Family safety: Feedback on recent changes to multi-device management

I don't even know what this reply is regarding, but I resent the fact that all you can do is spew the same thing.

i was an NT system admin for years, I know what time doing. Everything was set up correctly and IT DIDN'T WORK.

guess what, family safety STOPS WORKING. It breaks. It did it before - and I spent hours at the MS store trying o get help as to why the profiles weren't applying... My only option was to start over. For 2 kids. 

Then it broke again.

So yes it works, but it Wasn't/isn't perfect. 

And you you know what today??? it doesn't work. That is right, IT DOES NOT WORK.

it doesn't work because a group of people in Redmond decided that we users had too much control over our MINOR children's computers/devices, and they ripped features away from us... Because they feel they know how to parent better than us, and we can't possibly really need features we had before. So they took it away, and now try to tell us how wonderful the changes are...

pages and pages of disgruntled parents, an no humble pie to be had saying, "we are SORRY, we screwed up, we should have ASKED before we ripped it apart."

So please don't tell me it works, because this new incarnation has made some parts of my day a living H%#}} with my special needs child each and every day.

The distinction I have had to make is what they consider working and what we do. It works as their design was intended to work... I guess, but it obviously does not work for the end-user considering how many different blogs there are on this subject and how many posts are on those blogs. I think this is the meat of what the people want. Admins, please feel free to share this across blogs and take some votes.

1. The ability to create separated blocks of time per day.
2. The ability to control aggregate hours (as Jennifer put it) across all devices that the child may use, including phone. I think this may be coming with Windows 10, but not everyone will upgrade...
3. More granular control (if desired) of what apps your child can download. Maybe a standard and advanced settings selection.
4. The ability to set an allowance for those downloads. If I want to give my child $10/month to use as they want then I can do it. If I don't then I don't.
5. ...and please get rid of the multiple line items for each device the child may use. If you have more than one child this is horrible.

From a fellow systems admin. Can I get an Amen?

Hi AlwaysDriving,

My heartfelt apologies, but I am merely attempting to help you.  In every post you state how broken the experience is for your daughter (and as a mom of a special needs kid myself, I *get it*), but with all due respect, I am not "spewing" anything.  Each time I suggest a way around the little I know about your issue, there's no reply stating that you've tried the steps provided.  I will continue to try, but you'll need to partner with me if we're going to have any success. 

Here's what I have to go on:

1. In another thread, you mention that you have one child that "shows as before on the list - but when she logs in after adding her account back to the new device it set it up as a local one . The MS account (@outlook.com email addy) says, "NO devices associated with this account"."
2. Earlier in this thread, you state that you add websites to the block list, and they don't stick and that she's still able to access them.
3. Also in this thread, you state that your daughter is set up to download things she shouldn't be allowed to based on her maturity/needs.

All three of these things suggest that you are trying to make changes to a profile on account.Microsoft.com/family that isn't tied to the device you're having trouble with.  If this is true, the steps I've provided should work.  If I am wrong and you've done each step, please open a new thread (as a question, not a discussion) and we will have more options for support.

~jen

Hi AlwaysDriving,

My heartfelt apologies, but I am merely attempting to help.  In every post you state how broken the experience is for both you and your daughter (and as a mom of a special needs kid myself, I *get it*), but with all due respect, I am not "spewing" anything.  Each time I suggest a way around the little I know about your issue, there's no reply stating that you've tried the steps provided.  I will continue to try, but you'll need to partner with me if we're going to have any success. 

Here's what I have to go on:

1. In another thread, you mention that you have one child that "shows as before on the list - but when she logs in after adding her account back to the new device it set it up as a local one . The MS account (@outlook.com email addy) says, "NO devices associated with this account"."
2. Earlier in this thread, you state that you add websites to the block list, and they don't stick and that she's still able to access them.
3. Also in this thread, you state that your daughter is set up to download things she shouldn't be allowed to based on her maturity/needs.

All three of these things suggest that you are trying to make changes to a profile on account.Microsoft.com/family that isn't tied to the device you're having trouble with.  If this is true, the steps I've provided should work.  If I am wrong and you've done each step (and on every PC if she has access to more than one device), please open a new thread (as a question, not a discussion) and we will have more options for support.

~jen

And at some point in the thread, or another one, I stated my daughters hard drive in the computer had crashed and so I was starting from scratch. Due to the stomach flu and food poisoning in my house, the computer just got up and running again last weekend.

but starting from scratch I had no choice but to limit her in ways I didn't like, because the set up as a new user failed to provide the features I used before - that has not changed.

the simple fact is, I could NOT get it to work before the crash, trying everything you suggested (which I had also tried the prior time to no avail). I had reached the point of having to delete her account and start over... The Seagate failure took care of that for me.

What the current problem is, the features that we used in our house are gone. So while her account is being controlled by family safety now.... It has caused huge resentment because I have had to scale it back.

so for me, there is no fix except apparently to buy 3rd party software.

i need to be able have blocks of time she can't use  it during the day, your suggestions to work around that are not feasible; I need to not allow downloads/installs, period.  I can't seem to block that now.

so what isn't working is the current incarnation of the thing as a whole... And no one seems to care about that. It was amazing and world class before.... And now it is not.

i apologize for the wonky formatting - your forums don't seem to be working on my iPad today. I cannot even get to the end of thee line below.

so for us, unless your "team" is willing to add back what they took away, I will continue to state it doesn't work. As for when it unlinked and failed before - it really was not fixable, just like the last time it happened to all 3 kids on 2 different devices, I had to start over with new accounts. I can't answer why on that, no one could. Maybe we should just blame Dell - all the devices that failed were theirs. 

So daily this week my daughter is aggressive with us because of the settings I had to use on her new account - eventually I will have time to rebuild her white list, and create yet another account to allow the "fun" pages outside of school time, but as I'm sitting here today after a trip to the ER for a kidney infection.... Well, what she has she has. 

If there is a feedback channel I can send feedback to on he the **** that is the new incarnation please share it. I'm just want that world class set-up back. Your users aren't stupid, we don't want it easier (obviously). How about a 2 tiered setting approach? Those that want simple can have it, the rest of us can dig in and make it useable for our families. Just don't ASSume that anyone in Redmond knows what is. Best for my family.... Leave that to me.

tracey