Anything better than IMPERO?

[clm]

Impero used to be good, but now keeps crashing, not logging correctly even on role back versions and latest versions. Has anybody moved away from Impero and using anything different?

[fiza]

Never used Impero but we do use NetSupport DNA

[karldenton]

We use NetSupport DNA also. Al is on here and will no doubt see this thread.

 

Basically its really easy to install and use. Provides great hardware / software inventory. E-safety aspects are spot on (usb device control, internet metering, keyword logging, reporting) etc. The remote control aspect "just works" as it should, and we use it over multiple sites.

 

They are constantly releasing updates that unlike Impero, enhance the system

 

Support is excellent and efficiently fix any issues. @Al_NetSupport

Edited November 8, 2016 by karldenton

[Harry_Small_]

We use NetSupport, moved away from Impero as the updates always broke things and the support we received was shocking. We went around a week+ without any classroom monitoring software because of it. NetSupport is a great bit of software especially with the DNA side of it, really gives a detailed insight into what the kids are doing and gives you a paper trace of the lot.

[clockend25]

There can't be many things worse than Impero at the minute. About to trial NetSupport with a view to moving over when our current Impero contract expires next summer.

[Harry_Small_]

Make sure you speak to NetSupport before purchasing and tell them you're thinking of moving over from Impero, they may give you a better deal.

[Al_NetSupport]

Hi@CLM,

 

as @fiza and @karldenton have so kindly mentioned, we do offer NetSupport DNA as an alternative solution to Impero. You can find out more from our product website www.NetSupportDNA.com but as always, i'd be happy to arrange an online demo and then let you have a copy to play with yourself for a while.

 

You'll hopefully find we are very cost effective, always open to ensuring we meet your budget and lots of schools and trusts have moved to us in recent months and provided lots of good feedback.

 

Feel free to PM me and be happy to make contact offline.

 

Al.

 

 

[Al_NetSupport]

Make sure you speak to NetSupport before purchasing and tell them you're thinking of moving over from Impero, they may give you a better deal.

 

You might be right

[lfowler]

It would be great to provide feedback on how NetSupport is compared as we are struggling with Impero also at the moment. We don't plan to switch till next year due to budget but it would be interesting to hear others experience of NetSupport.

[RichCowell]

@clm / @clockend25 / @lfowler - Not knocking NetSupport at all, but as you've already got Impero - have you contacted their support about the issues you're having? The issues of last year are long since gone, and I'm sure they'd want to work with you to get any issues sorted if you're not happy with things... Mic from Impero's on here too with their Direct Support forum, and I'm sure will be happy to help... @Mic_Impero

[Mic_Impero]

Hi guys,

 

Don't want to hi-jack a thread and know there are some other threads you're actively discussing a few issues, so a single and brief post from me here. If you feel you need the priority of your cases raising or wish to discuss further with me I'd be happy to receive a PM with your details and will get in touch accordingly.

 

To echo Rick's sentiments, we haven't always been perfect and have worked hard to improve various aspects of product and service. We're really proud of our current offering, support service, and such a strong road map for the future. I'd love you keep you all as valued customers and bring you on that journey with us.

 

I'm positive that with the right case management and eyes on your issues we'll get to the bottom of them, so please do give us that opportunity via PM if you're able.

 

I'll continue to meet some of you at the ANME meetings, I'll be available all week at BETT and will be happy to pre book meetings also, as well as being out and about on the road from time to time; I'm more than happy to call in to meet with you if a high level conversation is needed; likewise you're always welcome to drop in to our head office (though I can appreciate this is unlikely due to distances and time constraints).

 

Please do send over details and I'll ensure you get the priority you need.

 

Kindest regards

Mic Sanderson

Support Manager

Impero

[FragglePete]

Early days yet but keep an eye on: https://senso.cloud/ - have been playing with the Beta and so far so good.

 

Been a long time fan and user of Impero but its just not as good as it used to be; real shame.

 

Pete

[clockend25]

@clm / @clockend25 / @lfowler - Not knocking NetSupport at all, but as you've already got Impero - have you contacted their support about the issues you're having? The issues of last year are long since gone, and I'm sure they'd want to work with you to get any issues sorted if you're not happy with things... Mic from Impero's on here too with their Direct Support forum, and I'm sure will be happy to help... @Mic_Impero

I have support calls logged with them and have also made use of the direct support forum. Response to both channels has been weak to non-existent. Another day without contact regarding the call logged Friday, and no answer the couple of times I tried to call. With the greatest respect to @Mic_Impero, I shouldn't be needing to PM you directly each time to get support cases responded to.

[Mic_Impero]

Apologies you've had a bad experience. I agree that your support queries shouldn't need a PM to get a response. Since the start of September we've been operating at our peak work load for the year, and whilst we prioritise cases based on age and impact to the school, we may not always get that right. When someone feels strongly enough to share a negative experience online or via any other means I'd always try to help put things right rather than ignore the concern, hence my presence here.

 

Today was our busiest in terms of incoming calls taking over 100 (plus electronic tickets). We missed 5 calls in total which were abandoned before we could answer.

 

Of all tickets logged today over 95% of them were resolved on the first call or electronic response.

 

I'm not trying to create excuses here but give some reasoning as to how I can be proud of the service we offer despite also knowing that you've had a less than satisfactory experience.

 

I will contact you myself tomorrow to ensure that we have an understanding of your situation at present and define next actions and timescales. I'll then stay close to the case until we find resolution, and use this example in coaching the team to ensure your experience is improved in future.

 

Kindest regards

Mic

[pcstru]

I'm not trying to create excuses here but give some reasoning as to how I can be proud of the service we offer despite also knowing that you've had a less than satisfactory experience.

