CheeseDog Posted January 15, 2007 Posted January 15, 2007 Thought I'd start a new thread so we can list our probs together. We've had a whole host of problems with Facility over the 3 years we've had it, but no more so than the SIMS mess we moved from. Thier implementation was shocking, but Facility has settled down for us of late. We've just upgraded (earlier today) to the latest and greatest version, and its certianly different. Thier support is not too bad, although when we had SIMS (as a former GM School) we dealt direct with CAPITA, rather than the LEA support unit - but Serco's support generally seems better than CAPITA's did. I expect as we've just upgraded, we'll now exprience a whole host of new and more frustating problems. Kyle You willl indeed. Other than early on when CMIS was new the implementation could've been better but most of the time the upgrades go smoothly. However, this new implementation is really bad (2.8 b34) I can't actually believe how bad it is. To put it in a nutshell most of your existing reports now won't work. Including some of facilities own system reports. Non of the finance reports report the correct data. Luckily it seems like it's just the reports that are shafted as the data appears to be fine. I've heard today Birmingham LEA have refused to install it. 2 High Schools within our LEA are running school census from a different database at the moment so they can still use the other system.
tech_master Posted January 15, 2007 Posted January 15, 2007 well this is a optimistic thread dont think we have upgraded yet (perhapse cause am in birmingham ?) an perhapse i wont will till you guys are pleased with it although the business manager will probly go over my head an install it herself without talkin to me so we'll have to wait an see ..........
tosca925 Posted January 15, 2007 Posted January 15, 2007 We were gonna install it tomorrow, think I'll wait.
john Posted January 15, 2007 Posted January 15, 2007 We've had lots of issues with it so don't bother, its been borked since the Nov / Dec update that they pulled within a day or two of posting. Its not a good couple of months for updates.
SpuffMonkey Posted January 15, 2007 Posted January 15, 2007 Yeah - after reading the Serco forums - I've told our lot to hold off and wait and see if it gets better...Shame really.
kylewilliamson Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 I was under the impression at least that the upgrade was required prior to this week's census. We don't use the finance bits so we should be OK there. I notice some improvements from build 33 which was really forked - I had a nice demo at BETT last week. The new eportal is "different" - apparentley its a rebuild from the ground up according to the guys on the Serco stand. What's worrying, however, is the list of "faults" with the build on the serco download site.. I don't believe in general that we have many custom reports, so I hope thats ok too.
CheeseDog Posted January 16, 2007 Author Posted January 16, 2007 The upgrade is required for school census. Hence 2 high schools running 2 databases side by side should've mentioned the reasoning earlier sorry. IMO b34 is b33 with a few issues fixed. It's not just Finance attendance is reporting wrong figures as well. (Allthough this may be limited to primary schools with mixed year classes figures) ePortal doesn't look much different in itself. The skin is different but you can change it back. I personally didn't like the new colour scheme. (red text on white background) Personally if I were to do it again I'd install the new version on a standalone and run school census from that. You have been warned.
Lee_K_81 Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 We installed yesterday afternoon, had a few calls instantly from people asking how to get in? Answer, click "file --> open --> then select admin1.cdb". Grrrr, do i have to do everybodies thinking..... Another issue we have found instantly is in ePortal. Something in the code causes some builds of IE to crash during log-on. Not good when you have e-registration and assessment.
danIT Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 We are still running version 2.73.51.0 based in Birmingham the update was due to be released before xmas in time for the school census, but it was delayed due to problems, and is still yet to be released across birmingham. We still have no news of when it might be available. We hope the creases can be ironed out before we get our hands on it.
Lee_K_81 Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 We are still running version 2.73.51.0 based in Birmingham the update was due to be released before xmas in time for the school census, but it was delayed due to problems, and is still yet to be released across birmingham. We still have no news of when it might be available. We hope the creases can be ironed out before we get our hands on it. it was released yesterday, and very BIG creases: http://www.bgfl.org/services/itcmis/latest_software.htm
CyberNerd Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 Page Restricted Unfortunately the page you have tried to visit is restricted to use from within Birmingham Schools and Centres only. This may be for copyright reasons, or you may be trying to access a page which includes confidential information that cannot be released outside Birmingham schools.
Lee_K_81 Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 Page Restricted Unfortunately the page you have tried to visit is restricted to use from within Birmingham Schools and Centres only. This may be for copyright reasons, or you may be trying to access a page which includes confidential information that cannot be released outside Birmingham schools. Will only work for Birmingham Schools. You will have to contact your own LEA for your software.
ranj Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 For Bham Schools, I have done the update to Build 34 and it seems flaky. In one of the notes under security considerations it suggests that all users who use eportal to upgrade adobe reader to the latest version which is 8. Do you think this is neccessary. We currently run adobe 7 at the moment so its not too old. Has any school upgraded their readers if so do you have Adobe reader 8 in an msi or does anyone know where I can download it from. Thanks
limbo Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 I do not know but I am guessing Adobe is only an issue if you use the document archive section of eportal/CMIS that stores reports as PDF's. This is the only way in which I can see any interaction with Acrobat Reader other than the install notes (which were pretty spot on this time around!)
