GREED Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 If Groupcall gave away Emerge for free, I'm sure Capita would match the price Stop talking now...
CliveMinion Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 Developing, updating and maintaining an app costs money. I think the app actually works nicer than the client software and does more useful things for it's narrow set of tasks. Plus, they can't just give stuff away as it would be deemed unfair by the competition. You would have to pay to have an app from any other third party. If Groupcall gave away Emerge for free, I'm sure Capita would match the price They don't charge an additional fee for the Windows client. They've never charged anything extra when their software has inevitably needed updating due to later releases of Windows. When you pay thousands of pounds per year for something like SIMS, it's reasonable to expect the client software to be available for common platforms. Nowadays, that includes iOS.
vikpaw Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 They don't charge an additional fee for the Windows client. They've never charged anything extra when their software has inevitably needed updating due to later releases of Windows. When you pay thousands of pounds per year for something like SIMS, it's reasonable to expect the client software to be available for common platforms. Nowadays, that includes iOS. You need SIMS 8 for that It's coming. Don't forget the incarnation of SIMS we're talking about at the moment IS from last century!
CliveMinion Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 You need SIMS 8 for that It's coming. Don't forget the incarnation of SIMS we're talking about at the moment IS from last century! Exactly. I think that's why the Teacher App situation annoys me. SIMS should have been made web-based years ago but wasn't. Now they produce a workaround and expect us to pay a fortune for it!
GREED Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 Don't make me get my mate Ali to go all legal on you Please don't go legal Ali on me!
CliveMinion Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 Superb... TeacherApp is a workaround... What do you mean? If it's not a workaround, are you saying it's a proper solution to a problem?
vikpaw Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 Superb... TeacherApp is a workaround... Ergo so too is Emerge
GREED Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 What do you mean? If it's not a workaround, are you saying it's a proper solution to a problem? I like the term, i'm not disagreeing at all!
GREED Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 (edited) Ergo so too is Emerge It does a lot more than simply provide a mobile interface to SIMS (and other MIS's too remember!!!!), like providing your MIS offline for (within reason) as long as you need, Fire Registers, Help Me emergency calling/messaging, Dinner Registers... as well as everything you would expect! I'll stop now... But just making it clear it is not a stop gap facility while SIMS catches up and makes information available online! Edited February 11, 2015 by GREED
CliveMinion Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 I like the term, i'm not disagreeing at all! I see! I termed it a workaround since the proper and correct solution would be a web interface, or a client for all common operating systems. This is a lash-up with a bizarre dependency on a Hotmail or Google account in order to connect to a locally installed service!
GREED Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 I see! I termed it a workaround since the proper and correct solution would be a web interface, or a client for all common operating systems. This is a lash-up with a bizarre dependency on a Hotmail or Google account in order to connect to a locally installed service! It has made very interesting reading thank you for sharing, and worthy of making the market aware of a limitation at this stage... very interesting reading!
Jonah Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 I'm struggling massively to get my head around the need for a Microsoft/Google account for TeacherApp..... what's the thinking behind that?
RichCowell Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 We're looking at getting Lesson Monitor and the Teacher App - so this has been quite a well timed and informative thread for me! I've told the teacher looking into it that it may be possible to get a trial... that would certainly help the decision...
CliveMinion Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 I'm struggling massively to get my head around the need for a Microsoft/Google account for TeacherApp..... what's the thinking behind that? After signing up and installing the Teacher App, you have two weeks before they invoice you. You can cancel the order in that time, so there is sort of a trial period.
