[acs] Serco's Facility

[ANiceEnglishman]

Has anyone any experience of Serco's 'Facility' product?

[tosca925]

Yep,

 

we are using it now an have been since xmas.

 

What do you want to know?

[Disease]

Is it better than Sims.net, we are considering it at the moment and any comments you have on it would be useful to me.

[ANiceEnglishman]

We had the Serco sales people round a while ago and teachers and management liked what they heard. It looks like we might be moving from SIMS.NET to Facility.

 

I was more interested in the level and quality of support Serco offered but my questions on this were avoided. Any comments on this would be welcome!

 

Thanks

[tosca925]

We have found the support to be very good. As of yet their has not been any problem that could not be solved over the phone.

 

We had a fair bit of trouble with the data transfer form the Sims database to the CMIS data base but after a couple of days working on it it was OK.

 

The timetable data was a mess as well but that was also down to us not keeping our SIMS records on the SIMS database up to date. so a lot of crap was transferred as well.

 

We use Facility with ePortal and now do our registration on this as well as lesson registration, this way we can instantly keep an eye on truancy between lessons. All our room have a network point and all staff have a laptop so this is easy fr us to do.

 

 

Please ask any more are specific questions.

[john]

Yup, use Facility where I am, seems nice now its been going for 3 years, its now become stable and working well.

[MkII]

Looks interesting.

 

I read on the website that a lot of components are web based, which is good for us as we have a problem with sims hefty requirements compared to the ropey old kit we make a lot of our staff use.

 

Could you give us an idea of the costs compared to SIMS .net say?

 

...I'm told sims does a lot - if you can afford the add-ons.

 

In my LEA every school is top sliced for sims support - dunno at all about switching and how that'd work.

[tosca925]

sorry I can't help witht he costs, it was all done at a SLT level and i'm just told to get it all working.

[darkest_star]

We have moved from SIMS.NET to Facility last summer.

 

Mixed bag here, from our point of view it is excellent once it’s up and running we have very little support issues just the upgrades really runs fine on a good spec server and we have ePortal on the same server (6 main users of Facility and 170 ePortal users). Although we don't use Lesson by Lesson monitor so I couldn’t say if that would slow it down

 

The Installation by SERCO Leaves a lot to be desired and they have had real problems if you have converted to the full exe version of sims.net although this may be resolved now. If you get the engineer on site chain him to the server until he has done his bit and your happy. Once he has gone he has gone for good. It took them quite some time to get our data anywhere near right. If we knew this we would have done some more work ourselves. The person is very loosely described as a project manager

 

We also had problems with timetable because it didn’t like the info from NOVA we think the best way is to use Facility Scheduler and build the timetable in Facility from scratch at timetabling time and move to Facility at that point.

 

Facility it's self is a big program and its configurability is a double edged sword where with SIMS you can not change anything here it is the complete opposite so use with caution

 

We have found the support to a mixed bag (depends on who you contact) some are very good others are

 

The Teaching staff will love ePortal and it also means it kept them out of the main program and limits the damage they can do.

[griffin]

We use Facility and eportal here. the support is ok when phoning (getting the problem across can be alittle difficult sometimes). The Support has recently moved to a regionjal bases and if you get to know the people in chare of your area they are brilliant at helping.

 

James

[ANiceEnglishman]

Thanks for all the replies.

 

We're now at the stage of having ordered a new server to run the database, 30 laptops (so there will be one in every classroom) and an additional DC to share the load of these 30 plus the 20 admin machines we will migrate to the curriculum network in the future.

 

I noted particularly darkest_star's comments about the installation and 'project manager'. Ours isn't replying to emails .

 

The comments about bringing timetable data over from Nova were interesting too as our timetabler intends to do just that. Hmmm.

[darkest_star]

Ours isn't replying to emails Sad . - If this is the same one then you will have great difficulty in contacting him if indeed you ever do again, I think he got sick of my emails and has not replied now in several months.

 

He also offered to do some work to tidy some of the database up - let him do this at your peril its like letting a child loose in gunshop where all the guns are loaded and the safetys are off. 8O

 

Network support wise I still think this is a great product and as said before I think teachers will like ePortal but the Serco Implementation is absolute pants

 

You Timetabler will age quite considerably over the next few months

[ANiceEnglishman]

I take back what I said about non-replies as our Project Manager did reply today. It will presumably be a different one as we are in south Wales and you are in north-west England.

 

Our timetabler is going to start afresh in Facility!

[danIT]

We currently run Serco's CMIS, we do have some regular problems with cmis, some are solved quickly some take a little longer, it depends on the nature of the problem.

