Why is my TASC PARS so bad?

[RBa]

Everything I read on these forums seems very positive about TASC PARS, whoever the experience we have had has been very different VERY slow, data being lost and not working at all.

 

Is this the product or something else, school size (1300), SIMS? Is there an alternative people would recommend?

 

Any feedback gratefully received.

[Shadow_Walker]

Everything I read on these forums seems very positive about TASC PARS, whoever the experience we have had has been very different VERY slow, data being lost and not working at all.

 

Is this the product or something else, school size (1300), SIMS? Is there an alternative people would recommend?

 

Any feedback gratefully received.

 

That is surprising. We have roughly 900 kids here and ours works fine for 95% of the time. I would give them a call and just see what they can do to help as they do offer great support.

[RBa]

Thank you for your reply, I have read many postive things about their support however the problems we have had have been on going with no fix from TASC.

It does seem to implie the issue lies with us.

[Linfit]

Do you have it on a decent server ?

It does seem to require a fair bit of resources thrown at it for it to work at reasonable speed, and 1300 is quite a big school.

[Shadow_Walker]

Thank you for your reply, I have read many postive things about their support however the problems we have had have been on going with no fix from TASC.

It does seem to implie the issue lies with us.

 

What are your exact problems you are having? Also what spec server have you got it running on?

[Steven_Cleaver]

Presume you are using PARconnect not PARS.net. Also presume you have done the Performance issue tests from below and these come back ok.

Performance issues - PARS_Connect

 

Is it running slow in specific area when staff are doing attendance, when reports are being run, when Merits\Demerits are being entered.

 

We have recently moved from PARs.net to PARsConnect and have found this a little slower on a few things as someone has said fine 95% of the time but does seem to a few more issues.

[JRA]

Their support are very helpful and swift to reply, it must be said.

 

We do seem to have issue after issue with it here though. I'm losing confidence a little bit every time it needs yet another patch or cryptic error page comes up or it argues with something in SIMS... it does seem like weekly *something* will break it. Today (currently having a problem) I can't see how anyone could in any real sense rely on it, and get the feeling we're beta-testing software that's plain not ready.

 

VERY glad it isn't just me.

[Steven_Cleaver]

Their support are very helpful and swift to reply, it must be said.

 

We do seem to have issue after issue with it here though. I'm losing confidence a little bit every time it needs yet another patch or cryptic error page comes up or it argues with something in SIMS... it does seem like weekly *something* will break it. Today (currently having a problem) I can't see how anyone could in any real sense rely on it, and get the feeling we're beta-testing software that's plain not ready.

 

VERY glad it isn't just me.

 

Completely agree support very helpful but do seem to be having more issues and taking up more of my time lately both with PAR's and Insight (Parental portal) as we upgraded Insight over the Summer which don't get me wrong is excellent just seem to be having a few more issues. Also agree with you about not quite working with SIM's as well whether this is changes to SIM's or PAR's\Insight is difficult to tell.

[Ephelyon]

A similar story over here I'm afraid. We only implemented e-reg in 2011 (and only because I turned round and said, "guys, you know that thing that other schools have been doing for years now... we should do that thing!") so we never bought Lesson Monitor. As a result, we went with PARS because it cost about the same and did a lot more. We were highly satisfied with it at first, but I must admit I'm coming to the same conclusion as others here - every release to fix one thing seems to break something else!

 

Insight is very nice too, and we've had far fewer issues with that. Both PARS and Insight are currently running on a VM with 4 cores and 16GB RAM (same spec as the SIMS server VM), which is giving us adequate performance but I wish I didn't have to fling so many resources at it! We're thinking about switching to Bromcom at the moment...

[Steven_Cleaver]

A similar story over here I'm afraid. We only implemented e-reg in 2011 (and only because I turned round and said, "guys, you know that thing that other schools have been doing for years now... we should do that thing!") so we never bought Lesson Monitor. As a result, we went with PARS because it cost about the same and did a lot more. We were highly satisfied with it at first, but I must admit I'm coming to the same conclusion as others here - every release to fix one thing seems to break something else!

 

Insight is very nice too, and we've had far fewer issues with that. Both PARS and Insight are currently running on a VM with 4 cores and 16GB RAM (same spec as the SIMS server VM), which is giving us adequate performance but I wish I didn't have to fling so many resources at it! We're thinking about switching to Bromcom at the moment...

