SIMS Learning Gateway

[WGSGClive]

SMT are looking into getting SIMS learning gateway.

 

We need to compare having the hosted service or hosting it on our own servers.

 

Our current SIMS server is virtual running on VMware and we don't have sharepoint on any of our existing servers.

 

Have any of you setup either type and how much did it cost?

[BKGarry]

We have bromcom's MyChildAtSchool for parents access and for teachers we purchased Teachers WebFolder (both of which can be brought separately)

 

I found MCAS to be a much more polished off product and cheaper, the TWF was just an extra thing we brought later on so that teachers did not have to use VPN to access SIMS at home. As you are in kent as well @WGSGClive we know it will work without an issue (you just get a public IP for the server that is going to run the bromcom link from the School's Broadband team)

 

I am in North West Kent, so if you want to come and have a look with me, drop me a PM and I can show you, I also have a powerpoint somewhere (from about 2/3 years ago) comparing the 2.

[fiza]

Why SIMS Learning Gateway? There are other products out there too. We used SLG in my last place. Never liked it.

[zag]

SLG is rubbish due to its reliance on SharePoint. Its also hideously expensive. It will cost around £15,000 from what I remember.

 

Go with TASC insight if you want a parent gateway, its about £1,000 a year.

Edited January 21, 2014 by zag

[edutech4schools]

All my schools turned down SLG as it was clunky.

[tmcd35]

We hosted SLG locally until recently. I'd mirror what others have already said - it's very clunky (sharepoint, yueck). Only ever used it so staff could enter assessment grades and comment banks from home, parents never, ever, saw it. We've just moved over to Go4Schools which has got very positive feedback from staff and we are happily planning on rolling out to parents.

 

One thing to note on SLG is the dreaded termly SIMS upgrade. I don't think I managed to successfully update SLG even once without having to phone Capita to remote in and look at what went wrong. It's all command line based, removing old packages and adding new to sharepoint. Our setup had the additional complication of ADPS being on a seperate server which I think caused most of the phone calls to Capita to bail me out.

[fiza]

+1 for TASC Insight

[Quackers]

We dumped SLG and went Insight from TASC Software too. Insight is way better.

[Mr.Ben]

+1 for Insight as well!

[WGSGClive]

Thanks for the info. SMT has been told we need a partnership gateway. It's because we operate a joint sixth form with the boys school down the road. I think the idea is to log onto one site which would work across the two schools, which have separate SIMS systems. They need access to the SIMS data and reports etc. I think it's been suggested that we need SIMS Learning Gateway to do this.

[Greg]

SLG and Partnership Xchange would do this for you, I wouldn't recommend hosting Partnership Xchange yourself though

[PotNoodleTech]

Only go SLG if your LEA are forcing it on you. If you have any choice whatsoever in the matter then avoid it.

 

SLG and PX were mandated by our LEA as like you we have a collegium between local schools for 6th form.

 

PX is a beast - it must be hosted by your LEA. It is buggy and needs constant attention both from a technical side and a data side. Our SIMS data regularly gets overwritten/changed with unwanted pupils or changes, much to our Data Manager's disgust. Only run this if you ABSOLOUTLY have to.

 

SLG works and is fairly reliable, but as said above it is really clunky, the horrific interface is straight from "the internet of the 90s" and it's totally unintuitive for the poor users. The majority of users here prefer to use SIMS in school and avoid SLG unless they absoloutly have to.

 

One thing to note - if your LEA and mandating that you have this - they should be hosting it for you!

[PhilNeal]

I do hope members take a look at SLG for themselves!

[teejay]

I do hope members take a look at SLG for themselves!

 

We did, trialled it for a year, ditched it and went with TASC Insight.

[SouthCoastSaint]

Another Insight vote for me. As mentioned before, we also didn't manage an upgrade without Capita logging in and giving lengthy help each time - process takes 30 seconds with Insight. In addition, the upgrades are frequent as they incorporate customer requests/fix bugs as they go along. I asked for a change to exam timetable content and within 90 mins an upgrade was released to incorporate my request.

 

From a parents point of view - from the login process (SLG was always somewhat unstable) to the way the pages display, there is no comparison between the hard to navigate SLG and the extremely user friendly Insight.

 

Want to display something? Toggle the item to Yes and it shows on the parent's page. Easily switch to the parent's view to check that their pages look as you wish them to.

 

I would be perfectly happy to stick with an integrated Capita product if it did the job, but sadly I think they really missed a trick using Sharepoint and not building their own platform from scratch.

[howartp]

I do hope members take a look at SLG for themselves!

I speak reasonably frequently with a chap in the Capita 'Extra Modules' marketing department. (The team that tries to get you to buy InTouch, SLG, Emerge, Agora etc)

 

We have 'an understanding' shall we say, about one comment I made to him a while back: SIMS as a core product is (generally, SOLUS3 aside) a good product. When it comes to extending those features, be in text/email messaging, a VLE/Parent Portal, Staff Professional Development, iPad apps (leaving aside today's BETT announcement) etc - SIMS are better off leaving them to their Technical Partners because they all do a much better job than Capita's own foray into these technologies, and when Capita release a SIMS update, the Partners release their updates alongside/soon after - and they work from update x.1, not the 3rd un-withdrawn release of update x.4 that has some new features temporarily disabled whilst they fix them.