 

We didnt have an attendance history for year 2004/05 for around 6months, eventually serco support found a few lines over sql to get it all back into the right table in the database.

 

Dont expect to be able to write reports easily, the database is a minefield of random fields and mystery data.

 

Eportal the web front end for cmis, is shocking, we used to use it for reporting to parents but it didnt really work very well, timeouts where a problem. It is very slow and not very user friendly.

 

Dont trust anyones word about what should happen and how it will happen, in my experince its guranteed to interfer with something!

 

I know of a school that runs CMIS and Sims.net because they prefer the attendance module in sims but prefer to use CMIS fro exams and timetabling!

 

Dan thats my ten penny-ith

[CheeseDog]

 

Dont expect to be able to write reports easily, the database is a minefield of random fields and mystery data.

 

Eportal the web front end for cmis, is shocking, we used to use it for reporting to parents but it didnt really work very well, timeouts where a problem. It is very slow and not very user friendly.

 

 

Agreed with random fields and mystery data. Why is there a need for pupil.dob and student.dob

 

ePortal did seem to run slowly when it was put over Learning Gateway but it's since been tweaked by the sys admin from the high school which manages the Learning Gateway and it seems to work ok now. (Something to do with bitlets, haven't looked into it myself)

 

We've not used it for reports but as far as event logging and registration goes I can't see the problem with the UI. Should be using it soon for assessment.

 

As for developments and improvements we've set up a team here which badgers Serco for modifications. The main problems our cluster of primaries has is CMIS very much secondary orientated at the moment so we're trying to get more primary features added. Mixed year classes are such a pain, spent a while moding system reports so they return sensible info. For simple reports such as "how many children are in Year 1?"

[StewartKnight]

One of the main reasons I decided to leave my old school, was because I was fed up to the back teeth with CMIS. We had loads of problems, and the teacher who organised the "reports" left, and I was landed with doing everything! I hated going into work each day.

 

When we went on some trainng courses, we had a good idea how to use CMIS, but even the "advanced" courses were full of noobs, and by the time they were up to speed, the course was over. They were too keen to get people onto training, without establishing their level of expertise, as they wanted the money. In the end the courses were a waste of time and money, as you never got past the basics. Then there we're the "updates" that required you to re-install every couple of months or so.... I could go on!

 

My "replacement" is off on long term sick, I guess he'd had enough of CMIS too.

 

That was a couple of years ago mind you, so things might have changed now, but whenever my new head says "CMIS", I just say NO

 

I think it's too expensive as well. So long as you're good at php and SQL, you MIGHT be able to find / use the data!

[CheeseDog]

We're in fourth year of using it now and the updates situations seems to have calmed down. Allthough it doesn't really take long to update.

 

I can sort of agree with the courses a lot of ours were delivered at cluster schools with all the admin staff. Most (not all) admin complained it was too quick I personally thought it was too slow and I'd just be better off with the manual.

 

As for work falling on to Tech Support staff. CMIS seems to assume everyone is an above average computer user.

 

I have to admit most of the time I knock up the reports as it's far easier than trying to talk someone through it everytime. Don't have to do it too often but during the initial setup I think a colleague of mine was in a similar situation to you at a primary we supported.

 

I've only got experience with CMIS so I can't really make comparisons to SIMS. A lot of staff seem to think CMIS is better but then again they're comparing it to SIMS 4 years ago now.

[SpuffMonkey]

We use CMIS - and really the upgrades are a breeze compared with the SIMS ones that I used to have to do - dunno if its better with .net - but visiting all the client PCs and keeping a track of the individual machine numbers - sheesh!

 

However - strongly agree with the comments on random data fields - trying to set up security was a 'mare as no one seems to really know what each of the little tick boxes actually means - and the are a load with no title at all - appalling - reduced to changing a field and then trying to work out its effect.

 

The basic install is just a starting point - not the finished product - if you really want to utilise the product to the full - you really need to sit down and plan it all out - not a long suit in many schools I think.

 

ePortal is OK-ish - but does seem to have stability problems - especially when under load (during reporting times) when several crashes a day have been experienced.

[limbo]

Just thought I would share this with you all - e-portal threw up a great error message a few weeks back when looking for all attendance within between two dates:-

 

"error: your start date is earlier than your end date"

 

A quick restart of the services seemed to resolve the confusion - perhaps it had slipped into a parallel reverse univers for a second, we shall never know!

[bossman]

I have just updated to the last version of Sims.net which i inherited from the LEA and after 5 years of hell, torment and fallouts it is now working very well and quickly with everything in place except FMS which i believe will be fully integrated after Christmas. We run lesson monitor every lesson and have an attendance officer who with a few clicks of the mouse can check truancy live.

