timbo343 Posted February 5, 2015 Posted February 5, 2015 I have been asked to look into MINT Class, so my question is, is anyone using it, do teachers like it and does it do what your SLT want it to do?
GREED Posted February 5, 2015 Posted February 5, 2015 I have been asked to look into MINT Class, so my question is, is anyone using it, do teachers like it and does it do what your SLT want it to do? Actually happy to say I know these guys a little bit they have a great product, solid and really well put together. Know they have a good number of schools (100+ for sure) and is continually developed in line with customer requirements.
Tall_Paul Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 Yes, we have it here and have been using it for a while. Feel free to drop me a PM with any questions.
HC_Netman Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 We have recently got it here. I didnt have much to do with its procurement so cant tell you much other than the staff and SLT seem to love it.
Seb1780 Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 We use this and have been impressed with the way it has developed from its earliest incarnations to the current offering. Teachers like it, SLT like it and, after a few teething problems, I like it (from a Data Managers pov). Our technical team have had little input other than setting up the feed from SIMS.
timbo343 Posted February 6, 2015 Author Posted February 6, 2015 Have you all just got the seating plans or are you using the extra modules? How does it export the data? Is it a program that sits on the sims server?
truebluesteve Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 Yep - we've been using it for quite a while now and it seems to be popular with staff.
GREED Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 Have you all just got the seating plans or are you using the extra modules? How does it export the data? Is it a program that sits on the sims server? It uses a data extraction piece. A third party
Seb1780 Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 Have you all just got the seating plans or are you using the extra modules? How does it export the data? Is it a program that sits on the sims server? We're just using the seating plans / student information parts as we have a separate system for reports and marksheets. It uses a data extraction piece. A third party Now who might that be
Tall_Paul Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 It uses something called ZiNET to speak to SIMS. I have to say this (which is new) hasn't been very impressive so far. It seems to crash pretty frequently.
Brendan0808 Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 We have just started using MintClass and all the teachers/SLT are very impressed. We already use the Zinet connector to pull data from SIMS to our cloud VLE. This is were our problems have started. The 2 instances of the Zinet service on our SIMS server run at around 50% CPU usage each and causes the server to crash. We have to disable one of the services and toggle between them both at different times. I'm still waiting for a proper fix for this.
Tall_Paul Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 (edited) The 'old' connector just worked without any problems which makes it even more annoying! I am emailing Mintclass as I speak as ZiNET is filling it's log with errors. Edited February 6, 2015 by Tall_Paul
Seb1780 Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 The 'old' connector just worked without any problems which makes it even more annoying! I am emailing Mintclass as I speak as ZiNET is filling it's log with errors. I've just spoken with our NM and found ours too is filling with error messages, although from my perspective as the MINTclass administrator I've not seen a problem. It would appear ZiNET are not yet ready to let the world know who they are ZiNET Data Solutions
mrbios Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 Finding similar results to the above, staff like it, but zinet seems to be a less than stellar piece of software from an it side.
truebluesteve Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 The 'old' connector just worked without any problems which makes it even more annoying! I am emailing Mintclass as I speak as ZiNET is filling it's log with errors. Yes the old data extract tool seemed to be OK and I had an incident where ZINET had grabbed over 1.5GB of memory and caused the SIMS server to run very slowly. I killed the process and restarted it and its been fine since.
Jaymate Posted February 8, 2015 Posted February 8, 2015 We use Class charts. And have been for the last 2 years. Looked at MINT class at BETT but doesn't seem to be as good a product as yet. Will be sticking with Classcharts I'm afraid. J
j_lunn Posted February 9, 2015 Posted February 9, 2015 We also use Class charts. When I reviewed both Mint and Class charts I just like the interface of Class charts. The developers are also great and add features regularly requested by schools. The teachers love it.
Joab4t Posted February 9, 2015 Posted February 9, 2015 Last year we reviewed both Class Charts and Mint Class and decided on Class Charts. It was easy to setup utilizing "Groupcall Xporter" which seems a lot more stable than ZINET that Mint Class uses; the technical support team at Class Charts are also brilliant always responding very fast to any issues (I cant comment on the technical support of Mint class as don't have any experience with them). The user interface of class charts is also very simple to use (very important) in fact I carried out the staff training in a 20 minute session after school for those who needed it although most were able to find their own way around the basic features. I was amazed at the response I received over the next few days with all types of users commenting on how much they liked it, one of my favourite comments referred to providing them with something useful rather than just another job to tick a box. The teachers love it as it is so easy and effective to use, the cover supervisors love it as they can access usual seating arrangements which helps behaviour and consistency in cover classes and even use it myself. It has saved me time on simple jobs that teachers often request such as printing class photos with data on them and i have also used it to produce a photo wall for the principal with all of our students on it which looks great! As J Lunn said above the developers are also great at responding to change requests adding new features as needed, everyone loves it. 1
Sylv3r Posted February 9, 2015 Posted February 9, 2015 We are another happy Class Charts user. Been using it since September last year and we've had good discussions with the staff and they have added features as and when we have requested / suggested them. We did very little training with our staff as it's pretty simple to use. Staff love the seating plan functionality plus the ability to easily add positive / negative behaviour which writes back to SIMS via the Groupcall Xporter. We only signed up initially to the 1 year contract, as we wanted to the test the waters with the product and whether our staff would use the system, but we have no hesitation to look to go with a longer term when our renewal is due this year.
Disease Posted March 17, 2015 Posted March 17, 2015 Just looking at the website for MintClass and it appears that they host the data on their servers, is this correct, and Class Charts is local on your network. With the new Data Protection advice from the DfE, I am hesitant now if stuff is being stored on the 3rd party servers.
jcookhgs Posted June 2, 2015 Posted June 2, 2015 Just looking at the website for MintClass and it appears that they host the data on their servers, is this correct, and Class Charts is local on your network. With the new Data Protection advice from the DfE, I am hesitant now if stuff is being stored on the 3rd party servers. Any further info on this at all? Have got wind that the SLT has arranged a meeting (sales pitch) with mintclass this week...
finlaydude Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 We are in the same boat here, just found out that our school is looking at purchasing this. Can anyone tell me how staff login to this - does their system generate a stack of usernames and passwords, or can it integrate with something like Moodle so that we can achieve a single sign-in? Ken
Seb1780 Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 We are in the same boat here, just found out that our school is looking at purchasing this. Can anyone tell me how staff login to this - does their system generate a stack of usernames and passwords, or can it integrate with something like Moodle so that we can achieve a single sign-in? It is standalone and generates its own userID and passwords. 1
finlaydude Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 Thanks Seb, much appreciated - although this won't go down well with our (already drowning in logins) staff!
mrbios Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 I can't remember how it's setup now but we've set ours up for LDAP, they needed a field in sims and AD which could be used as a link (in our case we used the email field), best off asking them about it though, i just did what i was asked to do as and when haha 1
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