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ESS SIMS 3 Year Contracts

DavidYoung

By DavidYoung
in MIS Systems

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enjay

enjay

Posted
Posted
The next thing to start working on after the summer is to investigate the options for going server less in Summer 23 or 24, I'll most likely just have an Azure VM for FMS and update the connect.ini for FMS accordingly, does anyone have any experience of doing this or similar?

 

Not Azure, but... My previous school had most of their servers in a remote datacentre. There was a DC, File Server and SCCM library server on-premise with ADFS replicas in the datacentre, where the print server, apps server, etc. all resided. If making the same decision today, I'd possibly not bother with the on-prem servers, but Internet connections are faster and better now.

 

We paid a fixed rate for CPUs, RAM, disk space, etc. rather than the variable pay-as-you-go rates you pay for Azure. That is the part which might be tricky to get past your Governors, as you don't know what your infrastructure costs will be. It certainly acts as a good incentive to housekeep though!

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localzuk

localzuk

Posted
Posted
We paid a fixed rate for CPUs, RAM, disk space, etc. rather than the variable pay-as-you-go rates you pay for Azure. That is the part which might be tricky to get past your Governors, as you don't know what your infrastructure costs will be. It certainly acts as a good incentive to housekeep though!

There are many VMs you can "pre-purchase" in Azure, and doing so gets large discounts. I think if you choose a 3 year agreement, you get something like 60% off. But you pay it all up front.

  • 3 weeks later...
mthomas08

mthomas08

Posted
Posted

Well the good news is, we've said our good bye to SIMs.

 

Bromcom is live and being used by all staff.

 

The migration process on one side quite positive but on the other negative. I'd say 50/50.

 

Worth it? Yes.

Teething issues? Yes.

Going home and losing sleep? No.

Glad to see SIMs gone? Yes.

Still plenty to resolve in the coming days/weeks? Yes.

Complaints? Yes but not many.

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supportman

supportman

Posted
Posted (edited)
Well the good news is, we've said our good bye to SIMs.

 

Bromcom is live and being used by all staff.

 

The migration process on one side quite positive but on the other negative. I'd say 50/50.

 

Worth it? Yes.

Teething issues? Yes.

Going home and losing sleep? No.

Glad to see SIMs gone? Yes.

Still plenty to resolve in the coming days/weeks? Yes.

Complaints? Yes but not many.

I'd say that was a success :)

 

Did you find that the move was easier or harder than you thought?

 

My one takeaway from our migration was that it was far less of a stress than I thought it would be when we had all the integrated systems in Sims I thought we could never leave. Turns out it was much smoother than I could ever have imagined, although of course we had small issues as well.

Edited by supportman
mthomas08

mthomas08

Posted
Posted (edited)
I'd say that was a success :)

 

Did you find that the move was easier or harder than you thought?

 

My one takeaway from our migration was that it was far less of a stress than I thought it would be when we had all the integrated systems in Sims I thought we could never leave. Turns out it was much smoother than I could ever have imagined, although of course we had small issues as well.

 

Yes - I would say success.

 

Problems:

-Some staff clearly didn't watch all the training.

-Some staff hadn't paid attention to the site info sent out weekly

-ParentPay (not Bromcom) - they have a problem with the imports and now we've got inconsistencies all over the place. No ETA on the problem being fixed. This has been ongoing since last Tuesday morning.

-Few issues in attendance regarding speed - different browsers seem to be working better and we are replacing their machines.

-Other minor problems/questions.

 

The process had a delay but so far so good. Although this morning Bromcom have an issue with our system going very slow. They are looking at it.

 

There is still that EduLink thing but that is serious discussion with Bromcom, this is probably the only negative point no one can hide.

Edited by mthomas08
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sefton

sefton

Posted
Posted
Yes - I would say success.

 

Problems:

-Some staff clearly didn't watch all the training.

-Some staff hadn't paid attention to the site info sent out weekly

-ParentPay - they had a problem with the imports and now we've got inconsistencies all over the place. No ETA on the problem being fixed. This has been ongoing since last Tuesday morning.

-Few issues in attendance regarding speed - different browsers seem to be working better and we are replacing their machines.

-Other minor problems/questions.

 

The process had a delay but so far so good. Although this morning Bromcom have an issue with our system going very slow. They are looking at it.

