Are ESS trying to make it harder to migrate away from to SIMS?

[vikpaw]

This might explain why when you come to the end of your contract with ESS you have to provide written confirmation of deletion of all there software (understandably) but also your database(s) including all backups.

I think this is common in many contracts. When I used SIMS we used to do it on the basis of it being a perpetual license so you didn't have to get rid of it. If you stopped paying annual maintenance then you'd lose updates and support and most people wouldn't want to manually deal with CENSUS etc. I believe this perpetual right to keep it was confirmed by senior SIMS staff. I gather something has changed when they were taken over, as they mention it in their guidance docs (from one of the linked articles) that it's now a subscription model. I suppose this means at some point everyone signed a new license type.

Interestingly, when we migrated one of our schools was using SIMS Hosted. We contacted them explaining we were planning a migration, and they happily transferred to us via SFTP a full backup of the database as requested, to be passed to our new provider…

We did the same for 2 schools within the last 6 months, same result. Docs too.

I raised this earlier, but is the ESS code available within the database in a readable format or is it encrypted? Forced decryption of the document store wouldn't be acceptable, but would make you wonder about the level of security of the code and/or the document store. Their statement about access to data via API's seems to be regarded by some as not sufficient/convenient/time efficient. This story clearly has some way to run. It's sad that the topic of discussion for the MIS market place is basically legal warfare amongst the top 3 players - would be so much better to be discussing improved performance, stability, availability and improved functionality from them all.

 

In some ways I get where ESS are coming from, but I think reaction to their 3 year contract saga, which remember CMA investigation led to changes, leaves them on the back foot in terms of perceptions here.

From memory, it's not encrypted. They should just encrypt it if they are really concerned, but that will make it much harder for them to give the backup out when the customer is leaving.

Since when has there been any sort of encryption on the SIMS SQL database other than what's provided with the SA password? What makes the tables in a standard SQL database proprietary enough to be considered IP? have we all been naughty people for diving straight into said database because in the time it takes SIMS to run a report, we could extract the data ourselves and leave enough time for breakfast, second breakfast and brunch?

 

It's not the standard table that would be copyrighted, its the schema: the relationship between those tables.

Something I wanted to come back to. IP is often protected with 'patents'. Does anyone have the appropriate SIMS license and/or other documentation that claims patent ownership or anything else that is relevant to IP?

 

a far cry from IP in my opinion. I mean it is, but who on earth wants to steal that schema? It's horrific. Having unpicked it a few times to do an MIS migration, i wouldn't choose to copy it.

 

I agree, that officially, there are risks involved in going directly to the tables, and it's quite a big burden to bear by the new MIS. I would hope it's well written into the contract, because if something changes in the schema and data is mixed up, that's a big problem. Not sure what protocols the new MIS offer for data checking. I've come across a couple of suppliers who will use (even provide) scripts, and have often declared they are out of date, or will only work with vers. 7.x for example as a warning.

 

We change a lot of MIS, and there are quite a few suppliers who don't want their database to be shared. I think this is reasonable, but they will offer help to get data out by other means as is the law.

 

We're doing a lot of migrations to iSAMS and we're providing the data into import spreadsheets, so the onus is on us to check and verify all the data, regardless of where it came from, and we use a mixture of methods. Built-in reports, API, scripts, SQL queries. There are also a load of data checks, QA etc. that is done on the spreadsheet before submission.

 

How does it work if you just hand over a .bak file?

 

I remember when Arbor first launched at BETT and they gave you a RasPI that you could take away and plug into a terminal at school, log in to SIMS and it would extract the data, and upload to a trial instance in the cloud. Sounds like a safer method! I never did it of course - plug a randomly provided device into a work computer - oo-er

 

Whatever happened to SIF?

[dmj]

We're doing a lot of migrations to iSAMS and we're providing the data into import spreadsheets, so the onus is on us to check and verify all the data, regardless of where it came from, and we use a mixture of methods. Built-in reports, API, scripts, SQL queries. There are also a load of data checks, QA etc. that is done on the spreadsheet before submission.

 

How does it work if you just hand over a .bak file?

 

With SQL queries presumably.

 

Whatever happened to SIF?

 

Merged into a4l. The spec is going strong, but a few notable absences (in terms of members)

 

https://data.a4l.org/sif-specifications/

[Damon]

@vikpaw If you mean using SQL queries to pull data from SIMS then you might fall foul of these rules despite being the customer. ESS are telling third parties that they cannot use SQL queries to gather data and must go through the API which we all know means the crappy command reporter!

[vikpaw]

With SQL queries presumably.

 

 

 

Merged into a4l. The spec is going strong, but a few notable absences (in terms of members)

 

https://data.a4l.org/sif-specifications/

 

Can't see a single UK member, unless i'm in the wrong place.

[vikpaw]

@vikpaw If you mean using SQL queries to pull data from SIMS then you might fall foul of these rules despite being the customer. ESS are telling third parties that they cannot use SQL queries to gather data and must go through the API which we all know means the crappy command reporter!

