[acs] SERCO in Primary Schools

[helenb]

Can anyone tell me if they are supporting SERCO in Primary Schools and if so, how well it works? I am particularly interested in comparing SERCO functionality and ease of use to SIMS.net.

Thank you.

[APC]

Hi,

 

I work as part of a team supporting approx 350 primary schools using Facility.

As the schools have all been using the system for a few years the 'problems' are almost the same as those faced by support teams with other MIS systems... If there is anything specific you need to know, get in touch.

[helenb]

Can you tell me what the reporting part is like? SIMS.net reporting is really flexible and outputs to Word, Excel, Web page, Mail Merge, etc can easily be achieved.

Also, I understand that that each academic year has a separate data base so in order to look back at leavers for example you have to actually come out of one database and go into another - is that correct?

Is using SERCO fairly intuitive? Are the various areas consistent - both in appearance and functionality? I am not familiar with SERCO in any way and would be glad of any information you can give me.

If a number of our schools move to SERCO, we will have to start supporting it as well as SIMS.

[APC]

Hi,

Facility is certainly a different system than SIMS, it provides a greater range of flexability and customisation but, with that comes a more complex reporting engine - yes the complexity of reporting requires more technical expertise to create reports. Data can be exported to pdf / txt and pasted into word etc, but most reporting requirements can be met within the system (with the required knowledge which some schools have difficulties with and may need more support).

Each academic year is currently recorded in a data-set which can require the user to change data-sets (depends what the user is trying to do).

I wonder if you have schools considering moving to Facility (the current product) or to 'Progresso' the new Serco MIS which is due for launch next year - now that is a very different beast! - probably much more suited for primary schools with a very intuative user interface....

[michael2k6]

Thanks to replies to far. I'm not going to reply as such as I don't have experience of Facility in a primary school as an end user, or in directly supporting a large number of them - but just so you know Serco are here and happy to help wherever appropriate - hi.

If there are any questions you feel I can help with, ask away.

 

Mic Sanderson

Operational Support Consultant

Serco Learning