Inventry Alternative

[njreynolds]

Hi

Does anyone know any good alternatives to Inventry ?

 

We bought it last year, but the hardware is 5years+ old - which is causing problems.

Apparently, this is what they give all customers even now and the spec is just no good enough.

 

Thanks

[Will.B]

SignInApp seems to be the latest thing...

Have not personally tried it, but looks excellent. Paxton integration etc

 

Runs on iPads.

[EssentialRug]

We use the basic version of Sign In App for a few of our schools and it's extremely good considering its cost. We run it on a couple of iPads

[Olliedawg]

I can vouch for SigninApp.

 

Lots of features, easy to manage, once set up it requires little to no maintenance

[Face-Man]

Sign in app is great

A lot cheaper and cloud based rather than data being stored on the local screen.

All you need is an ipad and download the app to run the free trial

[DBazeley95]

We use SignInApp at most of our schools and recommend to all remaining schools in our trust

[LeMarchand]

Another option is e-Reception Book.

[MrEprise]

We bought it last year, but the hardware is 5years+ old - which is causing problems.

Apparently, this is what they give all customers even now and the spec is just no good enough.

 

I'm curious what spec the hardware you got is?

 

We got it installed recently and I noted that the 2 units are both running a Quad-core Celeron J3455 which are barely better than the Dual-core Celeron N4020 in the Geobooks and it shows. These CPUs are not supported by Windows 11 but since I wondered how they got away with that one, I noticed they're running Windows 10 LTSC IoT edition which is still supported for a fair number of years after W10s general support ends.

 

We have a few other schools in the Trust using Inventry but we also have 2 other pre-merger schools which went for EntrySign. Not sure what the hardware for those is like but the interface seemed nicer.

[localzuk]

Another happy SignIn App customer here, using it across our 8 sites, with Bromcom integration.

[HarkNowHear]

Interesting; I'll definitely be looking at some of these alternatives - InVentry is an absolute shower.

[robslack]

We use sign in app, integrated with Azure AD, we did have it integrated with SIMS but there is an additional cost and we were not using it to write back for student sign ins.

[CTIDTech]

Sign In App:wof: for us!

[sefton]

Does Sign In write back to attendance in the MIS?

[robslack]

Yes on selected MIS systems (I Know it works on SIMS)

[localzuk]

Does Sign In write back to attendance in the MIS?

I can confirm it works with Bromcom.

 

Though, it is a double edged sword - if a child has been marked absent for, say, a medical appointment by the teacher/office, and they arrive and sign in, it will overwrite the registration that was already there. So, you may need to adapt the process you use for ensuring the right marks are in the register.

 

In reality, I guess that'd be the same problem for all sign in systems with write-back.

[TechMonkey]

Not wanting to stick up for Inventry, they are really trying my patience at the moment, but I think they don't over write any marks. Also there is a manual process to select which marks should be imported or not so it should be caught and I'm pretty sure if you have the late reasoning on it can write different marks. I'd have to check that last one.

[psydii]

Inventry have tried my patience too. Not sure what’s happened but they’ve really dropped the ball.

 

To the extent when it next comes to renew I am going to go to the hassle of re-tendering for a new system rather than putting up with their shoddy support any further.

[dhicks]

We bought it last year, but the hardware is 5years+ old - which is causing problems.

 

We are, possibly, having an Inventry system installed over the summer. What problems is the hardware supplied having? I understood their system works as a self-contained unit of some kind, as long as it can sit on our network okay and runs whatever it needs to run I wouldn't have thought hardware speed / age would be an issue, as long as spares are available in case of issues. I could be wrong there, are you finding specific issues that I could do with knowing about?

[TechMonkey]

The main issue I have is it isn't managed, unless you put it on your network and then they tend to blame anything on GPOs or our network. Their image is of 2015 LTSB, with no program to upgrade and it went out of support in 2020. The PC is the server and everything has to be able to talk to that or they just don't work, but the PC has to be rebooted nightly to get any updates and to just stay stable so often other devices get upset as they tried to contact when it was rebooting.

 

The system is just a bit flaky if you go beyond a single screen. It has that feel of a system that has been forced to expand and do more things but the underlying structure is still basically relying on it being on a single PC.

 

Administration is a pain as the UI is weird and doesn't follow conventions. It also has very limited scope for bulk editing, so there are lots of record by record updating, which isn't helped by the weird interface. Reporting is good unless you try to do anything beyond what they have thought of. Custom reports exist but can't handle anything beyond basic building blocks being put together.

