Sims support rip off!

[chrisjako]

Is it just me or does anyone else think capita are taking the mick with their support costs? Just got a quote from them today as my local sims support run out, it was £5500 for the basic package, thats up by over 50%! The latest FMS upgrade needs end of year VAT report file replacing after the upgrade which isn't mentioned in the accopmanying PDF, hence me needing support in the first place, 99 times out of 100 we wouldn't even need the support if they coded it right in the first place - me thinking some sort of scam going on here!

[kmount]

Does that include your contribution for the use of SIMS itself or just for Support?

[tech-man]

We buy a "top up support" is no where as much as that..........

[DMcCoy]

Our support is much less than that, for the silver option, less than a 1/3rd in fact!

[button_ripple]

I can't believe that price!

There support service isn't even that good! We had a problem that SIMS had changed all the passwords and no one had any idea what they were. Capita left us waiting for almost a week!

That meant that our admin and finance department couldn't do anything!

[j17sparky]

I can't believe that price!

Yes but remember by paying Capita you are helping to support Labour

thats up by over 50%!

It wont be long before they start their election campain, and that costs money lol

[enjay]

Our support is much less than that, for the silver option, less than a 1/3rd in fact!

What's "silver" support? We just pay a sort of modular price based on which bits we use - our costs aren't anything like £5.5k either, but nor are they 1/3 of that.

[Heebeejeebee]

I think we pay about 6K ish. Core products + FMS, LM, NOVAT, Assesment and others that I can't remember. Single site since we're one of two schools in the LA that use SIMS.

HBJB

[Oops_my_bad]

It was about £3k for us last year - god help us if it's gone upto 5k. We don't even hassle their support much (apart from supportnet), even when we do, it's for the most simplest thing (like releasing a file on SOLUS) which seems to take them anything upto a fortnight

[ICTNUT]

oh crap, I would love £5.5k, I got our sims support SLA through the other day and that was @ £15.5k for Sims, NovaT, FMS, couple of site visits and a couple of training days and this is via our LEA not Capita.

I did approach Capita at one point but they were even more for the same as what out LEA offer us.

[Rozzer]

oh crap, I would love £5.5k, I got our sims support SLA through the other day and that was @ £15.5k for Sims, NovaT, FMS, couple of site visits and a couple of training days and this is via our LEA not Capita.

I did approach Capita at one point but they were even more for the same as what out LEA offer us.

We are paying the same kind of figure. Its also going through our LEA. I think its completely overly priced.

[Kyle]

We pay 7k to our local LEA support team for the normal packages.

But hey are good bu tits still a lot.

Does the figure depend on the size of the school?

[ICTNUT]

@kyle: I believe it does as the licensing costs are based on the number on roll for that year.

Glad to see I am not the only one who thinks it is way over prices for what it is.

[Heebeejeebee]

I think we pay about 6K ish. Core products + FMS, LM, NOVAT, Assesment and others that I can't remember. Single site since we're one of two schools in the LA that use SIMS.

HBJB

I stand corrected. Our latest bill is £15k ish.

HBJB

[Oops_my_bad]

I would advise anyone who get their support from Crapita to check the contract for the upcoming year - just had mine through and it said last year I had "core" support. and that this year I will have core support + admin support for a few hundred extra, which was "ticked" by default! Oh no i bloody wont So I crossed it out and ticked "core" support.