I have just announced that the teaching staff will be using lesson register instead of lesson monitor because it runs directly from the SQL database and therefore does not need to syncronise between local station database and SQL database. Anyway i think for now we will be staying put with Sims.net as it works a treat for us and seems to be getting better all the time. soory to be in favour of Sims.net but it is as you say input process output (shit in shit out) and it is a legal requirement to keep the data up to date. If you keep on top of admin and reinforce from time to time you will find I think that any management system will suffice as long as the data input is good and of a reliable source.

[imgonna]

Sorry to jump in here. Some background: I teach physics but with a strong IT background.

 

We have jumped from SIMS to Serco at the start of this year, and to say it's a mess is a polite way of called s@@t poo-poo. However I need some help / advice.

 

I imagine that Serco is sold as a blank canvas and that our IT set up what we desire (with the help of Serco). So either it's gone very wrong for us or we have not paid the neccessary consultancy fees.

 

At present, from a teachers perspective the system is next to useless for managing behaviour / event, for example:

 

1) If we set C2 events, we can not go back and ammend if the student came to detention or not, ditto C3 and C4 -- surely this can not be the case??

 

2) There is no way that I as a class teacher can get a list of the events I have created, other than for ny form group -- again surely not the case??

 

3) I can not see the attendance of my form other than in the Main window -- I can not see if they have been missing a certain period every day / week

 

I assume that these can be configured, but now nearly 2 months in and we still dont have them resolved.

 

Questions:

 

a) Are these things configurable?

b) If so, would someone be willing to contact me off list and speak to our IT staff before someone goes Postal?

 

Sorry to go off on one, but this is soooo infurating.

 

Cheers

 

Glen Gilchrist

[tosca925]

Right,

 

I cant help much with 1 or 2 as we are not going to be using this feature until after Xmas. As for 3, well our staff can look at their forms attendance fro up to a month period. They tend to prefer looking at 2 week;y periods though as pulling a month data off can be very slow through the browser.

 

I would imagine all these things are configurable as we have set up things which are just for our school.

 

Have any of yu IT staff/admin staff been on any of the courses at the Derby HQ? We send a lot of our staff to these who deal with the relevant areas of school admin.

 

You can also download the user manuals from the Serco website. You just need to create a log on details and they send you a password (IIRC)

 

We printed the manuals out and had a few days going through a test set up before we went live. We find it quite easy to use but you do need to spend a awful lot of time siting in front of it to get used to it.

[kxv2020]

We've used SIMS.net and its great... yes we do have the odd hiccup now and again but it works well. Sometimes it can be slow over the wireless network but on the whole it’s ok.

 

 

We have just moved from Bromcom to Lesson Monitor for Lesson by Lesson eRegistration - and that seems to work ok generally although the Reports some of the reports that can be produced are not as good as they should. We will be moving the .net version of Lesson Register as this seems far better with the addition of comments and behaviour tracking etc.

 

 

We've been using Assessment Manager 6 with a separate system for Annual Reports for a few years now and that is very good, but we got the clerical assistant to enter the assessment data - however now that teachers have their own laptops we've moved to the staff actually doing it themselves. We used a SIMS.net partner reporting package to do annual reports for years but suddenly SLT wanted to use Profiles 6 to restrict staff in writing individual comments as the "Reporting Checking" process was taking too long for the AHT in charge and many mistakes were in the staff reports. Profiles 6 is bit rubbish but the new Profiles 7 is far better.

 

Hope this helps.

[imgonna]

Thanks!

 

I would imagine all these things are configurable as we have set up things which are just for our school.

 

Have any of yu IT staff/admin staff been on any of the courses at the Derby HQ? We send a lot of our staff to these who deal with the relevant areas of school admin.

 

err I assume so to, but to here SMT talk, you would imagine we are asking for the crown jewels.

 

Derby - No, mentioned it and got the daggers this afternoon.

 

Apparently the issue is user rights. Either full admin or teacher. On full admin, well we can do anything we like, on teacher we can just ADD stuff with no fascility to DELETE events.

 

Seems bizaare are we can not be the only school that this applies to?

Today it was suggested that we keep a paper record of things until they iron out the teething problems. ROFL.... using paper to back up IT.

 

Later

Glen

[tosca925]

You can tweak the user rights for any one. We have a standard teacher, admin, exams staff user as well as a full admin user. What ever user it is its easy to tweak their rights and access to what ever you want.

 

The courses are invaluable( so i am told, I've never been on one) but the manuals are very easy to follow. I also find that rather than kill myself working it out, a quick call to them and it soon sorts us out. I have found their tech support to be very good.