securus

[Chris]

Hi,

 

Anybody used securus monitoring system. I have tested it for 3 weeks, seems alright, planning to put in my school. Any feedback will be helpful.

also anybody tried to use it on laptops(standalones) for teachers.

 

Thank You

[djm968]

A few of my clients are using it and it seems to work really well. The only negative comments I have hear is that its an additional thing to monitor!

[plexer]

Please don't post the same question in more that one section pick the most relevant one and ask it once.

 

As I replied to you on your other thread a search on the keyword securus would have answered your question.

 

If after reading those threads it's still not clear then please ask a more specific question.

 

Ben

[danIT]

cots too much, how about anyone seen any open source verions of this software, i know remote screenshot is available, and also keylogger, but doind the two remotely and also only based on badwords is the trickey part¬!

[R-O-B]

!!Securus Rocks!!

We have it and it's great. It costs about £700 a year but is great. It has highlighted kids listening to music, what they are looking at on web, various Blogs about school life including racist remarks about staff and using word to chat with the person next to them in ICT lessons. It makes for great reading and is the highlight of our week. We check the violations once a week and they are great evidence if we need a change in policy to make our lives easier.

[mattx]

I had it for a few weeks on a selection of PCs but again it was too expensive. Plus I noticed it caused a few errors when users were logging off. I can't remember the exact error message but it was the software causing the problem.

They may have changed it now but I though it was odd there was no HD redundancy on the box so if the HD failed you had no records !!

Also the selling tactics made me laugh a bit, as they wanted to speak to and arrange a meeting with our SMT - most probably for a the hard sale...

 

It did work well though. The price is way OTT for what it does though. [ In my opinion ]

[eejit]

I also find the software very buggy. Use it for a couple of years and you'll soon get fed up of the installation problems etc. - Can you believe that it can't upgrade itself properly? You have to do an uninstall of the old version first.

meh.

[monkey_boy]

The idea is good and when everything works, its a really useful tool. Currently waiting for the next software update though. The weblog feature isn't working at the min, even though it was before :S. The custom reports feature is poor too. I think the company is fairly young and new, and what they've come up with so far is a good concept with a few bugs, and the support is very good, so we'll be hanging on to it for a while yet.

[R-O-B]

I'm really surprised to hear that others have been having problems with the software. We run it on CC3 and vanilla XP workstations and have never had any problems.

 

The HD redundancy thing is a bit lame but as it isn't 'mission critical' we don't worry about it. As HDs are so cheap these days they will maybe change that soon.

 

As for the upgrades I'm pretty sure the latest version of the client software updates itself now.

 

Now that Macs are using intel processors they are considering producing a Mac version of the client as well!!

[eejit]

R-O-B, how long have you had Securus? If it's less than 2 years then I'm going to have to disregard your opinions

 

I used to be 100% behind it too at first, but all the problems have gradually worn me down.

 

Way too expensive for what it is.

[monkey_boy]

My gripe isn't with the client software but the console - just for clarity...

[eejit]

Too true - it's pretty nasty alright.

Probably one of the worst things about it is that every bit of it is about 80% right. If they'd only get their act together it would be a superb product and if it was say £500 a year then virtually every school in the country would have one.

[R-O-B]

We've had Securus for several years and..

 

Yes the console is a bit amateurish, looks like it was designed in frontpage It's not the most intuitive but we've never had any problems with it's functionality.

 

The price is worth it IMHO, we have lot's of situations where students are using computers without supervision and although it isn't fool proof it provides an extra layer of protection. Once a few students have been dragged in to see the head of ICT for a roasting at the beginning of term the word gets round and the number of violations drops right off.

[StewartKnight]

I agree with R-O-B, once the kids know their being watched, and can't do anything about it, the transgressions fall off.

 

I'va had a few problems with the Securus Server, but I've always found the after sales support is excellent.

[danIT]

how about alternatives, may i suggest Forensic software co uk

 

Were trialing it and its smashing, better interface than securus, we also trailed securus late last year. Similar features, think may be cheaper but still over priced in my opinion.

[mortstar]

Tried it for 2 separate 1 month stints around a year apart. In that time it seemed like they hadn't moved forward at all.

 

An installation error to do with how the registry key is set on clients (with an absolute reference to the C: drive rather than %systemroot% - simply fixed obviously) which I pointed out to the technician guy over the phone on the first install re-occurred when they came back in a year later.

 

It also is a lot of work, monitoring the violations and the amount of false-positives it produces or duplicate violations is astronomical. It's difficult to see the wheat for the chaff.

