Is this correct?

[box_l]

One of the schools I currently support has just moved from Serco Facility to SIMS.

 

They have, just recently, received an email from Advanced Computer Software Plc stating that the installation of Facility/Eportal is to be removed and deleted, or, pay for a 2 user read only license at several thousand pounds per year.

This was not mentioned when the school was concluding the contract with Serco.

 

Is this correct?

Is the school not entitled to have access to its own data without requiring a license?

The school does not USE facility, but does on rare occasions need to get to historical data for legal reasons etc.

 

Can anyone shed a bit of light on this whole matter?

 

TIA

 

BoX

[3s-gtech]

That sounds right to me. You can keep your data by all means, but the software which accesses that data is licensed - you are not entitled to it at all now the contract has finished and the software has expired.

 

If you will NEED to access data from Facility, you'll have to pay for that license, or see if you can access the data directly from the database (this may or may not be a very bad idea).

[jcs808]

We are moving from Facility to SIMS and have been told that we can keep one computer connected to Facility but eportal will go.

[box_l]

Thanks for the replies.

@jcs808

Was there a cost associated with that access?

And who told you this?

 

BoX

[box_l]

Agreed with the trickiness of accessing the data without the correct application, the database will be a minefield!

[matt40k]

With SIMS, you buy the license then you pay the annual maintenance, so you stop using SIMS, you just don't upgrade. I'd hope Serco the same, otherwise I'd be demanding full exports of every bit of data you have, is it hosted Serco? Cause if it is I'd demand once they've done the full export and your happy they securely wipe it from their servers. On the plus side, at least it won't happen when\if you move away from SIMS!

[PhilNeal]

This is the conundrum of cloud solutions - you are hiring an application that manages your data on servers you don't own. Suppliers have overheads in providing these services so are very unlikely to offer this for free after you move on.

[scholarpack]

I suggest you contact the provider to ask how you can extract all your data in a spreadsheet or similar format to enable you to access the data for historical reasons, but nor incur the license costs. Any provider worth their salt would not put roadblocks up to allow you to keep your data if you chose to move to another system. At a minimum they should guide you through how to export the data to a meaningful format.

[box_l]

Fortunately this was/is an in house setup.

 

I was aware that the SIMS license was for updates and support.

I think SMT made the assumption that Serco would be the same. Having read through the contract now I can see that is not how it is.

 

The other question I am posing is that the company asking for the license fee are not Serco, they are Advanced Computer Software Plc.

They appear to be "formally Serco learning", but are they within their rights to ask for the fee. Would we be paying the correct company?

 

I would love to demand full exports, but we do not have a contract.. see above.

 

They are asking for 60% of the original licence just to have 2 read only users. This seems excessive to say the least.

 

An export to a spreadsheet or three would be a great solution. Anyone out there a Facility wizard who knows an appropriate report to run? I will contact Serco tomorrow too.

 

Thanks again everyone.

 

BoX

[PhilNeal]

Advanced are the new owners.

[box_l]

Thanks Phil, that clears up that part at least.

 

BoX

[teejay]

Don't Capita offer a service to transfer the data across for you, I would've thought most MIS suppliers would be able to extract the data from competitor products?

[box_l]

They do, and to be fair the local SIMS support team have done a really good job with the data they were asked to migrate.

 

The thing is that the school decided to have a "clean slate" approach to the data that they wanted moved, so that any inaccuracies were left behind.

 

I have suggested this as a solution to the school, ie. that a separate database is setup alongside the live one, but containing all the data from facility. There is the issue however, of time, money, and the fact that the school will be "using" Facility whilst this process occurs, therefore requiring a license.

 

BoX

[twin--turbo]

I doubt an export to a spreadshet or three would be easy.

 

If you have ever seen the SIMS database backend table set you will know that these MIS's have very very complex relational database structures that would be possible to recreate in a spreadsheet but it would be too complex to be of use and the cost would be silly.

 

I don't think that SERCO have done anything out of the ordianry, you have decided to leave them so it is up to you and your new provider to make sure the data is transfered to a new repository. In this case you did not want that wholsale and so data remains in a system that your no longer leagly entitled to use.

 

Your not in a strong bargaining position either.

 

Four choices realy.

 

1) Pay them for a year or more....

2) Get capita to do the work again porting all data

3) take the database tables and build your own front end to the data you need

4) forget the old data.

