Micro Librarian Support?

[mavhc]

"The 247lib.com is a cloud licence rather than a site licence, so if you can reduce your costs by allowing other schools to use your cloud. You will not be able to see their students and vice versa."

 

Does that make sense to anyone? You'd think they'd be good at words.

[LeMarchand]

"The 247lib.com is a cloud licence rather than a site licence, so if you can reduce your costs by allowing other schools to use your cloud. You will not be able to see their students and vice versa."

 

Does that make sense to anyone? You'd think they'd be good at words.

 

It makes sense to me, but not from a business perspective. What if 500 Edugeeks bought one cloud license at a pound/member?

[Katy]

It makes sense to me, but not from a business perspective. What if 500 Edugeeks bought one cloud license at a pound/member?

I would guess that there's a "concurrent librarians" limit so we'd probably struggle to get on (although queueing up behind 499 other librarians for their turn would still be quicker than MLS)

[AlanD]

I think I am correct in saying that MicroLibrarian is now owned by Capita. And such companies hoover up sources of cash - like Microlibrian - and invest very little in the way of development and support...and as customers fall away they make up for the shortfall by increasing charges. Users are often reluctant to move away - or at least in the short term - (because change costs money - if only in terms of effort and time) and so such services provide a great source of revenue for their grossly overpaid and numerous directors.

[mavhc]

Question is why do people keep selling to them, or buying new stuff from them, or giving them contracts, have they ever done a single thing well?

[BOOT]

Yes, owned by Capita...

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05816719/persons-with-significant-control

 

...for £3.9 million:

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05816719/filing-history/MzE1ODg5MzY1NGFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0

[gumbygaz]

Everybody just get the following update email?

 

Dear Customers

Those of you who may remember when we first launched our hosted service, some 8-9 years ago now, there were a number of teething problems. We learnt about issues we hadn't fully anticipated - different local authority proxy servers behaving in different ways, a whole host of differences in security measures from one school to the next etc. While we tried to anticipate as much as we could, there were things we missed and there was, sadly, some short term pain. But we got there and got it right and for several years thereafter provided a very solid, relatively problem-free solution.

Fast-forward to today's issues – we have invested heavily in the latest cloud-hosting architecture with Microsoft Azure and the end-game here is that we provide a more scalable, secure and responsive platform to our customers. This is the single largest migration of a live cloud infrastructure into the Azure platform. We are laying the foundations for improved product development, with a lot of exciting features in the pipeline. However, just like all those years ago, we tried to best anticipate any challenges ahead of us, and insulate our customers from any service interruption. Unfortunately, we haven't been as successful in this as we might have hoped and due to a number of issues which with all the will in the world, we could not have foreseen, we have not delivered the stability and speed our customers have grown to expect.

But the light at the end of the tunnel here is that the product will absolutely be stronger, more scalable and more secure for it. We regret the short-term pain our customers have experienced, but going forward the system will perform better than it ever has done.

This has also had an impact on our support service as a result of the increased number of related support calls. Hopefully, the introduction of these new support circles on Edoocoo will improve this too and also deliver a more modern and robust communication channel between our team and our customers going forward.

Rest assured our engineering team is working hard to ensure we put these issues behind us as soon as is possible and get on with providing you the excellent product and service you've come to expect from MLS.

Regards

Andy O’Brien

Managing Director

[mikkydoos]

So I get this email today from MLS.................

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------

 

Dear Customers

 

Those of you who may remember when we first launched our hosted service, some 8-9 years ago now, there were a number of teething problems. We learnt about issues we hadn't fully anticipated - different local authority proxy servers behaving in different ways, a whole host of differences in security measures from one school to the next etc. While we tried to anticipate as much as we could, there were things we missed and there was, sadly, some short term pain. But we got there and got it right and for several years thereafter provided a very solid, relatively problem-free solution.

 

Fast-forward to today's issues – we have invested heavily in the latest cloud-hosting architecture with Microsoft Azure and the end-game here is that we provide a more scalable, secure and responsive platform to our customers. This is the single largest migration of a live cloud infrastructure into the Azure platform. We are laying the foundations for improved product development, with a lot of exciting features in the pipeline. However, just like all those years ago, we tried to best anticipate any challenges ahead of us, and insulate our customers from any service interruption. Unfortunately, we haven't been as successful in this as we might have hoped and due to a number of issues which with all the will in the world, we could not have foreseen, we have not delivered the stability and speed our customers have grown to expect.

 

But the light at the end of the tunnel here is that the product will absolutely be stronger, more scalable and more secure for it. We regret the short-term pain our customers have experienced, but going forward the system will perform better than it ever has done.

 

This has also had an impact on our support service as a result of the increased number of related support calls. Hopefully, the introduction of these new support circles on Edoocoo will improve this too and also deliver a more modern and robust communication channel between our team and our customers going forward.

