LA or Single Site Support

[Opensource]

Any views on the advantages and relative costs of either LA or Capita single site support?

[u8dmtm]

Depends on the LA, speak to other schools already using support in your LA to see what the feeling is.

[vikpaw]

Depends on the LA, speak to other schools already using support in your LA to see what the feeling is.

 

Agreed. Plus it depends on the level of usage your school has, your expertise, and how likely you are to need support and the level of it. I would go for Capita direct, but it's more costly.

 

Site visits are expensive, but we get by okay, using remote support.

[Ric_]

Agreed. Plus it depends on the level of usage your school has, your expertise, and how likely you are to need support and the level of it. I would go for Capita direct, but it's more costly.

 

You see, you'd think that but I discovered that Capita were far cheaper than our 'local support provider'. I'm not going to talk about the decision to stay with the costly local support because it annoys me.

[Jeremy69]

My school always used the direct support route because the LA was not a SIMS authority. When talking to other schools about their experience the majority view was that the LA often put an additional delay into the process whether that was upgrading, fixing faults or getting patches and with a few exceptions did not have all that much expertise.

Going direct was a major bonus if there were a serious problem that needed fixing NOW!

[nicholab]

Remember some times a neighouring authority will do support for you. This is the case with London as they are so close.

[GrumbleDook]

Whilst some see the local team as a delay, it can also be a boon ... having a group who have worked closely with schools can help spot problems before the updates are rolled out.

[matt40k]

Agreed. Plus it depends on the level of usage your school has, your expertise, and how likely you are to need support and the level of it. I would go for Capita direct, but it's more costly.

 

Site visits are expensive, but we get by okay, using remote support.

 

Why not, if the LA is cheaper, get the support from LA and buy top-up support from Capita so you can go to either. Best of both worlds.

[vikpaw]

Why not, if the LA is cheaper, get the support from LA and buy top-up support from Capita so you can go to either. Best of both worlds.

 

I didn't know you could do that, doesn't it wind the LA up? I suppose it depends on which LA it is...

[Opensource]

Capita will only provide support if you get your licence from them directly. LAs get a bulk licence deal but must provide the support to schools who license that way.

[matt40k]

Individual schools who buy via the LA can still buy top-up support direct from Capita - or at least they could previously, I can't find the damn thing on the new sharepoint site

 

Can't see why the LA would mind.

 

Believe the biggest benefit for buying via the LA, is the training. Capita are pretty much break fix only, so they would say, "we have a course for that!", where as your LA would happily answer "how do i" questions, at least Suffolk does