 

Same here went with PAR's from day one in another school few years back and as you say were highly satisfied just had more issues since we went PAR's Connect and PAR's net support finishes next year. Had a look at Lesson Monitor this year but cost quite a bit extra to get same functionality so texting to parents also our detentions setup is very bespoke which PAR's could handle but couldn't do the same in Lesson Monitor which would have created extra work for staff but as you are may have to look at other systems. Got PAR's and Insight on separate VM's 8GB Ram 6 cpu's had slight issue with performance on PAR's Connect but made a few changes and seems ok now but never had as many issues with PAR's Net as PAR's Connect although I know they have added more functionality but reliability is important as well.

[Peter_Dickenson]

I'm glad it's not just us. We've been a PARS school for several years now, but following an update during the October half-term we seem to have had nothing but problems. PARS is running so slowly at times that registers won't open, and teaching staff are losing confidence in it. Our in-house IT team have indicated that PARS is hogging so much memory that the server is slowing to a crawl, and unfortunately SIMS is also hosted on the same server so that is also feeling the effect. Our IT manager is resorting to manually stopping and restarting services on the server in order to free up memory. The TASC support team have offered several suggestions and patches, but so far nothing seems to be working.

[Ephelyon]

We're finding performance is fine, but every update is breaking something else again. Lots of compiler errors showing up too.

 

I continue to prefer PARS Connect over SIMS Lesson Monitor (as we never bought that to begin with), but I'm thinking of recommending that we dump the lot and move to Bromcom in terms of both pricing and feature integration (they also do a VLE, parent portal etc).

[RBa]

Great to hear it is not just us, any alternatives?

[jenny_urey]

Thank you for your reply, I have read many postive things about their support however the problems we have had have been on going with no fix from TASC.

It does seem to implie the issue lies with us.

 

Hiya

 

Pop me an email at [email protected] so I know who you are and I can look into whatever the issue is and hopefully resolve asap.

 

Thanks

 

Jenny

[jenny_urey]

We're finding performance is fine, but every update is breaking something else again. Lots of compiler errors showing up too.

 

I continue to prefer PARS Connect over SIMS Lesson Monitor (as we never bought that to begin with), but I'm thinking of recommending that we dump the lot and move to Bromcom in terms of both pricing and feature integration (they also do a VLE, parent portal etc).

 

Hi Patrick

 

Will check out what is happening at your school though at a quick glance there is a .NET Framework error?

 

Hope you also mentioned on here, the large amount of time spent (weeks) developing a bespoke assessment analysis tool for your school as required by your SLT

 

Keep me updated and will catch up soon

 

Jen

[jenny_urey]

Hi Peter

 

Sorry to hear this ... I will check out any tickets raised and see how we can move this forward. Will email you direct. Thanks. Jenny

[jenny_urey]

Their support are very helpful and swift to reply, it must be said.

 

We do seem to have issue after issue with it here though. I'm losing confidence a little bit every time it needs yet another patch or cryptic error page comes up or it argues with something in SIMS... it does seem like weekly *something* will break it. Today (currently having a problem) I can't see how anyone could in any real sense rely on it, and get the feeling we're beta-testing software that's plain not ready.

 

VERY glad it isn't just me.

 

Hiya

 

Can you also send me an email to [email protected] so I know who you are and can look into your specific school issues.

 

Many thanks

 

Jenny

[JRA]

Hiya

 

Can you also send me an email to [email protected] so I know who you are and can look into your specific school issues.

 

Many thanks

 

Jenny

 

Hi Jenny - sorry just saw this, you already have done.

 

Came back to post that, full disclosure, some of the setup was done by a rather 'keen' SLT without myself and TASC being involved all the way, and made a bit of a pig's ear of the whole deal (my words, not TASC's, who were altogether more diplomatic.) TASC rep came in for half a day at very very short notice and helped us put it right, and the helpdesk support is still as decent as ever.

 

Still finding our feet with it, but more 'there' than not.

[gh5000]

unfortunately SIMS is also hosted on the same server

 

If you haven't done it already move PARS/Insight to a different server all together. SIMS SQL will hog up all the memory in most cases and the PARS/Insight webserver won't get a look in.

 

Can't remember all the steps but it wasn't too difficult. Just like doing the installations again but on a different server.

[zag]

We've found that since the summer release of insight, it has used a huge amount of memory. I think it leaks from somewhere in the parent portal module.

 

Out old 32but server only has 4gb of ram and insight runs out and gives errors.

 

I'm moving to 2016 64bit with 64gb ram, but thought I would mention it.

[RBa]

Tasc have been very helpful with addressing the issues we have had.