 

Rob

[box_l]

You have just listed the four options I suggested a couple of weeks ago.

 

The reason I have been asking these questions is that:

 

1) Pay them for a year or more.... Possible but expensive as the data needs to be accessible for up to 7 years

2) Get capita to do the work again porting all data Possible but expensive but not AS expensive

3) take the database tables and build your own front end to the data you need I don't think I have the time

4) forget the old data. Possible but the data needs to be accessible for up to 7 years

 

None of these options is particularly appealing, just a case of working out which is least worst, if that makes sense.

 

BoX

[twin--turbo]

You have just listed the four options I suggested a couple of weeks ago.

 

The reason I have been asking these questions is that:

 

1) Pay them for a year or more.... Possible but expensive as the data needs to be accessible for up to 7 years

2) Get capita to do the work again porting all data Possible but expensive but not AS expensive

3) take the database tables and build your own front end to the data you need I don't think I have the time

4) forget the old data. Possible but the data needs to be accessible for up to 7 years

 

None of these options is particularly appealing, just a case of working out which is least worst, if that makes sense.

 

BoX

 

 

Ask the LEA,

 

When we became an academy we technicaly had NO RIGHT to our predecessor data, we archived the data and gave it to them on CD. That covered that base. Technicaly thought we had a Virtual machine which was switched off with the old MIS lying dormant in case we needed it. Good job realy as the LEA lost the CD!

 

if you need the data then 1 or 2 is the only real option... But as your already in battle for 2013 option 2 would require reconstruction of new data from the new year..

 

So option 1 is probbaly more favourable.

 

 

You could get a second DIRTY SIMS build with all the previous data but capita will charge you for that too, last experince was that it would cost the same as the running live build.

 

Building your own front end to the data will cost more than the other options..

 

Rob

[Greg]

If it stores SEN data that you don't have archived elswhere, it's a lot more than 7 years.

[matt40k]

When we became an academy we technicaly had NO RIGHT to our predecessor data, we archived the data and gave it to them on CD.

 

The DfE changed their minds on that one, they used to say you had to request exactly what you wanted from the LA under the DPA if you were a type 1 (labour) academy - along with a new MIS, but now they said you can keep it as it was too costly to schools to create a new MIS on top of all the other costs.

[PhilNeal]

I can confirm that in many cases new academies are allowed to keep the old school's data. However census returns have to be adjusted to exclude data from the previous school.

[michael2k6]

There are only a few tables you need for accessing the basic data you need. Just write a script to pull it into excel or access and go from there. You can do that straight into the db without much fuss. If those aren't skills you have, any DBA worth their salt will be able to work it out without any issues. That would be a lot cheaper, even if you had to pay for it doing, than the license fee to retain the software.

Just to clear up, Advanced Business Solutions purchased Serco Learning from Serco in a large acquisition on Jan 1st 2013. With that, all of the contracts migrated. Serco generally used to just let you continue with whatever version you had at the time, for read only purposes. Advanced don't take that view, and it was never part of the contract previously, the software is licensed on a yearly basis.

[rpwillis]

Four choices realy.

 

1) Pay them for a year or more....

2) Get capita to do the work again porting all data

3) take the database tables and build your own front end to the data you need

4) forget the old data.

 

Rob

 

You could also look at 3rd party online reporting systems to see if they could fit your needs. Just for internal use by staff in this case of course.

[APC]

I understand that Serco (Now Advanced Learning) have always provided their non-cloud (why would Phil Neal even mention cloud?) Facility MIS has always been provided to individual schools on a 'lease' type agreement. Am I also correct in thinking that SIMS is also licenced on exactly the same basis for schools / acadamies buying direct from Capita and not under an LA agreement?

[APC]

We are moving from Facility to SIMS and have been told that we can keep one computer connected to Facility but eportal will go.

 

In this instance a licence for Facility would be required - easier I would have thought to move all of the data into SIMS - that way no additional software is required

[PhilNeal]

@APC it was my mistake - I didn't read the first post carefully enough and just assumed it was a cloud issue. This is rather different and strange!

[vikpaw]

You mention the school was concluding the contract with SERCO, was this before the takeover? is there any finalisation documentation, maybe something is covered there, even if in spirit not in writing, but chances are ACS won't have to honour that.

I would have thought that the data is yours, and they have a responsibility to give it to you in a reasonable format, especially if you are leaving. The problem is, if you've left it too late....