab has ended.
• Pairing, the tool signing in and disconnecting are recorded in the organisation's audit log (security category).

Classroom view and remote help

• Classroom view. The Trainer Tool shows thumbnails of students' screens — only of those who turned on Allow trainer to monitor my screen in the panel on their desktop. The switch is off by default, so ask your students to turn it on if you want to see their work. Thumbnails are not recorded. The switch is reset whenever a session on the desktop starts — a student who signed in again has to turn it on again. (A deployment may set monitoring to start switched on; by default it starts off.) When a student turns it off, their thumbnail stops being created.
• Requests for help. A student asks for help in the Assistance tab of the panel on their desktop. The request reaches the Trainer Tool; from there you connect to the student's desktop to see the problem and help.
• ISO images. The Trainer Tool uploads ISO images for the lab's machines to use.

Where it is in the app and how to end a help session

• The app has the tabs Classroom monitor (thumbnails of screens — the same "classroom view"), Remote assistance (requests for help) and Upload (ISO images and virtual floppies .vfd: Add files, Upload queue, Pause, Uploaded files).
• In Remote assistance the Active help requests list shows the students asking. Select a student and press Connect (or double-click them) — a window with the student's desktop opens and the request leaves the list. Allow students to request help switches accepting requests on and off.
• Ending a help session: close the window with the student's desktop — closing it disconnects you from that desktop. The window also closes by itself when the other side ends the connection (the tool then shows a "Connection terminated" warning, unless you closed the window yourself). The classroom view is only thumbnails, so there is no session in it to disconnect: the student ends it by switching their monitoring off, and you by disconnecting the tool.
• Logout in the app signs the tool out of the lab on that computer; connecting to another lab (with a new code) signs it out of the previous one — the tool asks you to confirm. When the tool's session is ended with Disconnect in the portal, or the lab ends, the tool says it is no longer signed in and has to be connected again with a new code.

Instructions and materials

A lab's instructions (modules, exercises, steps) are written in the lab template, by whoever manages templates. Students see them in the panel on their desktop and on their access page, from where they can print them or save them as PDF. So can you, using the Lab instructions card on your access page.

• For students and the trainer: the lab instructions — modules, exercises and steps (steps are plain text), on the access page in one view for printing; Print or save as PDF opens the browser's print dialog, where you choose a printer or "Save as PDF". The card appears when the lab has instructions.
• Students only: the panel on the desktop, with the Assistance tab (request for help) and the screen-monitoring switch.
• Trainer only: ISO images uploaded in the Trainer Tool, and the list of students.
• Changes to the instructions are made by whoever manages templates — not by the trainer.

The CloudLabs guides (participant, trainer, lab operator and administrator) are available in the portal on the public Help page; this guide is there as the Trainer guide.

A sample class session

This outline does not depend on the field of study: it is made up only of the features described above, so it fits any lab, whatever the exercises are about.

1. Before class: check the state of the environments and the access dates under My students, and set the login hours if needed (see login hours).
2. At the start: connect the Trainer Tool and ask students to turn on Allow trainer to monitor my screen and to use the Assistance tab when they have a problem.
3. During class: work through the lab instructions; watch the thumbnails in the classroom view and take requests for help.
4. At the end: remind students to save their results outside the environment (machines and data are deleted when the lab ends), and disconnect the Trainer Tool if it will not be used further.

How to design your own session

Build your own class session by answering three questions — each rests on a CloudLabs feature:

• The lab: which instructions (module → exercise → step) the students work from, when they may work (access dates, login hours, time limit) and what they must save outside the environment before the end.
• Monitoring: at what point you ask students to turn on Allow trainer to monitor my screen (consent is voluntary and ends with the session) and what you do when a student does not.
• Remote help: how students report a problem (Assistance → Ask for help), who connects to the desktop and when (Remote assistance → Connect) and how you end the session (close the window).

Changes to the lab

Adding and removing participants, changing dates and time limits, and extending the lab are done by the organiser (teaching administrator) in the portal — see the lab operator guide. When the lab was generated for a group, a change to the group changes the lab straight away.

More help

If something does not work as described here, see: Troubleshooting.