Sorry to be harsh, but if you are sitting there being proud while customers are actively soliciting for alternative products, then you perhaps should question if pride isn't preceding a fall. Impero have had a succession of issues over the last few years, (including unacceptable support response times), any one of which should have been a wake up call to put things back on track. The fact that Impero have not taken those opportunities and continues to fail to provide an acceptable service to all their customers is a huge worry and your response is not comforting.

[Mic_Impero]

Good morning all,

 

Apologies if I've concerned anyone with my response. My reply aims to give a balanced view rather than a complacency. Over the last 6 - 12 months we have taken massive strides in our service and product delivery and seen a vast turn around in the feedback we get from customers. I can appreciate this is of little comfort if you are still experiencing issues and we will work with you to ensure you're in a better position and feeling the same as the majority of our customers. We take all of our customer feedback seriously and will contact you separately to discuss further.

 

I ought to be careful about what I place on Edugeek in terms of the improvements made, changes to structures, response times from support and stability of the software to avoid breaking edugeek advertising rules or hijacking the thread from the OP, but if anyone would like to discuss this further in detail please do PM me and I would be happy to discuss either on the phone or in person, as would our senior management team if you'd rather have a conversation at a higher level. I'm going to intentionally step away from the thread now in order that I don't side track it but will contact @clockend25 and @pcstru shortly.

 

Kindest regards

Mic Sanderson

Impero

[minimoo]

I've been a user of netsupport school (NOT the DNA product) for years...

 

We originally made use of viglen classlink with NT4 for those that remember that - that tried to do everything for a school, but when it came to moving to XP , we looked what windows XP + server 2003 could do out of the box - and realized that our main aims were printing control + screen sharing for lessons. Netsupport was what classlink used so we moved to just buying netsupport school. And over the years where we've had the occassional issues - the support guys have always been really good (had a few things where we've had to loop their developers in too with graphics driver issues etc).

 

We did have a demo of impero a year or so back, and equally netsupport have tried to sell me DNA - but our main need was for screen sharing in lessons, so never wanted to the additional cost of the all-in-one-box products.

 

It's definitely worth looking at netsupport's offerings - equally, if you've got impero and staff are used to it - probably also worth giving them a chance to fix things - as at some point most companies introduce bugs and sillyness into their products

[Stutwo]

We're having a terrible time with Impero Support at the moment. PM coming your way Mic.

[TheElusiveOrangeButton]

I'd just like to throw my name in the hat and say that Impero is a complete shambles for us as well. Used to be a fantastic piece of software but over the past few years both the product and level of support we received has gradually gone down the toilet and I will certainly be looking to move away from it once our contract expires next year. To see Mic "proudly" state that most of his support cases are resolved on the first call makes my blood boil, quite frankly.

[ITBadger]

As @FragglePete mentioned, Senso is in development and looks very promising. I'm involved in Beta testing and whilst it has limited functionality at this stage (although many new features are due in the next few weeks i'm led to believe), it feels solid and well thought out. I notice that there are a few people who are coming to the end of a contract with Impero next year, as I am. It is certainly worth having a look at Senso when it is released. It's also modular so you won't be paying for functionality that you don't need.

[Duke5A]

LAN School. I can't sing it's praises loud enough or from a tall enough peak. It's the one piece of software in my life I install and forget. Completely GPO controlled and pushed. Easily traverses subnets as well for teacher who are on laptops. When I told them we were coming from a competitors product the licensing cost dropped significantly too.

[alfatec]

Would be interesting to hear what the main problems seem to be with the guys who are having major problems with Impero. We have been running Impero for about 18 months now and do not experience any issues at all. We went full

Windows 10 over the summer throughout the school and apart from a few workstations having the Impero service stop now and again (Mind you the Solus 3 service also stops) we have not experienced any issues at all. We don't use

the patch management option or power option but we do utilise everything else.

[keithwoods]

Why don't Impero realise that they blew it?...and they will find it very hard convincing loyal customers to re-commit to something with such prolonged issues.

They used to have one of the most stable, feature rich classroom management applications, that is until 18 months ago when the security flaw was found and they began patching the c**p out of it.

 

Since then the software and support just haven't been the same.

 

What really p's me off is they have the neck to keep increasing the cost every year??!!

2011 = £1250

2013 = £1500

2014 = £1800

2016 = £2552 (we had to drop our client license numbers from 500 to 400 just to keep it this low)

 

So in 5 years the price has doubled, yet the quality and support has gone downhill.

Edited November 14, 2016 by keithwoods

[Cris]

We are the same here Impero used to be superb and did exactly what was required reliably.

But in the last couple of years it sucks, the logs are all but useless even the recent logs etc in the console. We can repeat this every time that we open the console select device and open recent history and the server freezes and we loose connection. Machines keep disconnecting all day so that teachers can't see all devices in a room. We have updated numerous times hoping for more stability but are yet to see any. The opinion here is that we move whenever the license runs out, unfortunately this is a longer time than we would like as we renewed because we thought the issues would be resolved.

[Duke5A]

Why don't Impero realise that they blew it?...and they will find it very hard convincing loyal customers to re-commit to something with such prolonged issues.

They used to have one of the most stable, feature rich classroom management applications, that is until 18 months ago when the security flaw was found and they began patching the c**p out of it.

 

Since then the software and support just haven't been the same.

 

What really p's me off is they have the neck to keep increasing the cost every year??!!

2011 = £1250

2013 = £1500

2014 = £1800

2016 = £2552 (we had to drop our client license numbers from 500 to 400 just to keep it this low)

 

So in 5 years the price has doubled, yet the quality and support has gone downhill.

 

 

https://www.lenovosoftware.com/lanschool

 

Looks like they were bought out by Lenovo. We're using version 7.8 right now.