Trunacy Call - anyone using ? Opinions

[mrbenn]

Hi all,

 

we have recenlty been informed that trunacy call may be coming our way. Anyone out there using it ? opinions ?

 

TIA

 

Ben

[webman]

Hi Ben,

 

We've been using it for over a year now. We did have some problems a while ago when updating it, and with the Text-to-speech feature not working properly. Seems to be OK now though and does seem to have a positive impact.

[bossman]

Technically it is not hard to set up just needs a couple of users setting up in the sims with access rights then installing the truancy call software on the workstation from which it is going to be run from configure with proxy and there you go. Not bad piece of kit saves our attendance officer a lot of time having to ring around parents so she can get on with other things.

[Uraken]

we used it for a while until the head decided it was too inpersonal now we have someone that rings around!!

[woody]

We are using it - the Attendance Officer loves it!!! I agree it is impersonal but then it does make those parents who have no legitimate reason to keep their child off think twice if they know they will have to explain themselves every time.

[techyphil]

We was told we had to use it, then 2 weeks later we got rid of it as it annoyed the parents with phone calls and it was more work to manage as there was only a handful away from school.

 

We was recommended it but for 15 students at a time off a day it became more work then it was worth manageing.

 

So its now gone

[woody]

I must admit, I am beginning to worry a little about Truancy Call at the moment. Twice in as many weeks, they have had a server problem which has meant it has stopped working. On the first occasion, we were under an ofsted inspection after being in special measures, one of the main targets being to impriove attendance!!!

 

Oh, and when it stops working, everything stops. You can't access their website either. It's lucky if you get through to technical support by phone.

 

I will be recommending they set up an indipendant service status site so that they can at least post information up there if things go wrong which will relieve the support phone lines a little. But if the server can't cope, they are going to have to act soon.

[dezt]

We use it here, along with call parents, I can't say how good it is but the attendance officer seems to love it as it cuts down on the number of phone calls she makes a day.

 

The only real problem I've had is after updating from the original install to the new version, a dll file was missing, but it was somewhere else on the hdd so I just copied it to the correct location and all seems fine now.

 

We've been using it for about 8 months now.