 

Not worried because in a huge contradiction they provide the backup on request. I was just trying to point out that we do it as an end user and so take ownership of the risk for data accuracy. If an MIS is just asking for the backup from the new customer and then pulling out the data, then I'd want to understand what processes are in place to check and verify that data. Do they just whack it into the cloud on a sandbox or is the customer expected to verify it in excel / other format.

 

Don't knock command reporter - it's been a friend to many of us in the early days.

[DODICT]

The good thing is when you fail to respect your customers and clearly don't understand your customers, then you will lose those customers. I think the currrent market movement is a wonderful example of cause and effect.

[dmj]

Can't see a single UK member, unless i'm in the wrong place.

 

It was a long time ago, and I wasn't directly involved, but If I recall correctly Capita complained that the spec wasn't sufficient but also refused to help work on it and withdrew (I personally believed they never wanted interoperability, and that was a big selling point for its current owners ). I'm not sure if Bromcom were ever involved and Arbour weren't around back then. The government cancelled BECTA and the support in the UK kind of dried up as none of the major providers would play and the government wasn't directing them to do so. It's still big in North America, on version 4.3 by the looks of it. Perhaps some of the larger MAT's would pick it up and integrate the spec into their tenders, I think thats the only way it would get traction.

[Rob_D]

Not worried because in a huge contradiction they provide the backup on request. I was just trying to point out that we do it as an end user and so take ownership of the risk for data accuracy. If an MIS is just asking for the backup from the new customer and then pulling out the data, then I'd want to understand what processes are in place to check and verify that data. Do they just whack it into the cloud on a sandbox or is the customer expected to verify it in excel / other format.

Don't knock command reporter - it's been a friend to many of us in the early days.

I can't say to what they did in the background, but when we moved to Bromcom, our data was uploaded to a testing environment, partially for us to learn on, but we were also told to check all the data had imported okay.

[paulkerton]

This could all be mitigated by the DfE requiring a standardised export and transfer feature for all MIS providers as part of their framework agreements, which would make it possible to have a single click export and import functionality for data (that would obviously be hidden away by providers until required).

 

Though remember when BECTA existed, and attempted to make Promethean and SMART play nice and have a standardised format or a way to export between each other's formats? Then BECTA was shut down... I can't imagine the idea of true data portability will cross the minds of anyone during the next framework being put together...

[ABR82]

I can't say to what they did in the background, but when we moved to Bromcom, our data was uploaded to a testing environment, partially for us to learn on, but we were also told to check all the data had imported okay.

Same with us moving to Arbor - there were several rounds of uploads to the test site, after each round we had a bunch of checks and things to run and report back.

 

As with the second SIMS blogpost claiming they didn't know that people were using backups to migrate until recently - can they really write that with a straight face? Everyone knew. Schools knew, Support providers knew, MISs knew, and SIMS knew because so many people asked for backups files from them for the express purpose of moving.

 

I've said it before.

 

Look at how they've behaved over the past few years - without looking at the product, do you want to be doing business with people who act like this?

 

Desperation from a bunch of people not competent enough to do their homework properly before shelling out half a billion on an ageing, outdated, teetering monopoly provider just beginning to nosedive, and their every action since has precipitated their own decline and loss of market share.

[JATSO]

Going to put this one out there.

We are Sims OnPrem

Contract for Sims Connected added inadvertently to our current contract on the 6th Feb, thought nothing of it until we received an email on 12th February saying Onboarding for Sims Connected.

Went back to ESS portal and can see nothing.

Trying to cancel at the moment but not being given much hope quoting 28hrs after ticking or signing whatever it is.

 

My question really is there a legal timeframe for contracts signed online? I was under the impression 14-28 days.

 

Any takers please.

[Ditto]

Going to put this one out there.

We are Sims OnPrem

Contract for Sims Connected added inadvertently to our current contract on the 6th Feb, thought nothing of it until we received an email on 12th February saying Onboarding for Sims Connected.

Went back to ESS portal and can see nothing.

Trying to cancel at the moment but not being given much hope quoting 28hrs after ticking or signing whatever it is.

 

My question really is there a legal timeframe for contracts signed online? I was under the impression 14-28 days.

 

Any takers please.

No idea really but I know sometimes people confuse business laws with domestic laws. You probably need to get your business manager talking to legal advisors.

[JATSO]

No idea really but I know sometimes people confuse business laws with domestic laws. You probably need to get your business manager talking to legal advisors.

 

Just reading their 23 pages of TC's not when one mention of a cooling off period.

[Theblacksheep]

 

My question really is there a legal timeframe for contracts signed online? I was under the impression 14-28 days.

 

Any takers please.

 

For business, unless it is in the contract (like a cooling off period) then once its signed, you're in for the duration.

 

This is not legal advise etc.

[PotNoodleTech]

Going to put this one out there.

We are Sims OnPrem

Contract for Sims Connected added inadvertently to our current contract on the 6th Feb, thought nothing of it until we received an email on 12th February saying Onboarding for Sims Connected.

Went back to ESS portal and can see nothing.

Trying to cancel at the moment but not being given much hope quoting 28hrs after ticking or signing whatever it is.