 

Rest assured our engineering team is working hard to ensure we put these issues behind us as soon as is possible and get on with providing you the excellent product and service you've come to expect from MLS.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Insert expletive here !.... ending in ollox.

 

 

 

EDIT: Beaten to it by @gumbygaz

Edited February 6, 2018 by mikkydoos

[kennysarmy]

Oh that's OK then - we've all had email.

 

Suggest we close this thread then!

[PR-UK]

I struggle to believe that MLS is the single biggest thing to migrate to Azure

[David44]

I struggle to believe that MLS is the single biggest thing to migrate to Azure

 

Certainly nothing to be proud of. If what should be a simple library system is the biggest cloud based system to be moved to Azure then something has gone badly wrong with the code and/or database. Might explain why it is so slow though.

[synaesthesia]

I'm sure that's great comfort to all their users they've lied to, caused problems for, all whilst being paid handsomely.

[LeMarchand]

Got the email too, they must be losing enough customers to be trying to mend bridges.

[psydii]

I struggle to believe that MLS is the single biggest thing to migrate to Azure

 

It's the single biggest thing their intern has moved to Azure.

[mikkydoos]

It's the single biggest thing their intern has moved to Azure.

 

Lol. Good one.

 

 

 

 

They musn't have got ANY orders at Bett then.

[RLR]

We asked MLS how staff are deleted as students are deleted based on their leave information in SIMS. MLS have said Staff are not deleted and this is a manual process the librarians have to do. Can anyone confirm this? Seems a bit odd.

[round2it]

I had a rep on the phone trying to keep me as a customer. He said what can we do to keep you.

 

He did not like my respnose.

 

Basically told them the product sucks

support sucks

communication sucks

treat customers with no respect.

 

Once finished told them to stick it where the sun does not shine. No way will I put up with a shoddy product.

 

Capita will be ditching this pile of steaming soon

cost cutting.

[GuyJD]

When you call their support they recommend getting in contact with them via https://edoocoo.com

 

I had an issue yesterday along with a few other people that also posted on there and they replied on there within a couple of hours, so if you have an issue it may be worth registering on edoocoo to see if that gets a response.

[synaesthesia]

Sounds convenient to avoid the people that actually know what they're talking about on another similar free education specific forum...

[LeMarchand]

Sounds convenient to avoid the people that actually know what they're talking about on another similar free education specific forum...

 

Especially as you seem to have to register to see anything. Still

 

Try it for FREE today

 

doesn't at all sound like they want to charge for it at some stage.

[synaesthesia]

Oh, here we go. They're linked. Multiple directors of Edoocoo are/were directors of MLS.

Sorry, that stinks.

 

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08952416/officers

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/04845232/officers

 

"We’ve built edoocoo to help the education community to communicate better. It’s a space on the internet just for people like you; who are passionate about education.

 

We want edoocoo to be the very best tool for educators to interact, engage and inspire. Edoocoo is a free, closed network so there won’t be the everyday “noise” of other networks, only content generated by you, your peers, colleagues and key influencers. We believe the strength of the network will be about the professionally relevant, high quality content that our users contribute; making edoocoo an engaging and rewarding app"

 

Perhaps we need to stop being so noisy? Or is it more along the lines of the truth hurts, and MLS are fed up with covering their ears shouting LALALALALACANTHEARYOULALALALA. I feel childish saying that but it sounds pretty accurate.

Edited February 6, 2018 by synaesthesia

[Katy]

Oh, here we go. They're linked. Multiple directors of Edoocoo are/were directors of MLS.

Sorry, that stinks.

If anyone's bothered to try it... is it as slow to load and a horrible interface like the library stuff?

[witch]

I got that email too....

I also got an email detailing all the things I must do to make their system work (aka, "It's your fault" ) . Went through the lot and the only thing missing was an add on that I dont think we need anyway.

The system is ridiculously slow, and we have all sorts of issues with printing overdue book lists etc which is causing mayhem around the school.

I have told the office not to pay the renewal but as far as I can see I might have to as they ask for three months notice - anyone any other ideas?

[clockend25]

key influencers.

 

Amidst all of the nonsense going on here, nothing makes me angrier than this.

[victory2015]

I got that email too....

I also got an email detailing all the things I must do to make their system work (aka, "It's your fault" ) . Went through the lot and the only thing missing was an add on that I dont think we need anyway.

The system is ridiculously slow, and we have all sorts of issues with printing overdue book lists etc which is causing mayhem around the school.

I have told the office not to pay the renewal but as far as I can see I might have to as they ask for three months notice - anyone any other ideas?

 

Its not fit for purpose and not serving the schools need,

not performing according to theier SLA etc.etc..

think anyone would have an easy out without having to wait 3 months...

 

I too had that "Its your Fault" email, i pointed out to them that i don't get these emails from other websites all the time about white listing etc... they even told me to stop the antivirus software scanning the website and to whitelist them in that!! they need to build thier software properly... someone clearly hasn't a clue what they are doing!