Jacob working at CloudyIT

Jacob’s Journey from the Enterprise Academy to Work Experience

by with No Comment Enterprise AcademyWork experience

I am Jacob and I spent the last week doing work experience at CloudyIT.

I found CloudyIT through the Cloudy Foundation Enterprise Academy, an online programme to educate students on the Microsoft Power Platform, which I have been attending for the past year.

The Enterprise Academy was an opportunity I found through school; where students attend virtual meetings to learn about Microsoft Power Apps and the Microsoft Power Platform in general.

I chose to do work experience at CloudyIT because our school decided against work experience this year and I wanted to do something to set me apart from my peers.

In that regard it has helped me greatly and will not only help me greatly with any job that requires knowledge surrounding the Microsoft Power Platform, but my week here has helped me understand that.

Jacob on PC

Work on the Cemetery App for Councils

As part of my work experience at CloudyIT, I helped to develop the Cemetery Management App, designed to help councils document grants, internments, and allotments for multiple cemeteries. This work ties into my experience at the Enterprise Academy, where we looked into the creation of the app.

My task was to look at what records could be viewed publicly and then add that functionality to the web page. After spending far too much time looking at government legislation, I found that all records were “available for inspection by the public at all reasonable times.”

When it came to this part of my work at Cloudy, integrating this into the app itself proved to be the hardest part; trying multiple approaches to the issue highlighted the importance of this experience in the workplace.

Using Power Pages

I worked on Power Pages, some of Microsoft’s new web page hosting/creation software and looked at how it could be used to help with other ongoing projects (such as the Cemetery Management App) or planned future projects such as Leighton Linslade’s community app project.

Leighton Linslade Council is looking into the creation of a programme to loan out devices to vulnerable adults who otherwise would not have any sort of access to this sort of help. To enhance the programme, we investigated how Power Pages could be used to make it a web page with an integrated portal. I was also tasked with creating some of the setup items for the projects, such as Power Platform tables and the Unified Modelling Language (UML) that helps us apply a standard way to visualise the design of a software system.

All this ties into the final thing I did which was create a parallel of the pre-existing Cloudy designed Council website in Power Pages to highlight the functionality of this platform. Below is the original vs what was created.

Cloudy Council demo site
Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 2

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SLIDE 1: Screen grab of the responsive Cloudy Council accessible demo website, vs SLIDE 2: Jacob’s replica using Power Pages showing a low-code, “drag and drop” website design that is responsive and can employ business data forms stored in the Microsoft Dataverse.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed the week (and a bit) I spent at CloudyIT. There was lots to do and everyone there was both helpful and encouraging.

When it comes to other students looking for work experience at Cloudy, I would highly recommend it as it offers both practical experience and opportunities for a future in the IT industry.

The Enterprise Academy was a big help when it came to finding these new opportunities and learning some of the things that are incredibly useful in the IT industry.

Callum on Surface Pro

Callum Nottingham’s Work Experience

by with No Comment Work experience

I am Callum Nottingham and this last week I have been doing work experience at CloudyIT.

I found CloudyIT through a website that was sent out by my school which listed most companies and workplaces that had held work experience for people my age in the past. 

CloudyIT caught my eye because I have been studying computer science at school in the past couple of years and I thought it could work quite well with the computer science, so I looked through the website and learnt a little bit about them.  

I quite enjoy computer science but am not the best at it so I thought that working with CloudyIT may help me improve in that area, but it has helped me improve in many other areas too like using Microsoft apps and devices, helping and teaching people how to use these too.  

Event with charity partner, Cloudy Foundation

I learnt to help people through the Tech Lab event that was held at Bucks New University in Aylesbury that taught and helped students from The Grange School and Mandeville School to make an app and market it. 

This was held on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday, where the students were building an app to collect messages from workers to be put on the rainbow monument that has been built to remember and show appreciation to all the NHS workers that worked throughout the pandemic. 

Callum with team at Cloudy Foundation event on Wednesday

This is a photo of the team working on the event on Wednesday 13 July 2022.

More information about the Tech Lab event can be found here Nightingale’s Rainbow

Office work experience

On Tuesday and Thursday, I edited live video events into smaller chunks based on topic and who was explaining the topic.

I also helped to pack up the Microsoft Surface Go devices that were being borrowed from Microsoft before and after the events, and went through them to collect the work done by all four of the teams.  

The main photo at the top of this article is of me trying to get the students’ videos. 

I also helped by boxing and making hampers with CloudyGroup branded items like coffee cups and water bottles. 

Here is a photo that:

Callum making customer packs

Work experience online

I was also involved in some of the Microsoft TEAMS’ meetings. Some of these were about the recent sales and how the business was resolving issues which helped me learn how to resolve issues like these in the future and how to finish sales.  

I also sat and watched the APPY Hour that is held monthly by CloudyIT. In this webinar they explained how to use some especially useful apps that can help the councils that CloudyIT partners with.

Here is a photo of this month’s APPY Hour. 

Teams APPY Hour event

My conclusion

I really enjoyed the week of work experience even though the first couple of days were a bit manic and stressful. I especially enjoyed the event and seeing the students progressively develop their apps. 

To other students looking for work experience I recommend being confident when getting in touch with the company that you are looking to work with; don’t overthink it but still put in the effort to be respectful and polite. 

It has been a pleasure having Callum come and join us for his work experience. He was thrown in at the deep end with an event day one but did a fantastic job supporting the students and assisting the team.


Through the two weeks of his work experience he has done an excellent job assisting engineers and working on projects.

I hope it has given him a genuine experience of what it's like when leaving school. I wish Callum all the best in his future endeavours and am sure whatever he chooses to do he’ll do a fantastic job.

David Hall
David Hall
Managing Director, CloudyIT

SCHOOL CHILDREN UNVEIL THE CLEAN-UP APP THEY MADE FOR WOLVERTON & GREENLEYS TOWN COUNCIL

by with No Comment App-PrenticeCloudy AcademyUncategorised

Students from The Mandeville School, accompanied by Director of CloudyGroup, David Hall, today proudly handed over the “Council Clean-Up” App they have built for Wolverton and Greenleys Town Council (WGTC).

The CloudyGroup “App-Prentice Challenge” team were honoured to have their App accepted by Town Mayor and WGTC Chairman, Councillor Adrian Moss, in an official handover ceremony at WGTC Town Hall.

Cloudy Academy’s Local Enterprise Engagement Program Gets off to a Flying Start!

by with No Comment Uncategorised

The Cloudy Academy was born out of our belief in investing in the future of digital services and encouraging entrepreneurship. Having built up a fantastic network of partnerships with local councils and higher education bodies we are now able to provide young people with real-world work experience in the industry, apprenticeship opportunities and dedicated training to help them enhance their passion for digital solutions, IT, telecommunications and creative media.
Stoke Mandeville School in Aylesbury took part in the APPrentice Challenge last year and as part of the Cloudy Academy’s commitment to engage with the students further, the winning ten students were invited into our offices last week to meet our team – most of whom started out as apprentices themselves – and to continue building their winning ‘Exam Revision Aid’ App. They also visited Buckingham Universities computing department, meeting lecturers to deepen their understanding of the industry.