Should the school I work for get Senso Enterprise - Advice needed

[EduDISC]

Hello all,

 

I work for an independent school that is looking to move away from a physical server to a cloud based system as we are expanding to another site which is located in a separate building so we need to manage the IT of both sites from one ideally.  We were recommended by our external IT Support team to get Senso but I have been reading online that it isn't very reliable. A lot of these posts are over a year old though so I am unsure if this has improved at all.

 

We are looking at the Senso Enterprise as we are after both a Filtering and Monitoring system and a Classroom Management tool.

 

From those with experience with Senso - Has it improved over the past year? Is the Filtering and Monitoring system good? Is the Classroom Management tool good? Are there any other features that stand out with Senso? Is there support team good? What's the most common issue you face with Senso?

 

We are booking in a demo with them so we can see it for ourselves but I am very aware we will get the sales pitch.

 

I would like people to separate their views on the Filtering and Monitoring system and the Classroom Management tool please as if one is good and the other isn't that could still be a viable option for us.

 

Thanks for your help with this.

[Steve21]

Having moved to somewhere recently that uses Senso I can’t say my experience is good with it

 

Everything just seems a bit off in terms of how it works compared to other products

 

For example, set a group of machines to shutdown and random ones don’t but next day it’s a different set

 

Logging for safeguarding we find random machines just stop reporting and logging until reboot

 

One day a machine will connect next it won’t 

 

etc etc

 

We will be looking at alternatives for renewal as we just want something we know works and can trust to get reliable and repeatable actions

 

Steve

[localzuk]

My general experience of it over the last year is that it isn't particularly reliable. Machines randomly not appearing in the console for random staff. When I use the admin tools to run a command on a group of machines, it'll randomly not run on some.

 

We moved away from it for monitoring, using Smoothwall Monitor for that now, so Senso is only used for classroom management type stuff. And honestly, once the contract is up, I'll be looking elsewhere. I used Classroom Cloud and ABTutor previously, and both were considerably more reliable.

[machy]

 Has it improved over the past year?

No

Is the Filtering and Monitoring system good?

If it picks everything up, its ok, but over and under sensitive and the defaults are stupid. 

🌽is just an alert in the portal but "ru18" generates an email 

Is the Classroom Management tool good?

No

Are there any other features that stand out with Senso?

Dark mode is nice

Is there support team good?

hahahaha no

There answers are generally "disable your firewall" or "its your network" with nothing else useful to diagnose issues

What's the most common issue you face with Senso?

Broadcast is slow and unreliable, (if) it starts to broadcast to a classroom of computers, it can take up to a minute to start displaying and then it can be laggy. Doesn't show mouse courser and they are refusing to support V1 Inbuilt broadcast

There standalone broadcast version works significantly better, but requires 2 bits of software to be installed, (browser) open and the teacher to copy and paste a code from software 1 into browser for every time they broadcast.

 

The portal can take up to 5 minutes to show logged in users

 

WOL Service is a flip of a coin if it works and then its dog slow

 

Block internet, Apps etc is slow to update (both turn on and off) and doesn't work if the app is already open. IE Block internet will not work if they already have a browser open. 

 

If multiple users are logged in, it can stop internet from working and break other senso tools

 

Broadcast and lock screen can be broken out of with some key binds 

 

The "logon" bulk computer tool does it in a stupid way (by setting the autologon reg key and restarting the logon service) This means that sometimes when the pc restarts it will login to the last bulk logged in account. If you have an AUP On the logon screen this needs to be clicked to log on. and when you use the logon tool it also drops all the pcs of the portal for a few minutes 

 

 

All the remote tech tools, IE Remote script, run command, open program etc are unreliable 

 

Getting thumbnails and remote view to work can be dark magic in itself 

 

 

 

If you had a school of very well behaved kids, it would probably be great, (yknow the type where you just have to say get off the games once every couple of lessons) 

 

 

[Iain.Faulkner]

2 hours ago, machy said:

 Has it improved over the past year?

No

Is the Filtering and Monitoring system good?

If it picks everything up, its ok, but over and under sensitive and the defaults are stupid. 

🌽is just an alert in the portal but "ru18" generates an email 

Is the Classroom Management tool good?

No

Are there any other features that stand out with Senso?

Dark mode is nice

Is there support team good?

hahahaha no

There answers are generally "disable your firewall" or "its your network" with nothing else useful to diagnose issues

What's the most common issue you face with Senso?

Broadcast is slow and unreliable, (if) it starts to broadcast to a classroom of computers, it can take up to a minute to start displaying and then it can be laggy. Doesn't show mouse courser and they are refusing to support V1 Inbuilt broadcast

There standalone broadcast version works significantly better, but requires 2 bits of software to be installed, (browser) open and the teacher to copy and paste a code from software 1 into browser for every time they broadcast.

 

The portal can take up to 5 minutes to show logged in users

 

WOL Service is a flip of a coin if it works and then its dog slow

 

Block internet, Apps etc is slow to update (both turn on and off) and doesn't work if the app is already open. IE Block internet will not work if they already have a browser open. 

