ESS SIMS 3 Year Contracts

[mattysmith80]

Just to clarify, Sims do not offer “sims” via GCloud…. What they do offer via GCloud is a hosting package for Sims and that’s it… the GCloud package it literally just a hosting package not the purchase of sims licences and software

[Damon]

@paulkerton

 

You were on the money until the contract mentions 120 days.

 

So at the start of year 2 and year 3 they can increase by 2.5% + CPIH based on the 90+ day warning. You cannot terminate the contract due to these rises.

 

At the start of year 4 (the end of the initial term and the start of the first renewal term) they reserve the right to increase by more than 2.5% + CPIH (the max charge). They have to give 120 days of warning and you can terminate the contract at the end of year 3 if you do so according to the termination clauses. I.e. 90+ days before the end of the 3 years (initial term). You can terminate at that point for any reason, they are just reminding you of this as though it's doing you some sort of favour!

[Damon]

Here's a little riddle... ESS have certain solutions available on G-Cloud (Hosted service for SIMs being one of them). G-Cloud agreements do not have a minimum term, but do have a maximum term of 2yrs (plus extension periods). So ESS must be able to provide contracts shorter than 3yrs, otherwise they wouldn't be able to sign any G-Cloud contracts - and if that's the case, do CCS need to remove them fully from G-Cloud?

 

Haha, excellent find! Does it include the MIS itself or is it just the hosting element?

 

If it does, they must honour G-cloud contracts and pricing if a school purchases through the framework. They cannot force you onto a different contract. However, I should imagine this means purchasing a single site licence as part of it so quite a bit expense for a bit of flexibility.

 

I've heard that you can get a single year contract on a new single site licence but they don't give you access to 'next gen'.

[enjay]

Will do - just have to be later on down the line. We have long memories.

 

Pete

 

That's our view, too. We can't sensibly conduct a MIS review alongside everything else we've already planned for the year, so we'll renew. If the product becomes unusable during the 3 years, if no development happens, or if ESS lock us down to Parent Pay bolt-ons not our own choice, we will take the financial hit and walk away mid-contract. It hurts to plan that with public money, but it seems better than making a hastily-thought-out move now or staying tied to a bad product for 3 years. We've changed mid-term on other products before, when things changed internally or a particularly good competitor product arrived.

[Andycat]

That's our view, too. We can't sensibly conduct a MIS review alongside everything else we've already planned for the year, so we'll renew. If the product becomes unusable during the 3 years, if no development happens, or if ESS lock us down to Parent Pay bolt-ons not our own choice, we will take the financial hit and walk away mid-contract. It hurts to plan that with public money, but it seems better than making a hastily-thought-out move now or staying tied to a bad product for 3 years. We've changed mid-term on other products before, when things changed internally or a particularly good competitor product arrived.

 

I think we're exactly the same here (The leaders, not me!)

[mthomas08]

Response from a SIMs specialist - yes - we need to give notice by the 31st December.

 

And still nothing official from the DFE?

[paulkerton]

Response from a SIMs specialist - yes - we need to give notice by the 31st December.

 

And still nothing official from the DFE?

 

So therefore it IS a renewal, and not a brand new contract.

[Steve21]

Edit - wrong quote!

 

That’s not ESS guidance anymore it’s changed again after the backlash

 

Page 7 on here -

https://ess-sims.co.uk/sites/default/files/2021-12/SIMS-Contract-Changes-2022-FAQs_0.pdf

 

They confirmed it’s a new contract not renewal, had another call with someone on Friday who confirmed the same

 

Steve

Edited December 13, 2021 by Steve21

[paulkerton]

Right - It's as simple as this:

If it is a new contract and not a renewal, your contract will automatically expire and you don't have to give notice of your intention to quit.

If it is a renewl and not a new contract, your contract will automatically renew and you don't have to give notice of your intention to renew.

 

At the moment everything seems contradictory, so I would still give notice to make sure you're not stuck in a contract you might not want, as they will always renew you last minute. It wouldn't be any sweat off ESS's brow to do so, if you decide to remain. They're hardly going to turn down your money.

 

So play it safe and give your notice, I'd say.

[mavhc]

It's best that the developers are asleep when the customers are using the product, so they can never interact with one another

[localzuk]

The CEO of the company sent out an email stating that it won't renew to at least some of us... The email explicitly states "If we don’t hear from you by 31 December 2021, we will invite you to confirm certain details, including your pupil numbers, via the Portal by 1 February 2022. If you don’t update these details, we will assume they are unchanged. We will then issue an invoice for the relevant amount on or around 1 March 2022. Although we will issue you with an invoice, it will not mean that you are committed to renewing for the three-year term." The email later references our quotes as well, so directly links it to our account.

 

That's pretty clear to me.

[localzuk]

To be fair, their £40m will go a lot further in Pune... Average software engineer yearly salary there is about £5-6k a year.

