PS FINANCIALS/HCSS

[pumpkindog]

We are looking at PS financials.

 

Please can you let me know fi it is a success in your schools/academies.

 

Also any feedback on HCSS budgeting package or finance package whose launch was delayed in April.

 

Thanks

[elsiegee40]

We use PS Financials at the multi academy trust of which I am both a governor and a director. The Finance Director is very happy with it

[Meldrew]

We're trying to come up with a new acronym for PSF. We have got as far as putrid for the P. For usability it makes blender look intuitive. We paid a huge sum on money for it and (not that it was my decision) regret that we did. It is a lesson in how to not write software. I'm a programmer and if I'd written this I would be ashamed to put my name near this product. Yes, its that bad. Did I say it costs a small mortgage too?

 

Meldrew

[rogerdnixon]

We locally host it. The finance team are generally happy with it - but they always seem to be calling up for support and the support when I've had to deal with them are fairly clueless. To get it working on finance PCs required lots of manual configuration on each PC including manually editing the individual users local profile. PSF did the install on a server I built for them and it took days for them to do their stuff on a remote session. We are left with no documentation on what to do if a fiance PC dies and we need to reinstall the whole lot. So from an IT perspective I'm deeply unimpressed with them and the software. We are moving to a MAT and I believe it is going to be cloud hosted - so hopefully it will cease to be my problem.

[sonofsanta]

HCSS: excellent. I've had two Bursars swear by it. Never a problem for me, very effective, all the company people I've met have been very knowledgeable. Highly recommended.

 

PSF: hahahahahahaha ok no. Let me count the ways:

1. Within the first week, I had written up a document with 20 fundamental problems. We're talking problems that prevented the training going ahead. The authorisation workflow (i.e. the major part of the product) wasn't working at all. The button to authorise didn't work. Authorisations were going to the wrong people. Reports weren't working. Notifications weren't working. Everyone could see every budget and all the purchases against it. Some budgets had been arbitrarily smooshed together just because they shared a budget holder e.g. HOUSE and PSYCHOLOGY. HTTPS wasn't set up, and when I asked them about this, I was told it was too late and I had to ask about it before they started set up, even though there was no indication they wouldn't take this incredibly obvious and free and effective step to secure an HTTP-based project.
   
2. We pay silly money in maintenance. Do we get told when there's an update? Don't be silly, they wait for one of Finance to ring up with a bug and then say "oh yeah, we fixed that, we'll send you the disc".
   
3. The update instructions are completely wrong and neglect to tell you to backup files you will need later.
   
4. The admin password for the product is quite blatantly the same across all installs everywhere. I would bet actual money I could walk into any school or business using PSF and log in as admin and have more access than the Bursar.
   
5. The domain admin password the product uses is saved in plain text in an obvious config file.
   
6. When a bug came up and PSF Support wanted to reproduce it, PSF asked for the database to be sent over for testing. Fine. Except they asked me to sign a form saying (a) they could take the DB whenever they wanted without asking (b) they could do it without encryption in order to speed up support. Sorry, what now? Data Protection, maybe?
   

 

Above all, it's just a horrible product for end users. Everyone hates it. I still track my budget in Excel because it's better. Finance like it because they're used to its quirks and it's an easier workflow than everyone submitting paper order forms (as we used to), but they're the only ones.

 

If you end up stuck with it--as we did, when county dropped SAP, and this was the only option that met the requirements for academies--it is workable. But it's dethroned FacilityCMIS as my most despised bit of software to support.

[sonofsanta]

@rogerdnixon--I have install instructions for the PSF local stuff, if you ever need. Also a corrected update procedure.

[nathan]

Really happy with in in our MAT, Finance Director loves it and so do the Group Finance Officers.

 

Yeah it's pricey and has a few quirks (like all software, especially HCSS after one of their previous updates)

[elsiegee40]

Really happy with in in our MAT, Finance Director loves it and so do the Group Finance Officers.

 

Yeah it's pricey and has a few quirks (like all software, especially HCSS after one of their previous updates)

 

Glad it's not just us. I was starting to wonder!

[clockend25]

Our trust has a centrally hosted PS Financials setup. The software itself seems fine and generally our finance bods are happy with it; the Citrix side of things drives us all mental on a regular basis.

[mrwoberts]

PSF - a multi-academy trust of two schools have very mixed responses to it. I think if I asked everyone at the schools who use it the consensus would be, "I wish we could go back to FMS"

I've dealt with their support once and that was enough - it was an issue with an RDP login, and it took them over two weeks to solve it!!!!

The school had initially opted for the self-hosted solution, paid out a lot of money for their software and to upgrade SQL Server, but in the end they couldn't help us link the two schools - they left us hanging out to dry so that the schools simply had to move to their RDP solution, and pay even more money! I was a bit shocked by that.

 

The software according to one member of staff is clearly not written by someone who knows about school finances.

