RM VLE - Pending

[contink]

Anyone else had any info on how RM and the whole VLE thing is going to be working?

I have a presentation/meeting with the head and a rep from RM next week and I'd like to be prep'd to ask the questions that need asking before hand.

The headteacher may have been mistaken but the impression she got was that they will want to have various software packages installed in advance to make sure it all works. So I'd like to shoot anything unnecessary down if I can get the necessary intel up front.

I'll share what I learn in return obviously.

[steve]

This must be LA specific as our LA has gone with netmedia

[contink]

This must be LA specific as our LA has gone with netmedia

Yeah... it's East Riding who've gone with it... Apparently ironic as RM have been nothing but trouble for many heads in the LEA. But anyhoo...

[Galway]

One of the technicians is trying to setup lynchpin and integrating with sims at our school, after 3 hours on the phone it was declaired broken and needing some work before we could implement it.

[contink]

One of the technicians is trying to setup lynchpin and integrating with sims at our school, after 3 hours on the phone it was declaired broken and needing some work before we could implement it.

Oh cr*p.... So they're going to want to link up with SIMS? "wonderful"...

[Galway]

From the indications I have had, they want staff to use the VLE extensivly and integration into sims was one of the reasons its been chosen within the authority.

[contink]

From the indications I have had, they want staff to use the VLE extensivly and integration into sims was one of the reasons its been chosen within the authority.

So to recap... It's likely that the actual integration side of things may be "broken" at the moment.

Looks like you've just given me a very good reason for suggesting we separate SIMS back out from the curriculum server though. Probably much better to let the central IT services manage it.

[leco]

Following on from this then is anyone going to be or currently using Fronter?

[powdarrmonkey]

Warwickshire went down the line of RM + Kaleidos + SIMS a couple of years ago, and was and still is terrible.

[Galway]

Capita have a update that allows a way to allow the VLE to interface with sim's. From what I have seen of it, I think it needs a little tweeking before we can even get it to work.

[contink]

Following on from this then is anyone going to be or currently using Fronter?

The rest of my schools are all going this way. I was discouraged from getting involved though as an outside contractor. So I'd be interested in intel on that side of things too... I'll pass on what I find out when things start to happen though.

[leco]

I'd be interested in intel on that side of things too...

Will do when I know anything.

I'll pass on what I find out when things start to happen though.

Thanks.

[contink]

Right feedback from todays little appointment.

1. Communication as to what the RM guy was to do was pretty bad.. We were under the impression that he'd need to install things but in fact he was doing a specification check and making sure their little tie-in would work, not actually installing it. Had we known I could have sent the info by email.

2. It seems we're wave 3 of this roll-out so there are supposedly schools already using the system out there.

3. SIMS is the tie-in, not AD so any RM VLE will be needing access to your SIMS server. If we'd still had the SIMS db on the secretary machine we'd have had to upgrade probably to an always on machine


To be fair to RM the issue of communication is more down to the IT services division of East Yorks as they generally handle all the SIMS and admin side of things. So, they probably know what's going on, RM figure most headteachers aren't going to understand the tech side of things so they just simplify it with a notice of a tech visiting and leave it at that.

No idea when the actual implementation will take place but apparently it's meant to be handled remotely.

I'll report if/when anything else happens.

[Andie]

We have Kaleidos + Integris. Integris is managed by the LEA (I just deal with curriculum officially). Kaleidos was purchased for all schools by the LEA. Our LEA came out to all schools and installed the RM Data Extraction software on the office machine that has Integris installed on it (an XP machine). The LEA made a lot of fuss initially about needing to merge admin and curriculum networks, but it isn't necessary. Our office machine isn't left on overnight and so far it seems to be coping with the updates. As far as I can tell, the data extractor sends data off to RM Kaleidos three times a day - after morning registration, after afternoon registration and overnight.

[powdarrmonkey]

(Note: This is entirely from a Warwickshire perspective, as I went through the whole Warwickshire implementation from start to finish, if you want to know anything).

Yes, the extractor runs as a service and runs a custom report in SIMS, and sends the data off as a PGF file IIRC. There is no Active Directory integration at all, so don't expect central authentication or anything similarly useful.

We had many, many problems with PGFs not being generated for weeks at a time and nobody knew about it, and eventually County wrote their own little service that notifies them if it hasn't happened and they send an engineer to find out why (so that's now two bits of unknown, uncertified software running on your server!).

Kaleidos itself is delivered through some Sharepoint web parts, but that may be different up your way. Last time I spoke to them it still wasn't used by anybody, because there's no nice way of saying it: this software is