PhilNeal Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 Conceptually the Teacher App is not something reserved for PE teachers; it is a product that is designed to be used by all teachers on the go. The plan is that everything that a teacher needs to do in the classroom can be done on the app. Hence we’ve included attendance, behaviour & assessment and other things are in the pipeline. It’s an app to make it highly responsive. Yes we could have made it in HTML5 but in our judgement the experience in an app is superior; that is why the App stores are so successful. EduGeek produced an App! The idea behind using Google, Microsoft Live (and soon Office 365) authentication is that users don’t need SIMS IDs to be issued and maintained. Almost everyone has one of these IDs so it should reduce the overhead of managing teacher staff access. If another company has already entered a market such as @GREED’s, not charging for this would destroy competition. As it is, we have priced competitively and the previous thread on pricing referred to by @vikpaw is accurate. It is true that at a closed session of support units in June 2014 I did set an expectation that both Capita Hosted SLG and Self-hosted SLG customers would not have to pay extra for the Teacher App. However by October 2014 it had become clear that there were hosting costs involved and it wasn’t practical to follow that policy for self-hosted customers; hence half price. Since with Capita Hosted SLG we pick up the hosting costs already we are already covering these costs - hence no extra charge. Hopefully this has addressed most of the issues raised in this thread. 1
GREED Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 It’s an app to make it highly responsive. Yes we could have made it in HTML5 but in our judgement the experience in an app is superior; that is why the App stores are so successful. EduGeek produced an App! Plus, if you have an HTML interface, why would schools need SLG? The idea behind using Google, Microsoft Live (and soon Office 365) authentication is that users don’t need SIMS IDs to be issued and maintained. Almost everyone has one of these IDs so it should reduce the overhead of managing teacher staff access. Phil, can you perhaps clear up an elephant in this thread: It has been suggested that once a Live ID (or others) are linked to SIMS accounts, to be able to log on TeacherApp, that you cannot then unlink these... Mentioned a couple of pages back If another company has already entered a market such as @GREED’s, not charging for this would destroy competition. As it is, we have priced competitively and the previous thread on pricing referred to by @vikpaw is accurate. Thanks, I've just told Lawrence I own Groupcall now, he is happy!
CliveMinion Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 The idea behind using Google, Microsoft Live (and soon Office 365) authentication is that users don’t need SIMS IDs to be issued and maintained. Almost everyone has one of these IDs so it should reduce the overhead of managing teacher staff access. . I'm sorry, but that's utter nonsense. All staff already have an AD logon, or a SIMS ID if they don't use AD integration, so why not just use that? It's a total botch-up, and equally clear that Capita didn't think to consult their customers before proceeding with this.
Edu-IT Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 What about the staff who don't want to use their personal accounts for anything school related? 1
vikpaw Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 But wait til you want parent access. You'll thank your lucky stars you don't need to put them in AD and the infrastructure is already there for common email systems. I'm not sure how you avoid a sims user id , there must be a profile of some sorts to manage access / permissions. Surely you map the device user to a sims staff user.
vikpaw Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 What about the staff who don't want to use their personal accounts for anything school related? ...Or those who share them with spouse, family, kids! There has to be another default authentication mechanism.
Edu-IT Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 I wasn't asking to be awkward. I am genuinely interested in how that could be overcome. They'd have to create yet another ID? I assume there's some sort of management portal for mapping "their accounts" to a SIMS user so you can block access etc?
PhilNeal Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 @CliveMinion we've had huge customer engagement on this project and the Teacher App has been out in ~80 schools for the last 6 months. Using this method of identification has not been raised as an issue. Our research says that people do not want countless IDs. We're not adverse to considering alternatives. @GREED - perhaps the biggest elephant in the room is your role as "innocent observer"! Processes exist to deactivate tablets. I'll make sure these are made more transparent. @vikpaw - most schools we've dealt with have (or are moving to) Google/Office 365 accounts. Staff are not allowed to use personal email accounts in school for safety reasons. 1
Jonah Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 Our research says that people do not want countless IDs. We're not adverse to considering alternatives. So why not include the ability to use AD for schools that might prefer that? Fairly sure more schools will have AD up and running compared to Office 365/Google Apps. Just seems a really daft decision (or a massive oversight), in my opinion.
vikpaw Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 Is using ADFS an option? O365 and Google work with this.
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