 

My question really is there a legal timeframe for contracts signed online? I was under the impression 14-28 days.

 

Any takers please.

 

You almost make it sound like it happened on it's own!

 

Did someone from your school actually go through the portal and sign up to a new three year without realising what they were doing??

 

If so, I would guess you're screwed.

[Damon]

To be fair, all the schools and support teams I've spoken to say that the portal seemed to be setup to lead you into making a mistake. Like buying something on Amazon when you don't want Prime.

[Damon]

Not worried because in a huge contradiction they provide the backup on request. I was just trying to point out that we do it as an end user and so take ownership of the risk for data accuracy. If an MIS is just asking for the backup from the new customer and then pulling out the data, then I'd want to understand what processes are in place to check and verify that data. Do they just whack it into the cloud on a sandbox or is the customer expected to verify it in excel / other format.

Don't knock command reporter - it's been a friend to many of us in the early days.

I'm not knocking the use of SQL, most power users have made the most of all options available over the past couple of decades. I'm just meaning that regardless of reason or how justifiable it is to use SQL, ESS are saying it's a breach of contract.

 

And yes, your expectations are correct regarding how MIS suppliers work with those backups. There would be an initial check by the supplier to check integrity and then the results are shared with the customer to do some verification too. Which does make that element a bit of a moot point from ESS. I've never heard of them taking an interest in the accuracy of data migrations in the past.

[JATSO]

You almost make it sound like it happened on it's own!

 

Did someone from your school actually go through the portal and sign up to a new three year without realising what they were doing??

 

If so, I would guess you're screwed.

A bit of a pointless comment and not very helpful.

 

But thanks anyway.

 

Not my job to check on my managers but to help them when errors or mistakes are made using IT.

 

You've probably never ticked a wrong box before.

 

I know I have in 23 years of doing IT.

[JATSO]

To be fair, all the schools and support teams I've spoken to say that the portal seemed to be setup to lead you into making a mistake. Like buying something on Amazon when you don't want Prime.

The ESS portal is not something I have seen before or been involved with in the past, I was sent a notification email of our impending onboarding which was sent to Admin originally that's when I was asked the question.

 

"Are we moving to Connected?

I said "not as far as I know I will check with our local authority"

 

Considering the profile is blank now except for the users profile with no link or way to see what was completed at the time. On speaking to the office they are adamant they only selected what they have done for past 4 years which is 2 selections for the support for OnPrem.

 

Mistakes happen we have all made them.

Hopefully it might get cancelled we live in hope, but if not they might just have to bite the bullet and see where they stand legally.

Out of my hands really.

[Damon]

One thing to warn your colleagues is that SIMS connected is a 3 year contract. So even if the school have opted to have their rolling year of SIMS to keep options open, they will be signing up to the hosting element for 3 years regardless. Hopefully they can get it removed from the contract.

[nicholab]

If you can’t get it sorted I just not pay then it can get sorted out in court.

[Bromcom-PR]

Going to put this one out there.

We are Sims OnPrem

Contract for Sims Connected added inadvertently to our current contract on the 6th Feb, thought nothing of it until we received an email on 12th February saying Onboarding for Sims Connected.

Went back to ESS portal and can see nothing.

Trying to cancel at the moment but not being given much hope quoting 28hrs after ticking or signing whatever it is.

 

My question really is there a legal timeframe for contracts signed online? I was under the impression 14-28 days.

 

Any takers please.

 

Please drop me a direct message and let’s see if we can help.

[PotNoodleTech]

A bit of a pointless comment and not very helpful.

 

But thanks anyway.

 

Not my job to check on my managers but to help them when errors or mistakes are made using IT.

 

You've probably never ticked a wrong box before.

 

I know I have in 23 years of doing IT.

 

Sorry old bean - I did not mean it to sound so flippant and unhelpful I just wanted to clarify if your school has actually signed a new contract or not.

 

It's been proven before that if a staff member signs a legally binding contract the school will be held to it, even if that staff member technically did not have responsibility/authorisation to sign contracts like that - e.g, a teacher.

 

Once it's been signed by a member of staff your going to have an uphill legal struggle to get out of it.

 

Our LA made a massive fuss about no one signing anything to do with ESS/SIMS without the SIMS or Legal team being with us on a teams call too!

[JATSO]

Sorry old bean - I did not mean it to sound so flippant and unhelpful I just wanted to clarify if your school has actually signed a new contract or not.

 

It's been proven before that if a staff member signs a legally binding contract the school will be held to it, even if that staff member technically did not have responsibility/authorisation to sign contracts like that - e.g, a teacher.

 

Once it's been signed by a member of staff your going to have an uphill legal struggle to get out of it.

 

Our LA made a massive fuss about no one signing anything to do with ESS/SIMS without the SIMS or Legal team being with us on a teams call too!

No problem.[emoji846]

 

It's all been sorted and I have been informed that the SIMs Connected element will be taken off our invoice, which is what we wanted.

Just something to watch out for in the future.

Hopefully they will build some kind of double check before accepting a tick in a box as full commitment.[emoji120]

[PotNoodleTech]

Wow I am glad you got that sorted in the end well done.