Looking for Birmingham schools who have left BGFL.

[matt4826]

Hi,

 

I'm looking to ditch the BGFL ISP part of our subscription but keep Link2ICT for SIMS/FMS support. I have to put a proposal together for my next SMT meeting.

 

Are there any schools out there who have done this? What method do they use to remote in now that net support won't be an option?

 

Thanks chaps

[eshaq786]

I'm in the same boat where I am looking to move away.

 

What I need to know is how schools overcame the problems of data extraction, hr portal and other council services?

 

Any other problems I should be aware of and their solutions?

 

I have recieved quotes from schoolsbroadband and exanet but want to find out more before taking the next step.

[foofighterjim]

HR portal and FCS Login are the only things that stopped me from moving this year. Rather than worrying about making them work with the new connection (VPN most likely) we are just looking at replacing them (they are both poor pieces of software anyway). We are looking at replacing FCS with Sage (and therefore taking over our own payroll) and are currently reviewing our options for HR portal.

[foofighterjim]

I'm looking to ditch the BGFL ISP part of our subscription but keep Link2ICT for SIMS/FMS support. I have to put a proposal together for my next SMT meeting.

 

I have found this year that the connectivity costs are better than previous years but the MIS support is now astronomical. We are looking at using Sandwell of MIS support.

[matt4826]

Schools HR Portal works without a BGFL connection, we've been using it on our backup connection for the past few weeks.

[Michael]

PM's sent. Apparently Solihull's another LA to look at for MIS support, or indeed the MIS providers themselves.

[foofighterjim]

Schools HR Portal works without a BGFL connection, we've been using it on our backup connection for the past few weeks.

 

Really? I was informed otherwise by the person who uses it and tried at home. Probably my fault for just taking their word for it.

[Synkrox]

DO IT! :-)

You wont regret it.

Remote support is easy - as you're in control of your firewall

Logmein/Teamviewer/VPN/RDP whatever

 

We use SMIS (Sandwell) for SIMS support and they are great, we also use FMS for finance.

 

Chris

[Michael]

I believe HR Portal and CCM work outside of BGfL, but you still need to run it in compatibility mode with IE10. That problem hasn't gone away.

[matt4826]

Really? I was informed otherwise by the person who uses it and tried at home. Probably my fault for just taking their word for it.

 

Yup, try it now on a 3G connection. Works a treat.

[foofighterjim]

Yup, try it now on a 3G connection. Works a treat.

 

I don't have any credentials for it. (I'm not one of the select few!) I will bring this up again though as it would save some time not needing to change this and just focusing on payroll.

[eshaq786]

I've spoken with some of my staff and it appears the only problem I may come across is something called FCS which appears to retrieve some data for CMIS. Anyone resolved this one or had any issues with FCS?

[foofighterjim]

FCS Login downloads payroll information from the council. The only way this could work outside of the BGFL system is to get the LEA to agree to using a VPN to get this information. I haven't asked anyone at the council about it yet though.

[foofighterjim]

just re-re-re-re going over the price list and the only major issue I can see is that the costs of HR portal and FCS are folded into the internet costs i.e. there are not individual prices for these services. I do have a document that states "You will need to make alternative arrangements with the LA to provide access to the HR portal, Birmingham Inline and any other closed services that the school currently uses." Reading between the lines it is possible to use these services without the BGFL connection and I would include FCS in that statement.

 

Added to this, I believe last year if you had any service from them you had to pay the service desk and support subscription. If you are looking to get away from this significant cost you would have to ditch all services from Link2ICT however I do not know if this includes HR Portal and FCS.

[eshaq786]

They've upped our costs significantly too:

 

MIS Facility Licence: 71% increase:suicide:

MIS Support: 11% Increase

Service Desk Support: 23% Increase

 

Our school has stayed pretty much the same in terms of size. How can they justify this????

 

If I could I'd like to just cancel the service desk as we don't actually use it. The only time we ever call link2ict is for MIS support and surely that should be covered under the MIS support fee, shouldnt it?

I'd like to move our licencing but not sure how to go about it or if we can get cheaper or what would be involved.

[EXA_Mark]

Hi,

If you want to PM me I will happily put you in touch with a dozen or so schools that have already moved to us in the Birmingham area from the councils ICT service and I am sure they will happily tell you how they over came the hurdles put in their paths.

Regards

Mark

Co-Founder & Director

Exa

[eshaq786]

Bump! Anyone worked out the FCS/data submission side of moving away?

[EXA_Mark]

Hi eshaq786,

 

As per my post above, if you want to PM me I will happily put you in touch with some of our Birmingham schools who I am sure will be able to tell you what they did, if that is helpful. And don't worry I am not going to then try and sell you our award winning service just might be useful for you to speak to a couple of schools who have already made the move, and maybe they can point you in the right direction.

[mikkydoos]

This post is a bit old but..

 

I've just done it if you still want to chat

 

Soooo much better

[SchoolsBroadband]

We've got quite a few schools that have moved over to us too.

 

Ping me over a PM or give me a call on our office number and we'd be happy to give you some contacts of direct customers.

 

Ta

 

Dave