Bromcom Dinner/Canteen Module

[Olliedawg]

Hey all,

 

Does anybody use Bromcom/MCAS dinner module in a secondary school & if so how is it? We currently use ParentPay / Vericool, but looking to cut out the middleman (Parentpay) to save us a bit of money.

 

TIA

[supportman]

Hey all,

 

Does anybody use Bromcom/MCAS dinner module in a secondary school & if so how is it? We currently use ParentPay / Vericool, but looking to cut out the middleman (Parentpay) to save us a bit of money.

 

TIA

Yes we moved from ScoPay to Bromcom payments with Biostore as our cashless.

 

Works very well and we've had no issues since it was introduced. So nice to have an integrated system with the Bromcom MCAS parent portal taking all payments as well as delivering data to the parents. Just one login (which they are also improving as well right now to make it easier to remember).

[mthomas08]

Yes we moved from ScoPay to Bromcom payments with Biostore as our cashless.

 

Works very well and we've had no issues since it was introduced. So nice to have an integrated system with the Bromcom MCAS parent portal taking all payments as well as delivering data to the parents. Just one login (which they are also improving as well right now to make it easier to remember).

 

No issues at all? No parent complaints?

Previously did you generally deal with parent issues/complaints on ParentPay?

Any missing features?

Can parents save CC details? Apparently this is missing?

 

Do you link up to the Civica (previously NRS) cashless catering system?

 

This is on our list to sort out.

[Olliedawg]

Yes we moved from ScoPay to Bromcom payments with Biostore as our cashless.

 

Works very well and we've had no issues since it was introduced. So nice to have an integrated system with the Bromcom MCAS parent portal taking all payments as well as delivering data to the parents. Just one login (which they are also improving as well right now to make it easier to remember).

Thank you for the response - I've only really heard good things about it, thought i'd ask some fellow IT folk on here . SLT are keen to make the move away from ParentPay.

 

I would like to stay with Vericool, although they do not currently support MCAS/Bromcom Payment with their till system (it is in development apparently).

[gszech]

If the Bromcom services are down what happens to a school that uses Bromcom for dinner, finance, MIS, communication, safeguarding, exams and payments?

 

For example when SIMS server goes down, school loses MIS/FMS systems, but can still function fine with paper registers and other systems will work without SIMS.

[Jaan]

We use Bromcom and Civica here. no issues.

[localzuk]

We use Bromcom and Fastrak.

 

We've had a few little sync issues occasionally, but easily solved by IRIS for us as the issues were always the Fastrak side of things.

 

Regarding MCAS. It works. Parents aren't hugely impressed with the MCAS app though in general. Not got specifics though, just the general feedback I've had from others in the Trust.

[supportman]

No issues at all? No parent complaints?

Absolutely nothing in 2 years now, just does what its supposed to. Its cloud based as well so they manage all the API and linkage.

Previously did you generally deal with parent issues/complaints on ParentPay?

We were on Scopay and it was awful at syncing and breaking all the time. We had DLL issues, task schedualer issues, SSL issues. Literally the worst!

Any missing features?

Not that I can think of, even refunds work well

Can parents save CC details? Apparently this is missing?

I don't think so, but when I do it Chrome just remembers all my card details. Its an easy process.

[supportman]

If the Bromcom services are down what happens to a school that uses Bromcom for dinner, finance, MIS, communication, safeguarding, exams and payments?

 

For example when SIMS server goes down, school loses MIS/FMS systems, but can still function fine with paper registers and other systems will work without SIMS.

 

Bromcom has gone down a few times or been slow, but generally its fixed within minutes or the odd hour.

 

Like any cloud offering, they work feverishly to get it back up and usually you just sit back and wait.

 

We certainly haven't had any issues where the school has come to a stop, just a few odd frustrations at the start of term when they were scaling fast.

[Jaan]

We haven't had any issues when Bromcom goes down.

 

From what i understand, the civica system stores transactions locally until connection to bromcom is restored and it just sorts itself out. We've had the odd individual account that has had a balance issue. But civica support tend to sort that ASAP