kylewilliamson Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 We've not had any problems yet, but we'll see. Not looking forward to this. Kyle
CheeseDog Posted January 16, 2007 Author Posted January 16, 2007 Started preping for School census this week and touch wood that bit seems to be fine. Loads of new bits are required this time round. So I've spent 2 half days going through it with the secretary. Almost done now (we think)
tosca925 Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 Did ours this afternoon, already had a few templates not showing. Too ealry to tell yet, will nomore after they have had a day using it and finding faults. ANyone else know about Adobe Reader 8? By the way......ePortal in Red and White........nnnnoooooooooooooooo
tech_master Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 well i was right admin will be upgraded tommrow all the backups were done today an tommrow there goinfor it ignoreing all my compaints so when it all goes wrong i will ignore them an as for adobe reader needin up be updated to V8 i think thats the least of my worries yet if i do it on the admin pc's least they will think i have done it
openhgs Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 We did our upgrade today. There are numerous mistakes in the installation instructions, and we found the schedular instructions complete nonsense (we couldn't get it to work at all). Eportal is a lot slower. There were a few issues reported by the admin staff, the most common being that none of them could get into CMIS following the upgrade (the missing file name feature) - very annoying. Apart from that it's all going swimmingly.
Techd Posted January 16, 2007 Posted January 16, 2007 Having extensive experiance of schools MIS, i have to admit this is the worst ever upgrade i have seen.Facility has been broken beyound repair.I would recommend all schools to switch over to another supplier.Harsh, Yes!! Painfull, Yes!! but at least support staff would be able to do there job and sleep well in the night. its called job satisfaction . I know people have there quibles about sims.net but at least you can Enter and extract data without having to call the helpline 10 times in a day.
ChrisJ Posted January 17, 2007 Posted January 17, 2007 For Bham Schools, I have done the update to Build 34 and it seems flaky. Told you it would be fun You can imagine the fun we're having here
CHR1S Posted January 17, 2007 Posted January 17, 2007 Having extensive experiance of schools MIS, i have to admit this is the worst ever upgrade i have seen.Facility has been broken beyound repair.I would recommend all schools to switch over to another supplier.Harsh, Yes!! Painfull, Yes!! but at least support staff would be able to do there job and sleep well in the night. its called job satisfaction . I know people have there quibles about sims.net but at least you can Enter and extract data without having to call the helpline 10 times in a day. I would disagree, it may be a poor and hurried release but it has been one of the best supported from Link2ICTs side and compared to updates of a year or 2 ago quite stable. Ok there have been some annoying new "features" but nothing major. If your install is broken beyond repair then I would be looking at other factors that could have caused this as well as the update.
limbo Posted January 17, 2007 Posted January 17, 2007 I have to admit it has not been half as bad as I was expecting. Our staff are very understanding about the circumstances and have been prepared to put up with their menus missing and timetables no longer displaying Mondays. But then we consulted them all the way through and they know that we had to do the upgrade so that they could get the census returned - and they all have an understanding of how important the census is. I sent out instructions to all users how to log in after the upgrade and did not get a single person having to ask for help wth it - and considering how many staff access CMIS this is quite a coup. There has been a real team spirit about the whole thing. We went with the upgrade as soon as it was released on Monday because we have got a travel plan and therefore had to enter a couple of thousand methods of transport in for out students so time was of the essence. Linkk2ICT really seem to have pulled it out of the bag - first line support are all fully up to date with the problems and able to dial in and fix them straight away - which caught me out, I went back to my office to make the phone call expecting it to be put in a queue with other jobs and a couple of hours before I heard anything back. OK - it took them a few minutes to be able to answer the phone, but considering how many calls they must be getting that is not suprising. I would question the decision by Facility to try and do as many things in this release as they have done, knowing there was a definitive deadline. I think most people expect two upgrade a year for CMIS - one for the census and then one to enhance / fix the rest of it. Trying to combine all the different LEA builds just before the Census was asking for trouble I think hence the last minute rush which I believe has been caused by things totally unrelated to the census. strangely eportal has caused us no problems at all since the upgrade and seems quicker than ever! Sorry about the waffle, but just wanted to try and bring some positivity into the whole situation.
DanH Posted January 18, 2007 Posted January 18, 2007 hi all, long time listener, first time poster.. Had to chip in when i saw all this Cmis talk. Its usually a serious gripe for us at our school, the look on the office managers face when she announces "Census Time" !! But the newest update ( i say update, its a bloody cheek, reload more like!) went straight on, no hicups. And after four days still no issues, in the past we've spent days on the phones to the helpline. Just wanted to let people know, its not been a complete bag-o-crap everywhere. As a side thought, does anyone know where i can get some Eportal manual/instructions/etc..?
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