Biostore FasTrak Query

[ap_]

We are looking at potentially using BioStore FasTrak. Can any existing users answer the following questions to help our decision making:

 

1. Have you had any ongoing issues syncing ParentPay and FasTrak?

2. We have a 3-day session with Y6 pre-admission students where prospective parents setup ParentPay accounts and make payments. Can FasTrak handle/sync the payments before the students join the roll fully?

3. Are there any specific issues or niggles you have had with Fastrak?

 

Thanks.

[mikehollingsworth]

Having switched two years ago, I personally would not suggest going for Biostore FasTrak. We have had nothing but issues since switching to them. Unfortunately this was forced on us from the LEA without any consultation. The support is poor and extremely slow with zero customer service. We have had quite a few issues with the sync between ParentPay and FasTrak, both blame each other but I suspect this is more of an issue with Biostore as the system was perfect when it was Cunninghams.

 

I will look to migrate back to Cunningham's as soon as our contract allows.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike.

[hallb15]

That's interesting as we've had a much better experience with BioStore support. Yes, there have been issues, particularly in the beginning, but these were sorted out in a timely fashion and now we rarely have an issue. We are a primary school, so don't use the cashless catering features, only using FasTrak for meal choices in the mornings and taking the register in the afternoon.

ParentPay support on the other hand, their support is dreadful. Thankfully though, we are aware of the common issues and know how to fix them ourselves.

We have a sync tool installed on the SIMS server, which updates to BioStore Fastrak installed on our apps server overnight. If necessary we can run a manual update.

[1TF0rward]

We are also looking to go with BioStore Fastrak. Does anyone else have any experience with them? SLT are getting worried.

 

Did you end up going with them?

[Jawloms]

We had quite a few teething problems with the tills speed, but they ironed it out and now it all seems to work very well.

[ap_]

We are also looking to go with BioStore Fastrak. Does anyone else have any experience with them? SLT are getting worried.

 

Did you end up going with them?

 

We are still planning on going with them in a couple of months time.

[Reverend_Dan]

We went with them a few months ago, and we have had some initial syncing issues with Parent Pay. I think from speaking to the engineers it is a bit of parent pays side of things and it does get hung up from having cunninghams linked account before. But Tills are fast, its a lot more modern that Impact was and not having to re fingerprint the children by migrating the biostore fingerprints over was great. Also it runs off SQL express so no licencing for that is a bonus.

New fingerprint readers are a lot more responsive than we had before as well.

Kitchen staff seem to like it now after the initial getting used to a new system phase.

[1TF0rward]

We went with them a few months ago, and we have had some initial syncing issues with Parent Pay. I think from speaking to the engineers it is a bit of parent pays side of things and it does get hung up from having cunninghams linked account before. But Tills are fast, its a lot more modern that Impact was and not having to re fingerprint the children by migrating the biostore fingerprints over was great. Also it runs off SQL express so no licencing for that is a bonus.

New fingerprint readers are a lot more responsive than we had before as well.

Kitchen staff seem to like it now after the initial getting used to a new system phase.

 

We have to redo the whole school finger prints as we are not allowed to migrate the fingerprint data. Is that right?

[Jawloms]

We have to redo the whole school finger prints as we are not allowed to migrate the fingerprint data. Is that right?

 

Yes it is.

[Reverend_Dan]

We had an old version of impact that was still running biostore as the datebase so we didn't have to, they just took control of the database and modified and upgraded it to the new version

[ITBadger]

We've used FasTrak for years now and it is sooooo much better than Cunninghams. The second post on this thread is the only example i've seen of anyone feeling that they would go back to the dark side. As i've said in other fora, the best compliment I can give it is that I was called upon to fix something on the Cunninghams system three or four times a week, now it's three or four times a year and that's normally because the kitchen staff have forgotten how to do something!