[paulkerton]

That's pretty clear to me.

I don't disagree, but it comes down to trust that they won't turn back on that.

 

And trust is in VERY short supply with them right now.

 

Also, they clearly haven't learned about Capita's adventures with outsourcing development to countries with a fundamental lack of knowledge about the market they're developing for I see!

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/educational-jobs/225429-developer-ess-pune-india.html

[jmak]

I worked on a development and implementation project with some Indian based companies. There were definite advantages; we did testing and evaluation during our working day, discussed our requirements in an evening conference call and when we got back the next morning all the changes had been made [emoji41]

 

We had one UK based rep for every ten people working in India.

[BOOT]

You only get what you pay for.

[Damon]

To be fair, schools have purchased SIMS in a wide range of different ways , through the LA, directly with ESS, through their MAT, etc.. It's always advisable to confirm the exact arrangements for your individual situation. The FAQ does cover a few different scenarios to explain what needs to be done as mentioned above.

[jmak]

You only get what you pay for.

I didn't choose the supplier, but given what I had to work with there were some advantages. Offshore wouldn't be my first choice and I'd always prefer to employ someone local, but you can get good results.

[paulkerton]

I didn't choose the supplier, but given what I had to work with there were some advantages. Offshore wouldn't be my first choice and I'd always prefer to employ someone local, but you can get good results.

Yeah, you can.

But as it stands, it hasn't gone well with SIMS doing this historically.

[mavhc]

Programming is easy these days, you don't need to spend hours optimising a sorting algorithm. So a faster feedback system is required, a closer coupling of users, program managers, and coders in an ever more rapid feedback loop.

 

Bugs should be fixed within a day, not months

 

The questions not aren't "how can I program this" but "how can I design a system the users find easy"

[Ditto]

Programming is easy these days

 

I'll take the frog risk, but that statement is utter tosh! Sorry, but I couldn't let that one go.

 

I'm happy to have a rational discussion, but as someone with hands-on professional experience as a software engineer, as someone who ran global software development teams based in England, France, both sides of US, China (Xi'an) and Japan (in parallel) costing £millions and who also worked with India based engineers and testers, I feel I know a fair it about this. Your statement "closer coupling of users, program managers, and coders in an ever more rapid feedback loop" is very relevant as is the comment about design approach, but the open stance - no!

[elsiegee40]

Programming is easy these days, you don't need to spend hours optimising a sorting algorithm. So a faster feedback system is required, a closer coupling of users, program managers, and coders in an ever more rapid feedback loop.

 

Bugs should be fixed within a day, not months

 

The questions not aren't "how can I program this" but "how can I design a system the users find easy"

 

I might have to frogify myself but I can’t let this stand either having been a developer too.

 

I agree optimisation of code isn’t done these days… Is it necessary? To be honest, I think it’s a lost skill and a lot of code would work one heck of a lot better if more any thought was put into it.

 

This is undoubtedly extremely relevant to SIMS which has become such a tangle of spaghetti that it’s impossible to amend, extend or correct it without breaking it.

 

Properly designed, tested and optimised code from the start would have left SIMS in a far better place.

 

Bugs should be fixed quickly, but that can only happen if the change control process is effective and what you’re trying to fix has a logic flow that a coder who isn’t the original program writer can easily read through and change.

[mavhc]

Compared to the past, we have 1000000x better computers that can run 1000s of tests for every compile, so you can easily know if you've broken something. It's not a question of it being almost impossible to do, a child can make a game in a browser better than the best game written in 1980.

 

Plus we have amazing debuggers, memory protection, linters, automatic refactoring, and the millions of prewritten libraries. We have version control systems, virtual machines, databases. We have managed code so memory corruption isn't a thing, a vast array of datatypes, bigint.

[Ditto]

I might have to frogify myself but I can’t let this stand either having been a developer too.

 

I agree optimisation of code isn’t done these days… Is it necessary? To be honest, I think it’s a lost skill and a lot of code would work one heck of a lot better if more any thought was put into it.

 

This is undoubtedly extremely relevant to SIMS which has become such a tangle of spaghetti that it’s impossible to amend, extend or correct it without breaking it.

 

Properly designed, tested and optimised code from the start would have left SIMS in a far better place.

 

Bugs should be fixed quickly, but that can only happen if the change control process is effective and what you’re trying to fix has a logic flow that a coder who isn’t the original program writer can easily read through and change.

See you on the lily pad . I'm going to let it lie, but.... T-Shirt anyone?

[supportman]

Lots of talk and good discussion in this thread, but i've yet to see anyone actually move

 

Has anyone taken the jump yet?

[Rob_D]

As far as I'm aware, our LA (we're a maintained school) is starting the procurement process now-ish. Of course there's a chance we stick with ESS, I think we find out February next year.