amathieson Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 Morning everyone Long time lurker, first time poster! I currently have an Impero setup in our school which I inherited. It is not really working great for us - the services often fail on clients, which is frustrating for teaching staff and technicians; the logging whilst great is patchy due to the client issues; and the whole thing is just downright slow. We have started to investigate alternatives but have yet to find the ideal replacement and I was hoping to get some advice here as to what seems to have worked best in your schools. We are looking for something which would replace the classroom management and safeguarding parts of Impero and have the following wishlist: - We’d like it to work on internal and take-home school devices, and Teams integration would be a plus. - We currently expect staff to monitor Impero captures in lessons they teach, with IT support acting as a second-line, so a solution that shows captures to classroom staff would be a plus. - We also still need the window/URL logging that Impero does. I’ve currently got a trial of classroom.cloud, which I like, and our IT teachers also like, but it separates out the classroom and safeguarding alerts, and doesn’t seem to offer the full window/web logging of Impero. I’ve also had a demo of Senso which seems to fit our requirements more, but the vague promise of a Mac client maybe in September doesn’t inspire confidence when we are both a PC and Mac shop. As a result I am a bit lost! Any advice on what you use and how it works for you would be appreciated! Many thanks
mavhc Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 Everyone's rewriting from scratch, so nothing has the depth of features but is also remote native yet Here's an incomplete, out of date, and biased comparision people can edit https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pjC6NobfCNUHt2fA1o5IkXtii4duwUNC-066HHKL-0w/edit?usp=sharing 4
CHSGM Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 Currently trialing Senso Cloud (enterprise cloud). So far, I've been really impressed. Can potentially replace a few different solutions we currently have in place (Impero, Smoothwall Monitor) 1
synaesthesia Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 We're going to Senso (we have been for the last year) but it just doesn't work on it's own in the same way. We might be expecting too much from it, but it still just isn't ready in our opinion. 1
DaveTheTech Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 I really liked NetSupport DNA, there was also the school version which was used as well. 2
CHiLL Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 The main three I tend to see used more often are NetSupport, Impero and Senso.Cloud. We are still using an older version of Impero, though we're not paying maintenance, so we have no support and no ability to upgrade to a newer version. It does fail on clients every now and again and if I can't get the service to start, a complete uninstall and reinstall of the client fixes that. We did get a quote from NetSupport, but their prices were simply too high in comparison (especially when matching Impero's full feature set). We are currently using the Safeguarding aspect of Senso.Cloud for student home devices (DfE laptops) and it works well. The rest of it was priced similarly to Impero, but offered no real advantage at the time. Plus as I mentioned, we are not currently paying anything for this older version of Impero...so aside from support, we wouldn't be benefitting much. If I did have the budget and requirement, then I'd probably be leaning more towards Senso.Cloud personally. 1
amathieson Posted June 7, 2022 Author Posted June 7, 2022 Thanks everyone, I'm glad to know that I'm not alone in having the Impero client failing and also in not finding the panacea replacement! I'll take a look at Lanschool as suggested above, and potentially set up a Senso trial. We have perpetual Impero licensing so it may well be that we cancel maintenance on it and keep it around for the logging whilst using one of the cloud based services for the classroom/safeguarding stuff.
Ex-MGSTech Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 We went to SENSO a few years ago,it does 99% of what Impero did plus works on all devices in and out of school The reporting and logging lacks a bit compared with impero though... 1
mavhc Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 Yeah, I'm not giving money to Senso, not a moral option
synaesthesia Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 We went to SENSO a few years ago,it does 99% of what Impero did plus works on all devices in and out of school The reporting and logging lacks a bit compared with impero though... 99% seems very optimistic!
supportman Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 We went Senso, works great! We also have ABTutor cloud which is nice but doesnt have Office 365 integration yet. We give staff a choice currently. 1
Aprice Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 I've been through AB Tutor, NetSupport and Impero in the last two years or so, have to say Impero is probably the preferred although I still think it could be a lot better. 1
TechMonkey Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 Yeah, I'm not giving money to Senso, not a moral option Could you expand?
eddyc Posted June 7, 2022 Posted June 7, 2022 We use the NetSupport suite. It’s really flexible and really powerful 1
Wubbalubbadub Posted June 8, 2022 Posted June 8, 2022 We are a trust of 22 schools and we are heavily invested in Senso. We are going for a Zero Trust environment, so I was pretty limited in options though. It has had it's ups and downs and I don't think it is worth investing in the Asset manager part if you are using Endpoint Manager, but for the most part it seems reliable these days. Support has improved a lot! I had an issue recently and I couldn't shake off the support guy, he couldn't have done more! I think he would have driven over to our office just to sit it through with me if I asked.. so I am impressed! We also got a new account manager who I'm pretty happy with too.
Fox Posted June 8, 2022 Posted June 8, 2022 I am also considering Impero replacements because it is unreliable for many things and always has been, but it does for now. Mav, I am a bit concerned that you say Senso is not a 'moral' choice and I don't understand why you can't tell us why. Assuming your comment is based on facts. Surely you can not be told off for stating facts?
Wubbalubbadub Posted June 13, 2022 Posted June 13, 2022 Yes, but then I'd get told off again Maybe, behind the red door it?
Mattjones47 Posted June 13, 2022 Posted June 13, 2022 (disclosure I am from NetSupport)... Have a look at NetSupport's classroom.cloud solution
BFCIT Posted June 16, 2022 Posted June 16, 2022 Net Support here, moved away from Impero due to issues. Net Support is fab and support is top notch. 2
robslack Posted July 1, 2022 Posted July 1, 2022 We moved to Senso from Impero over 4 years ago and still fells that Senso is in development. They are always promising improvements in the next release but they never seem to appear.
DrBeaker Posted July 1, 2022 Posted July 1, 2022 Net Support here, moved away from Impero due to issues. Net Support is fab and support is top notch.Is RM Tutor a rebadged/reskinned version of Net Support?
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