ESS SIMS 3 Year Contracts

[bobsmith]

You can change MIS whenever you want - the ONLY issue at stake with the whole ESS fiasco is how much longer you pay for SIMS after you've dumped it in the bin.

 

Arbor seem to be offering a solution which even invalidates that concern as they won't charge you while you're still paying for sims (or something to that effect).

 

Does Bromcom offer a similar workaround to save paying for 2 MIS at the same time?

[FragglePete]

I see the annual contract licensing portal has gone live today. Trying to entice schools to move to a new 3 year subscription model with 'significantly lower inflationary increases' - in other words, sign up to start your 3 year contract again otherwise we'll just increase the price more and more each year.

 

There is no shame to this company (in my own personal opinion).

 

Pete

[psydii]

 

There is no shame to this company (in my own personal opinion).

 

 

Montegu Private equity want their dividends (or perhaps, as is common in these sorts of things, their loan interest repayments)

[howartp]

I see the annual contract licensing portal has gone live today. Trying to entice schools to move to a new 3 year subscription model with 'significantly lower inflationary increases' - in other words, sign up to start your 3 year contract again otherwise we'll just increase the price more and more each year.

 

Our new subscription is £2600 cheaper than our existing renewal.

 

But I had to laugh at the previous email where, to paraphrase:

• "Customers have the option of a single subscription, support and hosting contract, including first- and second-line support
  
• "Your current renewal includes 1st, 2nd and 3rd-line support"
  
• "Your new subscription only includes 3rd-line support"
  
• "You must, additionally, buy one of our shiny new support packages for 1st- and 2nd-line support, or go to a third party, but we're not going to publish the prices of these anywhere"
  

[howartp]

but we're not going to publish the prices of these anywhere

Apologies, just found them in the portal.

 

So Foundation Support makes our "discounted subscription" more than what we're paying at present.

[Bromcom_John]

You can change MIS whenever you want - the ONLY issue at stake with the whole ESS fiasco is how much longer you pay for SIMS after you've dumped it in the bin.

 

Arbor seem to be offering a solution which even invalidates that concern as they won't charge you while you're still paying for sims (or something to that effect).

 

Does Bromcom offer a similar workaround to save paying for 2 MIS at the same time?

 

HI @bobsmith, short answer is "Yes", We have always offered buy out options, even before the ESS debacle came into view.

I won't go into details on here, but this link takes to our page that explains it.

Alternatively you can reach out to our team, myself included, to discuss it in more detail.

[enjay]

Our new subscription is £2600 cheaper than our existing renewal.

 

Same here. Our new subscription is basically the price we paid last year, the renewal of our existing is £2500 more.

[howartp]

Same here. Our new subscription is basically the price we paid last year, the renewal of our existing is £2500 more.

Does that include the mandatory support option? If we add the cheapest support package to the subscription model, it becomes more expensive than we're paying now.

[PotNoodleTech]

We've been instructed by our LEA not to even try and open the new ESS portal.

[mavhc]

We've been instructed by our LEA not to even try and open the new ESS portal.

 

I assume because they've played Doom before

[enjay]

Does anyone have a copy of the 3-year agreement we signed back in December 2021? I want to check the wording to see what price increases we "agreed" to, so I can tell our Business Manager what to expect in April 2024 if we don't switch to the subscription model.

[Ditto]

HI @bobsmith, short answer is "Yes", We have always offered buy out options, even before the ESS debacle came into view.

I won't go into details on here, but this link takes to our page that explains it.

Alternatively you can reach out to our team, myself included, to discuss it in more detail.

If I understand correctly, Bromcom cover 20% over each of the following 5 years, so a 5 year contract is need to cover the full amount. I think that is a reasonable offer, but a third over 3 years would be so much more compelling.

 

Arbor offer what they call 'Pay for One', which appears to mean you keep paying ESS, but nothing to Arbor for all the core license fees (Attendance, Behaviour, Progress Tracking, Census and Statutory Reporting, Custom Report Builder, Student and Staff Profiles, Email and SMS) until you escape ESS's grip! This scheme obviously needs more careful review as there are a few more details to work through.

 

Has anyone made use of either of these schemes? Ultimately I think both are additional incentives to move.

[Cat_Jam148]

Has anyone made use of either of these schemes? Ultimately I think both are additional incentives to move.

 

We're currently going through the migration process to Arbor and made use of the pay for one. I think it is a great offer and played a fairly large part in convincing SLT and the finance team it was the best time to switch.

 

I will mention that when we went through procurement with Bromcom, we were never informed of the buy back scheme.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Cat_Jam148

[JamesWeatherill]

Hi there,

 

Just to chip in and try to add some context. Whatever new MIS provider you go with, someone will have to continue to pay for your SIMS license as it's contractual.

 

Arbor are committing to cover your SIMS license cost for upto 3 years by offering equivalent functionality for free, so net there should be no difference to you switching now vs waiting until your contract expires. Indeed you should be able to make a saving by consolidating some of your system spend. Link to the pay for one offer which explains more is here.

 

Industry standard MIS contract terms for Arbor, ScholarPack, IRIS/iSAMS, Horizons/Pupil Asset, Compass, Schoolpod and Integris are 3 years then annual rolling (do correct me if I'm wrong!)

