[Serco] Any Brummie or West Mids schools using Progresso yet...?

[ridpool_John]

just wondering if anybody in West Mids is using Progresso and how they've found it..?

Thanks :-)

[glennda]

Not sure but I know that @john has been experimenting with it lots

[Tricky_Dicky]

2 Schools went live with it this week.

[APC]

Indeed to Birmingham Schools went Live this week, one secondary and one primary.... early days yet so watch this space

[john]

We go live later this academic year, just in the process of starting to migrate and working closely with Serco on it There is, if I remember the hands up at a meeting I was at, 4 or 5 of us in North Yorkshire going over this next 12 months that we knew of so far

[ridpool_John]

Well I went to the presentation today and was left thoroughly disappointed by Progresso, the sales team showed a demo version that was slow (2 minutes to load a report screen), glitchy and the interface was dreadful, they also showed an unfinished prototype of the analytics module that looked promising but couldn't display any results properly because the coding was unfinished. Serco sales team really let us down today...!

Anyone with a working system I'd be grateful for your input and experiences as i can't really make a fair judgement based on what I've seen today.

[ridpool_John]

2 Schools went live with it this week.

I know both, met the head of one today and he was fair about progresso but he was honest and said they had already encountered major glitches which serco and link2ict had fixed but he did describe it as slow and not without issues which whilst it's early days is a big concern as the school still has to function whilst using a new product and if it crashes or proves unreliable we're wasting money and time to fix it.

[ridpool_John]

john
Please keep me posted on how it goes
Thanks

john :-)

[john]

Well I went to the presentation today and was left thoroughly disappointed by Progresso, the sales team showed a demo version that was slow (2 minutes to load a report screen), glitchy and the interface was dreadful, they also showed an unfinished prototype of the analytics module that looked promising but couldn't display any results properly because the coding was unfinished. Serco sales team really let us down today...!

Anyone with a working system I'd be grateful for your input and experiences as i can't really make a fair judgement based on what I've seen today.

I obviously wasn't at that presentation, HOWEVER that doesn't sound like any I have seen before and I can assure you that I have been to 3 or 4 now for Progresso and obviously spent time with them at BETT this year, including looking at the Analytics Engine you refer to, and it has always been fine and nothing like what you mention in that post.

I obviously don't know the facility's your venue had but as its cloud based you need a working internet connection and dial-up isn't best suited and that is all you get from some wifi systems in hotels / venues at times or even using a 3G dongle, remember 3G will be used on your mobile mainly thus you would use the mobile version which is lighter on the UI and designed for the slower speeds of 3G (or lesser) connection. If you were at say an LA office, there filtering system might also need modifying from what it was in the box, I know that the guys at Smoothwall have already said to Serco that if they let them know any URL / features that might upset filters to give those details to them and they will ensure that it goes into the default good stuff lists to ensure that Smoothie doesn't molest it so there could be many reasons you found it slow.

The Analytic's isn't available yet so I really am a little unsure why you are making a fuss over it, it wasn't marketed as fully finished and working at BETT last month, it was more to show look this is coming, it can do things like X, Y and Z with some known working examples and then will come fully finished and working later on this year

I know that people at Serco have seen your post and if they can suss you out from your name / events run today I am sure they will be happy to talk to you about it but I can assure you that I haven't seen those issues you speak of so far of it and that just isn't the way its supposed to be so maybe it was a dud connection today. Remember you will be able to self-host it, as your part of Birmingham who I believe are a Serco MIS camp as it were, they will have the option to be your host, so can host within the LA WAN network thus removing the Internet connection bit, if your an academy the academy group could host it, or you can let Serco host it so 4 options for you to choose from

In terms of us, we are at an early stage starting to look at what we do, check our policy's internally for preparing to go progresso so there won't be anything huge from me in the next couple of months, I expect us to start more in April on it, but I know others further ahead, keep an eye on Twitter #ProgressoMIS as there are tweets from some of the Pioneers and Serco on it and I will, once we get going, be putting stuff on here about it as I am very passionate that it is a big step forwards and a great product and the future for it is getting better by the day

[ridpool_John]

Thanks mate, I really wanted to be positive about it but today just left me feeling very deflated, I'm going to visit the two brummie schools in a couple of weeks to see it live and I hope that will give me a better more realistic picture. The internet connection was through Aston university and didn't appear to slow other web based systems down and one of serco's own sales people said it could be that others are accessing the demo site.

I was making a fuss about the whole presentation in general, not just analytics, compared to the other suppliers it felt like a the demonstrated product was a half finished prototype and the sales people involved didn't seem enthusiastic or interested in the product. I'm well aware serco does make good stuff for schools but today was a shocker.

I honestly hope it is better in reality

[Michael]

MIS systems are complex even when they work reliably/consistently. Personally I would just sit and wait. Capita are no doubt working on a similar idea with Sims.net. Let the games begin

[ChrisJ]

I wasn't overly impressed with the presentation yesterday. We've decided to hold back and stay with Facility as long as possible. Progresso seems like a good idea, but we would like to see it in action from the final hosting solution rather than a demo server.

I did chuckle at my tweet about it being slow appearing on the screens.

[glennda]

Capita are no doubt working on a similar idea with Sims.net.

Hopefully not modified Sims Web parts!

[ChrisJ]

Capita are no doubt working on a similar idea with Sims.net

Yeah, I heard version 8 will be a hosted/cloud/whatever-the-buzzword-is-at-the-time system.

Another reason we're going to wait.

[ridpool_John]

I saw that as well quick thinking :-)