Griff Posted March 5, 2015 Posted March 5, 2015 I just installed this in school took a while few calls to Capita, saying that I didn't notice there were installation guides so winged it. Anyway its setup I didn't really have anyway of testing it so I had to set myself up as a teacher on SIMS :\ Anyway here are my thoughts after 10 minutes on the app; - Some of the icons on the app are way too small even for me and I am young (kinda) - Constantly getting 'Teacher App Services are offline' popping up while using it my best score so far is 10 in a row until it worked - Seems to display the data nicely the mini pictures are helpful - I do find myself just constantly tapping as its not really apparent what I can and cannot open, its great because you cant actually do anything until it reconnects as it just keeps retrying over and over and over and over and over - When you pull the timetable backup you nearly always hit all the airplay settings and bring them up instead so shift that button across would be grand - Theres an icon in bottom right changes from a square to some lines no idea what it does just changes.. - Anyway lets try and be positive once you get into some of the data it displays really nicely contact details and other bits look good - I loaded up some marksheets which look really easy to work with nicely presented carousel selectors for grades, shows the picture next to the pupil in the marksheet which is top banana, should do this on the full version of SIMS marksheets its great - The timetable on ours doesn't show any lessons even when I act on behalf of another teacher no idea whats going on there doesn't seem to be any indication as to why :\ - When you swipe the menu section out on the right it lets you select Attendance, Achievement, Behaviour and Marksheets what annoys me is if you go ahead and select one then hit back it hides the menu bar so you then have to swipe this out again frustrating - Annoyingly our staff access their email via the VLE so the actual Office365 password is basically unknown to them so I need to get them all to reset those passwords manually before I can get cracking setting them up. This is still 'early access' stages for me, I think we got this free as part of our SLG deal etc.
TheScarfedOne Posted March 5, 2015 Posted March 5, 2015 Interesting. Ive been using it since January - and I wouldn't have said any of the icons are too small...are you using it on a mini or full size ipad? Most of the actions are swipe based not icon driven so Im not sure what you are seeing here? It might be worth doing some monitoring on your internet connectivity and your databases, as Im using a cloud hosted db not a local in school db - and ive not seen the connectivity issues you have. At the end of the day, the data source is your SIMS db. In terms of what opens and what doesn't - essentially - pupils are tap to select in all sub menus which you choose from swipe left/right depending on where you have docked the menu. The thee lines, consistently across most modern apps also opens the menu. Ive not noticed the menu disappear after choosing your option (attendance etc) except for when you start selecting pupils - when you then get the option block appropriate to the area you are in. The square to lines is the big photos to small photos option on pupils. As this thread has got pricing in it - Ive posted the full pricing on my blog https://thescarfedone.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/sims-teacher-app-hands-on-and-reviewed/ 1
vikpaw Posted March 5, 2015 Posted March 5, 2015 @TheScarfedOne how do you get a test copy with cloud DB?
Marshall_IT Posted March 5, 2015 Posted March 5, 2015 (edited) @vikpaw i don't think you can get a test copy. As far as I'm aware, it runs off of slg, so if you sign up for teacher app and have hosted slg it runs from there, if you're self hosted slg it runs from there. I believe capita host slg on azure. One thing to be aware of at the moment, your staff can't use their office 365 accounts to sign in to the teacher app yet as it runs on a different database to the outlook.com account and capita didn't know that. I egoism a tentative "after easter" for office 365 support. @TheScarfedOne has the pricing on his blog but i don't think it mentions that is free for hosted slg schools. Edited March 5, 2015 by Marshall_IT 1
vikpaw Posted March 5, 2015 Posted March 5, 2015 It's not reliant on slg. Pricing is here and on the blog. Slg earns you a discount. Thescarfedone has a test version that is not a school DB ....
Marshall_IT Posted March 5, 2015 Posted March 5, 2015 It's not reliant on slg. Pricing is here and on the blog. Slg earns you a discount. Thescarfedone has a test version that is not a school DB .... Ah okay... I was told by each capita rep yesterday that they couldn't offer a demo to schools, thescaredone must be special. I was also told it was free for schools with hosted slg and I've got it at no extra cost.
matt40k Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 Azure SQL DBs It isn't Azure SQL. It's Microsoft SQL Server running on a Azure VM. Big difference in techy terms, for starts Azure SQL is feature limit and requires clustered indexes on every table. SQL server on a Azure VM isn't, but you can auto-scale. In terms of end-user - it doesn't really matter.
TheScarfedOne Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 To answer some other questions which there were regarding the Teacher App, Office 365 integration for credentials is being released tonight
Marshall_IT Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 To answer some other questions which there were regarding the Teacher App, Office 365 integration for credentials is being released tonight Yes! I can now move forward in a much better way.... About the costing (yes again!) Is capita HOSTED SLG different than in-house SLG? I'm pretty sure it is and that's what I've been told by capita. 1
PhilNeal Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 Yes it is different. If you are using our Hosted SLG service the Teacher App is included. If you are hosting SLG yourself or via a support team, its 50% of the full charge. 1
Marshall_IT Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 Yes it is different. If you are using our Hosted SLG service the Teacher App is included. If you are hosting SLG yourself or via a support team, its 50% of the full charge. Thank you for the clarification.
sayerm Posted April 21, 2016 Posted April 21, 2016 Yes it is different. If you are using our Hosted SLG service the Teacher App is included. If you are hosting SLG yourself or via a support team, its 50% of the full charge. So does that mean c.90p per pupil for the 3 year sign up if self-hosting SLG ?
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