[enjay]

I'm just running the numbers here, and I don't understand the price increase. Last year we paid around £8500, the AE agreement states an increase of 2.5% plus CPIH from 120 days prior which according to ONS' website was 9.2%. Therefore our renewal in April should be 8500 + 2.5% + 9.2%, which I make £9500. So, how is our quote for over £11K? The agreement does say they can increase it by more than that (with no limit!) as long as they "serve a valid notice of this change". Now, I don't think just whacking the price up in the renewal portal constitutes serving a valid notice!

[Giblets2]

Just in case people don't know apparently there was a test case which means that you can re-enact the one year break clause if you didn't sign up (or like with us they denied all knowledge, even though we did!).

 

MOVE QUICKLY THOUGH BECAUSE THE DEADLINE FOR DOING THIS IS FRIDAY 10TH FEB!

[Mako]

We have submitted an application for the new break clause but we're not hopeful. The arbiter requested more information from us last week and the application is ongoing.

[bobsmith]

@JohnCondon We switched when the ESS debacle broke - you actually did our sales meeting! - we had no need of the incentives as we timed it pretty much perfectly.

 

Even though the honeymoon is over for me and I'm starting to chafe a little bit about my limitations with bromcom (dunno if it's them or me yet) I only need 5 minutes with a SIMS install to remind myself why almost any modern MIS is preferable.

 

There's some bits of SIMS I get nostalgic for, but there's many more that I don't, because the new stuff allows me to automate ENTIRE jobs.

[DrCheese]

So now getting increasingly pushy emails to logon to the portal and pick an option. If you go to your existing contract, it's marked as "Historic" & if you try to review it throws up a box more or less pushing you over to the new contract.

 

ESS

• STOP ACTING LIKE CON ARTISTS - This is shady behaviour and you know it.
  
• STOP TRYING TO PRETEND SIMS CONNECTED IS A MODERN CLOUD-BASED SOLUTION (You already know this, because your video on this page is so utterly useless & shows nothing (https://www.ess-sims.co.uk/products-and-services/sims-connected)
  
• STOP TRYING TO KILL OFF SUPPORT UNITS - THEY ARE THE ONLY REASON YOU STILL EXIST
  

 

It's like they're going out of their way to get rid of as many customers as they want - They may keep underhandledly signing schools up to long contracts, but if they keep burning good will it'll backfire longterm.

[Ditto]

Hi there,

 

Just to chip in and try to add some context. Whatever new MIS provider you go with, someone will have to continue to pay for your SIMS license as it's contractual.

 

Arbor are committing to cover your SIMS license cost for upto 3 years by offering equivalent functionality for free, so net there should be no difference to you switching now vs waiting until your contract expires. Indeed you should be able to make a saving by consolidating some of your system spend. Link to the pay for one offer which explains more is here.

 

Industry standard MIS contract terms for Arbor, ScholarPack, IRIS/iSAMS, Horizons/Pupil Asset, Compass, Schoolpod and Integris are 3 years then annual rolling (do correct me if I'm wrong!)

 

I meant to post this way back, but 'restore' showed I didn't! Thanks for confirming James. I pleased to confirm the link I posted a couple of posts earlier (a the time!) is exactly as yours - maybe I should come and work for Arbor .

On the contract of 3 years, then rolling, all I can add is a few years ago, I used to negotiate with Advanced Learning for Progresso in a growing all-through school. OneAdvanced offered me 1, 3 or 5 year renewals, progressively getting low per pupil/month costs and at the time, I don't recall an annual rise being built in. Their model was to then balance that expected income with the level of investment it could make. Now one might argue given their market share over the last few years, it's not a good model, but what I'm not hearing via the forums is discounts for signing up to longer contracts.

[Ditto]

So now getting increasingly pushy emails to logon to the portal and pick an option. If you go to your existing contract, it's marked as "Historic" & if you try to review it throws up a box more or less pushing you over to the new contract.

 

ESS

• STOP ACTING LIKE CON ARTISTS - This is shady behaviour and you know it.
  
• STOP TRYING TO PRETEND SIMS CONNECTED IS A MODERN CLOUD-BASED SOLUTION (You already know this, because your video on this page is so utterly useless & shows nothing (https://www.ess-sims.co.uk/products-and-services/sims-connected)
  
• STOP TRYING TO KILL OFF SUPPORT UNITS - THEY ARE THE ONLY REASON YOU STILL EXIST
  

 

It's like they're going out of their way to get rid of as many customers as they want - They may keep underhandledly signing schools up to long contracts, but if they keep burning good will it'll backfire longterm.

I'm not so sure we'll even need to wait 'longterm'. I know there are a good number of 'don't like change' heads out there, but equally I see the sheep syndrome in action and with the current rate of movers, I think it could accelerate more in the near future.

[enjay]

[*]STOP TRYING TO KILL OFF SUPPORT UNITS - THEY ARE THE ONLY REASON YOU STILL EXIST

 

I declined to answer the question about how much we pay our support unit, I don't see that's in any way relevant to my licence with ESS.

[supportman]

I declined to answer the question about how much we pay our support unit, I don't see that's in any way relevant to my licence with ESS.

 

Paying for support twice is just another weird thing with Sims.

 

I mean why are their normal support lines not capable of doing this?

[enjay]

Paying for support twice is just another weird thing with Sims.

 

You don't pay twice. You pay for your ESS licence and then pay more for support if you want it.

[mavhc]

Imagine if the software just worked and you didn't need to pay for support