 

The cloud bits are a bit hit and miss. Syncing to the app can take ages, and you have no idea if it has completed or not, except that you only have a handful of staff showing, even though a different part of the app shows the correct number of staff that are meant to be there.

 

Annoying really as when it works it is good and the visitor side works really well. But there are so many little niggles that are tricky to sort it just feels a struggle.

[tdk1069]

Completely agree with @TechMonkey.. We have yet to have a successful evac where mobile devices have logged in, synced and updated without having to force close apps, reboot phones. Clear local cache db's in apps all of which the people doing the actual evac aren't IT savvy enough to do and with it being lots of different little niggles.. Hard to document as it's never quite the same twice..... 3 year contract too.. Le'Sigh

[MrEprise]

The main issue I have is it isn't managed, unless you put it on your network and then they tend to blame anything on GPOs or our network. Their image is of 2015 LTSB, with no program to upgrade and it went out of support in 2020. The PC is the server and everything has to be able to talk to that or they just don't work, but the PC has to be rebooted nightly to get any updates and to just stay stable so often other devices get upset as they tried to contact when it was rebooting.

 

The system is just a bit flaky if you go beyond a single screen. It has that feel of a system that has been forced to expand and do more things but the underlying structure is still basically relying on it being on a single PC.

 

Just to add to this - although they installed a newer version of Windows 10 on ours so we're at least in support for a while, it's still bound by a 20 connection limit and once you have more than 1 screen and a few users connecting to the console app, this uses up the 20 connections very quickly and then you end up with screens that can't connect or users complaining that the console app doesn't work. Why they couldn't have offered a option to install the backend to a proper server is beyond me.

Edited June 21, 2023 by MrEprise

[tdk1069]

Just to add to this - although they installed a newer version of Windows 10 on ours so we're at least in support for a while, it's still bound by a 10 connection limit and once you have more than 1 screen and a few users connecting to the console app, this uses up the 10 connections very quickly and then you end up with screens that can't connect or users complaining that the console app doesn't work. Why they couldn't have offered a option to install the backend to a proper server is beyond me.

 

That could very well explain issues we are seeing! we have 4 sites, 2 touch screens per site with several mini scanners dotted around per site and then the app users on top! /facepalm

 

We often get tickets of 'mini scan station network time out error in such and such location'

[robslack]

We hardly ever have issues with sign in app. It is natively cloud based, runs on ipads (We even have it running on gen2 ones with no issues). There is an app so staff can do evacuations on their phone. If a device goes offline it will send you an email to advise.

[njreynolds]

Just to let you know that for SQL (even express) in my option the CPU & RAM make everything seem sluggish.

Its a 5th Gen i3 Mobile CPU, with 4Gb RAM. This is the spec from Q1 2015.

Occasionally, the whole system crashes/locks - which I am assuming is poor spec related.

 

The disk space is a bit concerning as well. It only has a 64Gb disk, and I only have 10Gb left after a year and this could be filled pretty quickly.

For the price of the hardware its not good enough, the PC should be at least this/last gen. I did speak to Inventry but they were pretty arrogant about it.

 

I would highly recommend you ask the spec/gen of the PC they are supplying. You have a lot more power with them BEFORE you buy, as afterwards you have none - I found this out the hard way.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

We are, possibly, having an Inventry system installed over the summer. What problems is the hardware supplied having? I understood their system works as a self-contained unit of some kind, as long as it can sit on our network okay and runs whatever it needs to run I wouldn't have thought hardware speed / age would be an issue, as long as spares are available in case of issues. I could be wrong there, are you finding specific issues that I could do with knowing about?

 

 

Just to let you know that for SQL (even express) in my option the CPU & RAM make everything seem sluggish.

Its a 5th Gen i3 Mobile CPU, with 4Gb RAM. This is the spec from Q1 2015.

Occasionally, the whole system crashes/locks - which I am assuming is poor spec related.

 

The disk space is a bit concerning as well. It only has a 64Gb disk, and I only have 10Gb left after a year and this could be filled pretty quickly.

For the price of the hardware its not good enough, the PC should be at least this/last gen. I did speak to Inventry but they were pretty arrogant about it.

 

I would highly recommend you ask the spec/gen of the PC they are supplying. You have a lot more power with them BEFORE you buy, as afterwards you have none - I found this out the hard way.

[robslack]

I am just curious what is the price that Inventry charging now days? When we looked into this 3 years ago it was nearly 5 grand for the software and 2 terminals. Sign in App is £310 per year + iPads for us so was a no brainer to go with it over inventory.