 

If multiple users are logged in, it can stop internet from working and break other senso tools

 

Broadcast and lock screen can be broken out of with some key binds 

 

The "logon" bulk computer tool does it in a stupid way (by setting the autologon reg key and restarting the logon service) This means that sometimes when the pc restarts it will login to the last bulk logged in account. If you have an AUP On the logon screen this needs to be clicked to log on. and when you use the logon tool it also drops all the pcs of the portal for a few minutes 

 

 

All the remote tech tools, IE Remote script, run command, open program etc are unreliable 

 

Getting thumbnails and remote view to work can be dark magic in itself 

 

 

 

If you had a school of very well behaved kids, it would probably be great, (yknow the type where you just have to say get off the games once every couple of lessons) 

 

 

 

We've been using Senso for a few years, and I would say that this is a very accurate description of our experience with Senso as a product and their support team.

[EduDISC]

Thank you for all of your replies. It has been really helpful.

 

Shame to hear that everyone's experience with them seems to be negative especially the Filtering and Monitoring side.

 

Definitely given me a lot to think about.

 

Thanks

[Sephiroth]

Our experience is similar to that above. We've used it now for several years and will likely be replacing it when the contact is up. We use Lightspeed for filtering, so don't use that element of Senso though. For what it's worth, we've had reported issues for about 2 years now, which were written off as networking faults on our end. The last update for the clients (for us, at least) was December 2023. I'm curious as to what has happened in the last year and a half.

 

One thing I will add; the internet blocking through classroom management only works on Edge, so it wouldn't surprise me if the filtering either doesn't work or is severely limited on Google Chrome.

[machy]

2 minutes ago, Sephiroth said:

 The last update for the clients (for us, at least) was December 2023.

Yknow what,

Ill give Senso that.

 

Only having to update the MSI Once in the 2/3 years we have had them is pretty dang good. 

And there updates to modules, although normally totally useless, happen at runtime without any IT Interaction. 

 

i feel a bit dizzy now i have complimented them 

[Sylv3r]

We find it ok.

 

Would I rely on SENSO being my only filtering product - probably not, but to be honest I don't see filtering as their main priority and would always use a provider that filtering is their bread and butter.

 

Does it allow us to monitor based on key words and report on that yes, does it allow us to remote manage devices within the classroom yes.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2025 by Sylv3r

[OLPTech]

We use Impero Education Pro and couldn't live without it - yes it's pretty old, on prem server and wouldn't use it as a filtering product (we use Smoothwall and love that too) but from a classroom management, safeguarding and IT support tool it suits all of our needs.

[Oaktech]

It's OK. Just OK, nothing more.

 

Support for us has been OK but our trust has quite a big contract so I wonder if we get better support because we're worth more?

 

Everything else about the product is so-so, it usually works, but it's pretty sluggish doing so. One of my sites has been forced by trust policy from onsite Impero to it and they just don't bother using it because, and I quote, 'we know how good it could be, and it isn't, so why fight with it'.

 

We don't rely on it for filtering, only classroom management.

[machy]

On 24/04/2025 at 14:52, Oaktech said:

Support for us has been OK but our trust has quite a big contract so I wonder if we get better support because we're worth more?

 

Its interesting you say that, were one of the biggest mats and most of our secondaries use it yet the support is terrible with us 

[machy]

Has anyone else been given access to the stand alone broadcast "app" and if so, what are your thoughts?

[Olliedawg]

How's the V2 app looking nowadays?

 

[Steve21]

Terrible

 

Even trying to update group memberships take 4-5 attempts before it applies 

 

Connections seem worse off too

 

Steve

[mrbios]

Heard nothing but complaints about Senso V2 so far. Meanwhile, we're quite a happy customer personally with netsupports Classroom.cloud if you're after another cloud based alternative ... used to be with Senso. Not perfect, but better, and improving over time.

[colly72]

Lots of issues with V2, especially with custom rulesets not being applied. Also had issues with rules/policies not being applied until devices are restarted (Chromebooks in my case).  Also, issues with Teachers being unable to see group members in list or thumbnail view, without clearing the browser cache.  None of this is helpful in a real time classroom environment where teachers just need it to work.

 

The issue that @Steve21 mentions affected me but in the end it wasn't that the group wasn't updating, it was just that it took a while for the group to show the new members, so if you went back to edit the group immediately, it looks like the new members haven't been added but if you wait a while, they show up.  The more you add at once, the longer it takes to update.

 

The migration assistance from V1 to V2 is also really poor.  Everything has to be set up from scratch, with Senso leaving it up to the end user.  There are also firewall whitelisting requirements that are not pointed out at the time of migration and you're left to contact support when it stops working.

[Olliedawg]

Right then i'll be sticking with Senso V1 for as long as possible 🤣

[colly72]

I've just come off a support chat with Senso, where they've admitted that there are problems around custom rulesets not being applied.  This affects us hugely, as we're unable to whitelist sites and URLS that would otherwise be blocked by category.  They've said the only way around this for now is to allow the full category, which for us is not possible as it represents a safeguarding risk.  So, until this gets fixed, we have students who can't access resources needed in the classroom, or for their homework. In my view, Senso V2 is not fit for purpose in its current form.