[I_am_alpha]

PSF, or Please Stop Failing, is without doubt the biggest pain in my rear across an MAT. Ever. Support is awful, they are complete renegades with no regard for your data or systems, the software itself is slow, poorly designed and hard to use. Don't even get me started on the manual ini file editing, and the sodding "document imaging" only works once in a blue moon. Buy a roll of dot matrix paper, an abacus, and maybe use a calculator if your stuck and you'd STILL be faster and more reliable than PSF. Avoid!

[nathan]

PSF - a multi-academy trust of two schools have very mixed responses to it. I think if I asked everyone at the schools who use it the consensus would be, "I wish we could go back to FMS"

I've dealt with their support once and that was enough - it was an issue with an RDP login, and it took them over two weeks to solve it!!!!

The school had initially opted for the self-hosted solution, paid out a lot of money for their software and to upgrade SQL Server, but in the end they couldn't help us link the two schools - they left us hanging out to dry so that the schools simply had to move to their RDP solution, and pay even more money! I was a bit shocked by that.

 

The software according to one member of staff is clearly not written by someone who knows about school finances.

 

If you were self hosting, why would they be supporting with an RDP issue? Surely that would be down to you.

[nathan]

PSF, or Please Stop Failing, is without doubt the biggest pain in my rear across an MAT. Ever. Support is awful, they are complete renegades with no regard for your data or systems, the software itself is slow, poorly designed and hard to use. Don't even get me started on the manual ini file editing, and the sodding "document imaging" only works once in a blue moon. Buy a roll of dot matrix paper, an abacus, and maybe use a calculator if your stuck and you'd STILL be faster and more reliable than PSF. Avoid!

 

Any views on HCSS?

[FragglePete]

Any views on HCSS?

 

Our SBM and Bursar are starting to use HCSS and are really impressed with it after falling out with PSF, but we're stuck with it for now so they are using them side by side with a view of ditching PSF in the future. So called 'award winning support' - my arse. I don't think there is enough time and space here to get me going. Just compounded today when I e-mailed support for a query regarding PSF and Windows 10 (can't seem to get the report viewer to work) but got a terse response back saying they would only deal with our Bursar and Finance manager, not me directly! WTF? Whenever they open a support issue, it's me they have to contact to get access, etc!

 

Pete

[nathan]

Our SBM and Bursar are starting to use HCSS and are really impressed with it after falling out with PSF, but we're stuck with it for now so they are using them side by side with a view of ditching PSF in the future. So called 'award winning support' - my arse. I don't think there is enough time and space here to get me going. Just compounded today when I e-mailed support for a query regarding PSF and Windows 10 (can't seem to get the report viewer to work) but got a terse response back saying they would only deal with our Bursar and Finance manager, not me directly! WTF? Whenever they open a support issue, it's me they have to contact to get access, etc!

 

Pete

 

Yeah I've been removed from the support list a few times, seems standard practice with them. I think we may have it setup differently to others, it's hosted on a server 2012 r2 box and users use terminal services to remote in. We haven't had anywhere near as bad an experience as others have. We did suffer with support, PS said they have increased the number of support staff so hopefully that's now resolved

[mrwoberts]

If you were self hosting, why would they be supporting with an RDP issue? Surely that would be down to you.

@nathan

I wrote, "The school had initially opted for the self-hosted"... Then later in the paragraph I wrote that they had to move to their (PSF's) RDP solution...

 

It was a problem with PSF's RDP solution.

[nathan]

@nathan

I wrote, "The school had initially opted for the self-hosted"... Then later in the paragraph I wrote that they had to move to their (PSF's) RDP solution...

 

It was a problem with PSF's RDP solution.

 

ah cool, sorry i misread it.

[mrwoberts]

No worries buddy, I misread stuff all the time.

[kennysarmy]

Used here, not overwhelmed.

 

Support seem to be dialling in quite a bit to fix issues.

 

As previously stated above the client set up takes quite a bit of fiddling around with config. files etc to get it working.

[Meldrew]

To give an example, of using PSF, we wanted staff to be able to raise their own purchase order requests via PSF. It was so unintuitive that I had to be shown the correct sequence of buttons to raise an order. I don't think many of our staff will be able (or willing) to use it - its just too awkward to use. Also, we've had it 4 months and still it sometimes eats purchase orders. I consider it a great concept destroyed by its awful implementation. Come back FMS, all is forgiven.

 

Meldrew

[mb2k01]

To give an example, of using PSF, we wanted staff to be able to raise their own purchase order requests via PSF. It was so unintuitive that I had to be shown the correct sequence of buttons to raise an order. I don't think many of our staff will be able (or willing) to use it - its just too awkward to use. Also, we've had it 4 months and still it sometimes eats purchase orders. I consider it a great concept destroyed by its awful implementation. Come back FMS, all is forgiven.

 

Meldrew

 

It looks like you're sharing the same pain we had a couple of years ago!

We're still by no means happy, but have it reasonably operational. If you want a chat (or just a rant) feel free to PM and I can either play Samaritan or pass you on to my guy who keeps having to administrate it (we've probably all met at a Techmeet previously!)