 

As has been mentioned the client software isn't the best and the price is outrageous for what it does. Although the ICT CL loved being able to waft under the nose the violations of the user, I don't think the benefits nearly outweigh the problems it presents.

[eejit]

Cheers for the tip Dan. Does it work in the same way? i.e. dedicated box with client on the PCs?

[danIT]

We trailed it on an xp machine, running IIS and Desktop SQL but yes you would need a dedicated server for larger deployment. It fully intergrates with AD aswel, im not sure if securus does this yet?

 

I have a web based login for you to have a look at if you like?

 

I think with securus the data collected is kind of locked away from you,. but with this its accessible all the time, you can even build your own reports as its on SQL.

 

ill PM you the link

[securussoftware]

I also find the software very buggy. Use it for a couple of years and you'll soon get fed up of the installation problems etc. - Can you believe that it can't upgrade itself properly? You have to do an uninstall of the old version first.

meh.

 

 

This was correct up till March 07. However, we have released version 4.25 of Securus, which offers automatic client upgrades. This means from this point on, the clients will self upgrade each time you upgrade the server

 

As for the bugs, can you email me them and I will personally investigate them for you.

[securussoftware]

Hi,

 

Anybody used securus monitoring system. I have tested it for 3 weeks, seems alright, planning to put in my school. Any feedback will be helpful.

also anybody tried to use it on laptops(standalones) for teachers.

 

Thank You

 

Securus works perfectly fine on latops. It continues to monitor whilst the laptop is offline. It then uploads any inappropriate use up to the server next time it is plugged into the school network

 

If you want further help on this please do not hesitate to contact me.

[securussoftware]

I had it for a few weeks on a selection of PCs but again it was too expensive. Plus I noticed it caused a few errors when users were logging off. I can't remember the exact error message but it was the software causing the problem.

They may have changed it now but I though it was odd there was no HD redundancy on the box so if the HD failed you had no records !!

Also the selling tactics made me laugh a bit, as they wanted to speak to and arrange a meeting with our SMT - most probably for a the hard sale...

 

The memory error at logoff was due to microsoft releasing a fix for the operating system and consequently breaking our code. We quickly released a fix for this, which has been working fine since.

 

Version 4.25 (our latest version) allow reduncancy, it offers you the ability to select where to backup the violations/config settings to. You can then import them back in should you need to.

 

With regards to the hard sale bit, I cannot comment on that as I deal with all technical aspects of Securus and not selling!

[securussoftware]

The idea is good and when everything works, its a really useful tool. Currently waiting for the next software update though. The weblog feature isn't working at the min, even though it was before :S. The custom reports feature is poor too. I think the company is fairly young and new, and what they've come up with so far is a good concept with a few bugs, and the support is very good, so we'll be hanging on to it for a while yet.

 

What version of Securus are you waiting for? What is it you are trying to do with custom reports?

[securussoftware]

R-O-B, how long have you had Securus? If it's less than 2 years then I'm going to have to disregard your opinions

 

I used to be 100% behind it too at first, but all the problems have gradually worn me down.

 

Way too expensive for what it is.

 

please contact me and lets see if we can sort this issues that you obviously have.

Thanks

[securussoftware]

We've had Securus for several years and..

 

Yes the console is a bit amateurish, looks like it was designed in frontpage It's not the most intuitive but we've never had any problems with it's functionality.

 

The price is worth it IMHO, we have lot's of situations where students are using computers without supervision and although it isn't fool proof it provides an extra layer of protection. Once a few students have been dragged in to see the head of ICT for a roasting at the beginning of term the word gets round and the number of violations drops right off.

 

For those of you that are complaining about the Securus console we will be releasing a new front end after easter this year which will be more Windows Vista in look.

[securussoftware]

We trailed it on an xp machine, running IIS and Desktop SQL but yes you would need a dedicated server for larger deployment. It fully intergrates with AD aswel, im not sure if securus does this yet?

 

I have a web based login for you to have a look at if you like?

 

I think with securus the data collected is kind of locked away from you,. but with this its accessible all the time, you can even build your own reports as its on SQL.

 

ill PM you the link

 

Securus does fully integrate with Active Directory quickly and easily and we offer our own secure hardware which has a inhouse operating system which is totally secure and offers us total control over the software and having no need for any further software/hardware.

We are also a UK company and have a manned support desk between 8.30-5pm mon-fri managed by myself. I have worked on all sides of the coin: I worked in a large secondary school in Surrey for 4 and a half years and ran with Securus there for well over a year before working for Securus. I then was a technical installer for a year doing all the two week trial installs. I now run the support desk and have done so for the past year.