Cloud-based Timetabling Software

[Keith-Johnson]

Responding to David, who wrote "I would also challenge your argument that timetabling cannot be multi-user ... ..."

 

It's a logically impossible problem. Of course you can install on a network but it doesn't make logical sense from a timetable-viewpoint to have two people trying to schedule simultaneously ...the timetable would have to be in two universes at the same time! Otherwise you might find one User trying to schedule class 7A on Monday-1 for Maths while another User is trying to schedule that class/period with History, etc., ...and further than that, each single placement on a schedule then has a knock-on effect on every other item yet to be placed, so the sequence of placements is important. And all the timetable data is inter-related.

This is equally true of all timetabling software.

So logically only one User at a time, so at each step the timetable moves into a single new universe. (You can have a team of users, who could access the software from different machines if they wish, but only one machine at a time.)

 

Other arguments about the Cloud and when to move into it with different software are for discussion ...but on this point [and the fact that the timetable program is normally working on next year's data] a timetable program and an MIS are fundamentally different. So convincing arguments for one don't usually apply to the other. That's the key point I think.

 

It won't stop timetabling companies moving into the cloud, but Users' expectations need to be realistic.

[And seen from the Timetabler's point of view as well as the IT Manager's]

[psydii]

I wonder how much developer time (i.e money) Bromcom, ESS/Nova, Keith have sunk into their current solutions? Now how many customers would you have to attract to cover the cost of redeveloping them from scratch?

 

Now consider how critical the timetable is to schools operations - timetables predate MIS's by what? 150 years at least! Broken timetables = a broken school. How many of the basically static number of customers could you *actually* persuade to move to a relatively untested product? The path to the cloud based MIS is littered with the dying bodies of the previous on-prem vendors.

 

10 years ago would have said that Bromcom should have been best placed to pivot their timetable product to the cloud since the code/logic was written in a more server-side/cloud friendly language - but the risks were huge and clearly their numbers showed that time was better spent improving the cloud MIS part of their offer.

[Primus]

Responding to David, who wrote "I would also challenge your argument that timetabling cannot be multi-user ... ..."

 

It's a logically impossible problem. Of course you can install on a network but it doesn't make logical sense from a timetable-viewpoint to have two people trying to schedule simultaneously ...the timetable would have to be in two universes at the same time! Otherwise you might find one User trying to schedule class 7A on Monday-1 for Maths while another User is trying to schedule that class/period with History, etc., ...and further than that, each single placement on a schedule then has a knock-on effect on every other item yet to be placed, so the sequence of placements is important. And all the timetable data is inter-related.

This is equally true of all timetabling software.

So logically only one User at a time, so at each step the timetable moves into a single new universe. (You can have a team of users, who could access the software from different machines if they wish, but only one machine at a time.)

 

Other arguments about the Cloud and when to move into it with different software are for discussion ...but on this point [and the fact that the timetable program is normally working on next year's data] a timetable program and an MIS are fundamentally different. So convincing arguments for one don't usually apply to the other. That's the key point I think.

 

It won't stop timetabling companies moving into the cloud, but Users' expectations need to be realistic.

[And seen from the Timetabler's point of view as well as the IT Manager's]

 

If at this point you're still discussing moving your software to the cloud then you're somewhat behind the times. I know you'll say the current software works and I'm sure it does but, as a prospective customer, the incredibly dated UI is very off-putting. The UI might have meant that in the past it behaved consistently when compared with other software but that hasn't been the case for a very long time now.

 

I understand and appreciate that moving a legacy product into the cloud can be time-consuming and challenging, but one of the timetabling options will move to the cloud and whoever is first will steal a large proportion of the market while the other options struggle and rush to catch up.

 

Whether or not a timetable is single user or multi user is irrelevant, there are very few products we use now that are not cloud based and those are all now migrating to the cloud.

[FN-GM]

If at this point you're still discussing moving your software to the cloud then you're somewhat behind the times.

 

Agreed.

 

 

I understand and appreciate that moving a legacy product into the cloud can be time-consuming and challenging

 

This is the cost of doing business. Anyone who works with something technology related should also be catering for large changes.

[Keith-Johnson]

This is getting a little more focussed than I'd expected, I'd been trying to keep the discussion more general ...but replying to the comment from 'Primus' : We send regular Surveys to Users (as well as our open WishList) asking for comments ...and on the last Survey (of timetablers/Users, not IT Managers as such) only one person (one) out of hundreds of replies commented on the User Interface. Perhaps it's in-tune with the mind-set of many timetablers? Is it the difference between software designed by a timetabler and software designed by a programmer? Such Surveys and the WishList are our way of keeping in tune with Users.

