Bio Wars!

[truebluesteve]

Hi...

 

Has anyone else received this email or indeed upgraded to Biostore V3 as per below? Seems like the war of words between Cunninghams and Biostore continues........

 

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Dear Sir / Madam,

Re: Identity Management System

We understand that a number of our clients have recently undertaken ill-advised upgrades to their Identity Management System (typically iDStore; Biostore v.1 or Biostore v.2)

We strongly advise against undertaking such an upgrade, and recommend that clients in receipt of such a proposal consult with CRB Cunninghams as a matter of urgency.

In particular, clients have recently reported unforeseen consequences after upgrading to the Biostore v.3 platform following direct representation from the developer.

Proceeding with such an implementation may have a number of consequences that the client may be unaware of, for example:

• The loss of interface between the MIS system and the Impact cashless catering system - and the associated loss of cashless catering services.

• The loss of Access Control functionality and the associated exposure to safe-guarding risks.

• The voiding of your annual support contract with us - the system having been dramatically reconfigured by a third-party.

We strongly advise that any client who receives a proposal to upgrade their Identity Management system seeks our advice before considering proceeding.

 

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Edited July 10, 2015 by truebluesteve

[Sibrows]

We received it and chuckled.

 

Has anyone used Biostore's replacement to Cunninghams as after a number of very frustrating issues with Cunninghams we'd be very tempted to upgrade to Biostore v3

[howartp]

Yep, I got it. BioStore rang me a few times last year trying to get me to upgrade, and Cunninghams know it.

 

Might replace it with NRS this year.

[Homer]

I'm running Biostore's cashless system - Fastrak. I must say, I do recommend it! Clean, simple UI from this decade (not a mish mash of 1993 and 2002) and I have only had to call them up once in the year that we've had it installed, and I think I introduced the issue in the first place.

 

Very clean, fast, easy to understand for the people who actually have to use it. Canteen staff can do everything from the till, and it only has two interfaces (till, and admin).

 

We're using it with sQuid and the refresh time is instant between top up and it showing on the users account. Ties in with GroupCall Exporter so any MIS should be able to feed it (including Arbor, which we're using) and it's cheaper than the rest too!

 

Seriously, give it a look if your changing... it is a different beast to the others! It has previously been targetted at primary schools but we're a UTC (14-19) and it's absolutely fine for our needs! The only issue I would say I have with it, is it does need a keyboard attached to the POS terminal if you intend your canteen staff to use it for back office operations as well (end of day, reval control etc). As far as ICT goes, I have to do *nothing* for it other than make sure the server stays up.

 

I had NRS in my last school, and it was absolute turd in comparison to this with a mish mash of about 90 different windows in the back office and the requirement for the canteen staff to have access to the server* (!) to stop/start the revaluation units for cashing up. It was also quite clunky in it's operation with back office, and I was never too keen on the till front end either... not to mention it's shagging expensive for what it is.

 

FasTrak - Cashless Catering & School Attendance System

 

* this is how it was configured for us, could be different in other situations

[sonofsanta]

I had NRS in my last school, and it was absolute turd in comparison to this with a mish mash of about 90 different windows in the back office and the requirement for the canteen staff to have access to the server* (!) to stop/start the revaluation units for cashing up.

 

When they installed NRS here, they told us we had to start and close the reval program every day... but all you really need to do is set a scheduled task for [DRIVE]:\NRS\Truste\RevalController\TrusteRevalController.exe XXX at 7am (where XXX is the site code, provided as an argument) and TASKKILL /F /IM TrusteRevalController.exe for the end of the day when you want to cash up. That way I can't forget to do it

 

There's 7 scheduled tasks set up to help administer NRS, and it pretty much looks after itself now.

[Homer]

When they installed NRS here, they told us we had to start and close the reval program every day... but all you really need to do is set a scheduled task for [DRIVE]:\NRS\Truste\RevalController\TrusteRevalController.exe XXX at 7am (where XXX is the site code, provided as an argument) and TASKKILL /F /IM TrusteRevalController.exe for the end of the day when you want to cash up. That way I can't forget to do it

 

There's 7 scheduled tasks set up to help administer NRS, and it pretty much looks after itself now.

 

*swearing*

 

If only I had known that at the time. We asked them several times for this and the answer was NO every time! I spent ages trying to bodge it without much success.

 

I'm glad I don't have to deal with it any more - I wasn't keen on NRS at all

[sonofsanta]

*swearing*

 

If only I had known that at the time. We asked them several times for this and the answer was NO every time! I spent ages trying to bodge it without much success.

 

I'm glad I don't have to deal with it any more - I wasn't keen on NRS at all

 

From what I saw of Cunninghams (and one other I can't remember the name of now) NRS was the better system by far - had less of a whiff of "it's only schools, it's good enough" about it, and felt more complete. I can't deny there's been aspects we've had to work out ourselves to an extent, though - the above is one example, and I've just discovered myself (to the delight of our shop lady) that a simple USB numeric pad can be used for girls to enter their PINs if their thumbprint isn't on the system.

[Homer]

To be honest I think that is the exact reason we went with it as well - I was Senior Tech not NM, don't get me wrong it was alright but it did do my head in with things like that. My last school had a boarding house attached to it as well, and it was quite difficult to get it to allocate their included meal money automatically (think FSM on steriods)

 

It did the job but I wasn't keen on it in quite a lot of ways. Whatever way I look at it though, it was a HUGE, MASSIVE, OMGWTFBBQ improvement on the outgoing EasyTrace system. Now that, would be in the thesaurus as another word for poo.

[clareq]

When they installed NRS here, they told us we had to start and close the reval program every day... but all you really need to do is set a scheduled task for [DRIVE]:\NRS\Truste\RevalController\TrusteRevalController.exe XXX at 7am (where XXX is the site code, provided as an argument) and TASKKILL /F /IM TrusteRevalController.exe for the end of the day when you want to cash up. That way I can't forget to do it

 

There's 7 scheduled tasks set up to help administer NRS, and it pretty much looks after itself now.

 

Just setting up the scheduled tasks here, and while I can start the revals, the taskkill command doesn't turn off the revals - it stops the trusteRevalController.exe but the reval is still active. i have the taskkill command in a bat file, starting in the folder containing the exe.

[sonofsanta]

Just setting up the scheduled tasks here, and while I can start the revals, the taskkill command doesn't turn off the revals - it stops the trusteRevalController.exe but the reval is still active. i have the taskkill command in a bat file, starting in the folder containing the exe.

 

This is my scheduled task:

 

No "start in" parameter set, because it's starting TASKKILL, which is in system32, and then identifying TrusteRevalController.exe solely as a running process without needing to know the path.

[clareq]

Thanks - I was using a bat file, I'll try setting it up like yours tomorrow

[stgoodyeara]

Thanks - I was using a bat file, I'll try setting it up like yours tomorrow

 

Ive tried using taskkill to kill the reval controller and i find the reval unit itself is not going inactive like it should, just freezes in whatever state it was in. Has anyone found a solution to this?