 

Peter

[Steven_Cleaver]

Another vote for Insight and Tasc which we use for Staff, Parental and Students to access all information, use our own Gateway (remote access) with simple dual factor if staff want to access SIM's full version and has proved much cheaper, another school in the borough has sort of adopted this method once they saw how Insight and the Gateway worked.

 

I have looked at SLG a couple of times at various schools and spoke to relevant staff as well as other SIM's products as well as have demo's from Capita and just weigh up the pro's and Con's against comparable systems in regards to price, features but particularly ease of use as this is key if it isn't easy to use and relatively quick, staff, Parents and Students become frustrated and systems aren't used well, my concern with a lot of Capita products is the user front end is not user friendly again even had someone from Capita say this once we mentioned this.

 

As previous post has sort of said I think that SIM's is really good at the Core things with the odd issue, I have looked at other MIS systems as well but felt that SIM's does the Core things better than most or I wouldn't really gain any advantage from moving from the SIM's Core products to another MIS. Once it branches out into other areas and you look at Partner products these seem a lot better in general and better value for money. I understand the idea of going to one system for everything but think you have to weigh up what you lose or gain by doing this. I have also heard similar things speaking to people unofficially as previous post as regards SIM's products.

 

Look at other products as well as SLG including Insight and Tasc Software but also SLG and go to schools if possible where these are in place as going to a school that is using these as well as sales pitch is always a good idea. Saying all this I am sure their are a lot of schools using the vast array of Capita SIM's products very successfully.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Steven_Cleaver

[Sylv3r]

We are a SIMS Learning Gateway school. We love the product as do our parents. The Insight product would be what I would go with, if we were ever to change.

 

I don't think the SIMS Learning Gateway is to blame, but more the Sharepoint infrastructure when people say they aren't happy with the clunkiness etc.

[CAM]

I do hope members take a look at SLG for themselves!

 

I have to admit, I do miss SLG after changing jobs and landing back in paper reports land. I was helping develop it for the LA (and was using it before the downloadable reports came in) before leaving and it was coming along nicely. Unfortunately the cost and the SharePoint infrastructure left my new employer wary of it so I looked for alternatives and ended up taking interest in TASC Insight because it's cheaper and doesn't rely on corporate grade overkill to operate. (Still on paper though, the gateway project hasn't moved anywhere yet).

 

I'd love to see how it has changed at BETT on Saturday but without a significant price drop the system is outclassed by other, easier to operate parent gateways.

[DarrenShan]

I would say go with anything but SLG, it's a very painful platform and as previously mentioned the SLG updates are always problematic.

[zag]

We are a SIMS Learning Gateway school. We love the product as do our parents. The Insight product would be what I would go with, if we were ever to change.

 

I don't think the SIMS Learning Gateway is to blame, but more the Sharepoint infrastructure when people say they aren't happy with the clunkiness etc.

 

EXACTLY!

 

The idea is good, the software platform decision was awful.

[athornton]

We have slg and it is not good at all even when it works!! TASC insight has amazing reviews and for the cost seems to be much better!

 

The problems we have with slg are often down to broken links between our server and the sims hosted server for slg, and we often find that provisioning new users / removing does not work in a timely fashion even when you run the process manually rather than waiting for the scheduled task to run!

[zag]

We have slg and it is not good at all even when it works!! TASC insight has amazing reviews and for the cost seems to be much better!

 

The problems we have with slg are often down to broken links between our server and the sims hosted server for slg, and we often find that provisioning new users / removing does not work in a timely fashion even when you run the process manually rather than waiting for the scheduled task to run!

 

We once went to a school who had SLG to see how it works before purchasing it. The guy was quite enthusiastic about it at first but as the day wore on and we wanted to see how it worked, he said we couldn't as the "link" was down for some reason.

 

Its just a badly designed piece of software. The Provisioning app looks like its designed for local authorities not individual schools, the updates were ridiculously frought with danger and the logins complicated. It inteferes with your active directory by adding some "custom fields" to the entire forest which cannot be removed when you stop using the software.

 

We ditched it after trying very hard for 2 years to make it work in our school.

 

Since installing TASC insight its like night and day, we have 100% parents logging in and many positive comments. All reports are now done online, parents evenings electronically booked, options chosen by students on the system and behavioural statistics available to the parents anytime.

Edited January 30, 2014 by zag

[SouthCoastSaint]

Like Zag, we are letting Students choose their Options via Insight. It's a slightly odd thing that third party software makes really great use of this part of Sims and yet (as far as I know) Sims own online product doesn't offer this.

[robjduk]

we have slg and its a pain in the arse to manage. The updates are just lines of code and is quite easy to bugger it up.

 

I was once asked by the head to see if there is a way to take registers for SIMS on something other than a windows laptop so asked the guy who insisted on SLG if you can take registers on it and the response was "you can but its really not easy to do so"..... absolutely no idea why we stick with this thing. Went to BETT last week and found various systems which do the job and in a clear and easy to use way.

 

Saying that, the mobile package for SLG is fairly nice