[sims] Does SIMS have a web portal?

[glennda]

That's easy to reach, especially the revised cost of 11k. between 4-6k for licensing, then compulsory installation and training days at 1k per day. Add in solution planning which is a complete waste of time and results in a basic template document with your schools name on top, then some other extra time required. You pay for a day, which is only really 6 hours, and includes time for the installer to write documentation.

 

Yup it was 4.5k licensing, 1100 annual maintenance, 5k installtion 450 customization. Phil's response to the email i sent him was that was normal figures. Essentially too bloody much IMHO for what it is.

[zag]

Great to see competition in the market in this case.

 

Lets hope Capita steps up to the plate and responds.

[Steveduk]

Yup it was 4.5k licensing, 1100 annual maintenance, 5k installtion 450 customization. Phil's response to the email i sent him was that was normal figures. Essentially too bloody much IMHO for what it is.

 

Just checked our invoice from 2009 for our self-hosted SLG and that too was just over £10k + VAT. Love the 5k to install a few web apps, good work if you can get it!

[GREED]

It's a handy thing when your product has a parent and student portal built in at no extra cost... In fact it is handy being web based in the first place!

[john]

It's a handy thing when your product has a parent and student portal built in at no extra cost... In fact it is handy being web based in the first place!

 

Puts on Serco Hat...

 

Agreed a nice Parent, Staff and Student Portal built in and has been now for lets see a LOT of years and at no extra cost either.... oh and before someone says the P word this is Facility and ePortal I am meaning not the new P product

[MACIT]

Personally would NOT touch SLG with 10 foot barge pole as very unfriendly to look at. I looked at it several times and tried to convince myself and normally favour keeping everything under sims "roof" but in this case Capita got it wrong. Personally I favour a Moodle integrated solution (Webanywhere) has brought our VLE onto the next level and is very friendly for parents and students themselves to look at. Edited November 10, 2012 by MACIT

[vikpaw]

Actually, i'm not against SLG, i think it's a good idea, it may not look as pretty as it could, and it needs some tech savvy handling but if you go with sharepoint, there's a whole host more you can do with it in terms of managing the network, files, business processes etc. (Yes i know @GREED , Aspen does this too!)

 

The problem we had was mostly technical, and getting it to work for us, and the cost of implementation. Add to that the fact that Primary doesn't even want to use SIMS let alone do reports on it, and changes to the upper school timetable have made SIMS just not work for us very well any more.

 

It's been a non-starter for us, and not worth paying more to implement, especially over a horrendously rubbish internet connection. It's just money down the drain, which is better spent on other things.

[zag]

Actually, i'm not against SLG, i think it's a good idea, it may not look as pretty as it could, and it needs some tech savvy handling but if you go with sharepoint, there's a whole host more you can do with it in terms of managing the network, files, business processes etc. (Yes i know @GREED , Aspen does this too!)

 

We had a fully customized, themed SLG added to an already successful mature SharePoint install. But parents simply didn't use it, or any of the extra features we added over time.

 

The difference is remarkable using tasc insight. Parents have used every feature from day one such as online parents evenings or the change of address forms. Maybe they just got the design right, but their solution is far superior.

 

The proof is in our takeup rates.

[PhilNeal]

SLG comes in several flavours:

• There is the install SharePoint in LA option - this can work out very cheaply for schools and provides an enterprise solution
  
• There is an install in your school option - this requires a number of days consultancy which puts costs up. You'd only take this option if you want an enterprise solution and intend to use SharePoint fully.
  
• We also offer it as a hosted option and that is a simple install and is much cheaper in year one.
  

[jumpinjamez]

But does Serco collect all you data for the Government?

 

Warning over secret database featuring 8m children - Telegraph

[PhilNeal]

It's called the census so yes

[GREED]

I did L O L when I read this I must admit... I am sure @PhilNeal can tell us how many years One has been around for... this is not breaking news by any means!!!

@vikpaw a'thank'you for the acknowledgement

[Bromcom_John]

Gotta love classic Telegraph Knee-Jerk reporting.

[zag]

It's called the census so yes

 

haha brilliant. And very true. Typical sensationalist journalism from the telegraph.

[vikpaw]

@vikpaw a'thank'you for the acknowledgement

where?

[GREED]

where?

 

Oh, well, if you're gonna be like that, I remove said thanks...

[glennda]

But does Serco collect all you data for the Government?

 

Warning over secret database featuring 8m children - Telegraph

 

As often as 6 times a day?? Thats normally when the thing buggers up and you have to run it again! thats when it happens six times!

 

I think his next story might be that the NHS hold your medical records...

Edited November 13, 2012 by glennda

[vikpaw]

Oh, well, if you're gonna be like that, I remove said thanks...

- thanks for nothing

[maestromasada]

SLG is given a bad name to Capita, so bloated! We sign up for 3 years for 15K. Recently the school where I work changed the logo and when I asked Capita-SLG to "please replace the logon displayed in the SLG website top-banner with the attached one" they told me it would be a charge of £80

 

yeah, I know!... just to replace a .jpg!

 

We're still tight for 1 x year but after that will switch for sure.

Anybody using Parental Reporting from Fronter-LGfL??

[TheScarfedOne]

I know there is a "new" team working on big changes to SLG. Some of the early bits of this I've seen look really good. @PhilNeal...are the people on the Geek to throw some more light on what is coming up?

[Sylv3r]

I was at a recent CAPITA Partnership School event and the changes to the parents webparts do look much better, we use SLG well at our school although the use of Sharepoint is the fiddly bit. The webparts currently are not particuarly that nice to look at but the data that it needs to produce ticks the boxes.

 

The product will evolve, and for those schools considering SLG or moving away may decide the new features offer them something more.

[CAM]

I set up SLG at my last school and not only was it expensive, but we had borderline parent riots after finding out it couldn't do PDF reports at the time of launch. Staff hated it as marksheets were laggy and didn't work (even after the LA spent nearly a year with a call out on the issue), parents hated it as it was complicated and only a few really took it up. The entire thing felt like it was a half system wedged into a Sharepoint install with a 10k+ price tag slapped on top, even after PDF reports came in.

 

My current school was going to use SLG but decided against it after seeing the price.