 

I'd be very interested to continue a discussion of the particular UI off-list.

[Primus]

Keith at this point I'm reminded of the Henry Ford quote:

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

 

You must surely be aware that staff in schools are less and less likely to have come across anything like the UI of your product as every year goes by?

 

Schools like businesses are already "cloud first" and many will become cloud only. Moving your product to the cloud improves the usability massively, when I think of our timetabler having to ensure she takes home the correct version of the current work in progress timetable, then ensuring her laptop has the same version of T6 as her desktop at school etc etc.

 

Our MIS is cloud based, all the services we use on a day to day basis are cloud based, there is no good reason why your timetabling software cannot be cloud based other than you don't want to rewrite it - that much is clear from the UI which has failed to keep up with about 20-odd years of UI improvements and changes to Windows. I know your product is very good, but honestly on first impressions the UI is the most dated product we have seen in over a decade and the website alone needs a refresh with at least some more modern stock images.

[supportman]

To be honest the UI is a little off topic, the product works great and I have no problem with it other than the platform.

 

I'd be happy with just a cloud version of the current UI

[paulkerton]

UI is off-topic, but if a new product is being sold to me and the UX is dated, then it does temper my interest in a product. See the new SIMS Finance for example. Cloud based, but looks straight outta Office 97. No thanks. A user's experience is important alongside the functionality.

 

Simple fact is that the market has moved to the cloud, and we're now seeing more and more organisations being cloud first, if not cloud only - and a large number of establishments who expect to be able to use multiple platforms and work across them. iOS, ChromeOS, Windows. No one in 2021 should expect to start using a piece of software and be limited to one platform any more.

 

And if you are a vendor of a piece of software that is limited to one platform, expect to lose custom to startups who have that anytime, anywhere focus in mind.

[psydii]

This is the collision of ideology (Cloud is the only way) and business/commercial realities.

 

How many Timetable packages are used at any sort of scale in UK Schools?

 

Nova-T, Timetabler, and e-timetable, and TBH I'm not sure whether that last one counts as 'at scale'

 

There is a market of a fixed size, and schools are used to the costs of the existing products.

 

The market is mature. Without a new disruptive entrant, it simply isn't going to change.

 

The UI/X of the existing products is *everything* Timetablers up and down the land are used to it, they are fluent in it. Is the pain of change of moving to a new, initially less functional product worth more that that £1000/5 years?

 

Pragmatically, cloud first institutions will just roll our eyes and buy a dedicated Windows device to run the timetable software.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if a Windows instance running a timetable package with its roots in the 1990s (or 70's apparently) still remains in every schools' estate in 20 years time.

 

 

 

Any disruption to this market will need to come from someone with deep pockets. Even if it started in the same way Keith and October ReSolutions did, to scale up (support, developers, marketing) at the sort of speed needed to compete with the incumbents they would be burning hundreds of thousands a year, and getting any return on the investment is by no means certain. Perhaps an Open Source development might gain momentum, but at some point you need to be able to offer professional services (priority support, SLAs, training etc) and that needs a critical mass of paying customers, and can cause a schism in the open source developers who have sunk their own time in. This is not a simple problem to solve.

[paulkerton]

This is the collision of ideology (Cloud is the only way) and business/commercial realities.

 

Cloud is a business and commerical reality. The market has already moved. Even Photoshop is now going to be available in the cloud!

 

The ideology is staying away from cloud solutions and being stuck with local installations on singular platforms, I'm afraid. The market sets the pace and the decision.

 

Pragmatically, institutions will buy solutions that provide and meet their needs. If a solution doesn't enable an Apple school to work with it, or a Google school to work with it then they will find alternative solutions that do allow that to be possible.

[dhicks]

I'd be happy with just a cloud version of the current UI

 

A solution for which, then, would be to have a cloud-hosted instance of Timetabler, accessible via a web browser. As I said at the top of this thread, we use Timetabler running in this way currently, but you'd want something a bit more customised if you were offering hosted instances to the public. I'd use a customised version of Guacamole, with a plugin to provide Google / Microsoft logins and route each user to their instance. You'd also want some custom web-based controls somewhere so data could be imported and timetable files exported as downloads via the browser (or, ideally, straight to your MIS of choice).

 

The main problem I encountered with implementing the above was the cost of hosting Windows server instances to run Timetabler. I did try running Timetabler on Linux using Wine, and as far as I could make out it seemed to run okay but with some oddities in the user interface.

[Data2]

I use hosted SIMS and NOVA-T. Note quite cloud based, but it does mean I can access on any machine, as can anyone else with the right permissions - haven't tried on a Mac though...