 

There is still that EduLink thing but that is serious discussion with Bromcom, this is probably the only negative point no one can hide.

 

ParentPay is not a Bromcom issue, I had the same issue with our Arbor migrations.

supportman

supportman

Posted
Posted (edited)
ParentPay is not a Bromcom issue, I had the same issue with our Arbor migrations.

 

Indeed, I would recommend to anyone the bromcom payment service, as its integrated with their parent portal and apps nicely. No need for a third party payment system really but it should work if you really want to stay with parentpay.

 

Just bear in mind they own Sims now :D

Edited by supportman
mthomas08

mthomas08

Posted
Posted
ParentPay is not a Bromcom issue, I had the same issue with our Arbor migrations.

 

Cleared it up a bit. Not blaming Bromcom at all on this one. ParentPay support is and always has been terrible for us.

 

Never getting an ETA on anything doesn't help.

 

More fuel to leave ParentPay in favour of Bromcom.

sefton

sefton

Posted
Posted
Cleared it up a bit. Not blaming Bromcom at all on this one. ParentPay support is and always has been terrible for us.

 

Never getting an ETA on anything doesn't help.

 

More fuel to leave ParentPay in favour of Bromcom.

 

Yip, looking forward to our ParentPay contract lapsing and using Arbor for our payment system, they have an API for Civica with our cashless catering coming on line soon, will help simplify the system and I don't have to listen to Civica and Parentpay trying to blame the other for issues.

jmak

jmak

Posted
Posted
Yip, looking forward to our ParentPay contract lapsing and using Arbor for our payment system, they have an API for Civica with our cashless catering coming on line soon, will help simplify the system and I don't have to listen to Civica and Parentpay trying to blame the other for issues.
Make sure you give them plenty of notice - very long from memory. And it's a three year contract they handcuff you to nowadays.
mthomas08

mthomas08

Posted
Posted
Yip, looking forward to our ParentPay contract lapsing and using Arbor for our payment system, they have an API for Civica with our cashless catering coming on line soon, will help simplify the system and I don't have to listen to Civica and Parentpay trying to blame the other for issues.

 

Ah yes.. this happened to us last week. Spent 3 hours trying to work out why some ParentPay accounts screwed up.... for PP to admit they had a technical issue.

howartp

howartp

Posted
Posted
Ah yes.. this happened to us last week. Spent 3 hours trying to work out why some ParentPay accounts screwed up.... for PP to admit they had a technical issue.

 

They actually admitted it? That’s gotta be a first. It’s usually anyones fault but theirs!

woodham

woodham

Posted
Posted

HI

 

did you have to create reports to pull all the staff/student info from arbor to send to PP we just moved/went live with Arbor and now pp are asking for a couple of csv's to data check befor they will allow us to upload anything to them

mthomas08

mthomas08

Posted
Posted
HI

 

did you have to create reports to pull all the staff/student info from arbor to send to PP we just moved/went live with Arbor and now pp are asking for a couple of csv's to data check befor they will allow us to upload anything to them

 

Yes. Just make sure you send them the right name type (preferred or legal).

 

Hopefully your upload will be smooth compared to ours.

enjay

enjay

Posted
Posted
HI

 

did you have to create reports to pull all the staff/student info from arbor to send to PP we just moved/went live with Arbor and now pp are asking for a couple of csv's to data check befor they will allow us to upload anything to them

 

PP did that for us when we joined them a few years ago. I think it is just to sanity-check the data before they fire it at the database.

mthomas08

mthomas08

Posted
Posted (edited)

I'm glad the info is on the Gov website, last time I saw an article, it was claiming schools can negotiate a 1 year contract if they pushed hard enough - yet I still don't know a single school that managed this.

 

We're now on our 3rd week of a live system with Bromcom and the dust is starting to settle. We had two major outages - one caused by us (a simple mistake) the other at Bromcom - both resolved very quickly.

 

Now typing up a simple report of the process and how we could have done better or differently etc.

 

I know some staff wish we kept SIMs, they knew how to use it and people don't like change but some are happy we have a new updated system and accessible from home.

 

Parents and students are next !

Edited by mthomas08
sippo

sippo

Posted
Posted

We, as a trust, have now binned SIMs for this sole reason. We have had solicitors involved.

 

Looks like we are moving to arbor or Iris. No skin off my nose. Means I can shut down yet another server. Yay!

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