Dr_Zeux

100% agree!

Turn Solus off! Disable completely so it no longer updates to server or workstations providing you can still access Sims now...

I did last week and logged a call with helpdesk. Something happened over the weekend, they were working fine on Friday and stopped working on Monday... Through troubleshooting, I changed the settings to Office365 SMTP Service, that didn't work, changed them back to what they were before (in Config/Setup/System Settings) and it started working again - we hadn't changed anything and they had been working fine on the Friday before, for years... God knows what happened, and why it suddenly wasn't working on Monday...

Good job @synaesthesia! I have already voted for this idea 🙂

We've been down 5 days in a row - Tues/Wed/Thur last week and Mon/Tues this week. Not sure there's a silver lining to this...

We also had this issue yesterday, as reported by my teachers...

About an hr ago, it was a bit slow, but it's been fine since...

I've just logged a performance issue re: Bromcom about 20mins ago - any other schools down? Just as I logged it with helpdesk, internal messages were saying others were also logging this - but so far no update on their status page! 🙄

Ok thanks - maybe just a few glitches whilst registers around the country are being done!

Anyone having performance issues this morning?

Good, not just our school then. I agree, seems to be back to normal again now...

Meanwhile, there's performance issues again this morning... Anyone else having issues??

Yeah right, when we were informed by Bromcom helpdesk (I have it in writing on my case) that there was very slow performance between 08.45 - 09.15 - which incidentally affected our school. That would give the impression that they're deliberately manipulating their statistics, or the team who run the status page genuinely didn't know their system was down - either way, totally unprofessional and misleading...

Same here! And all over the weekend as well...

100% agree! Not only that, what about compensation for the substantial impact on school operations and the associated costs, given the additional resources we've had to allocate as a result of prolonged downtime and overtime that some staff have had to do as a result...

I think that's the first time I've heard you being negative towards Bromcom...

I totally agree - this is the point I was making to my Helpdesk ticket yesterday! How can 1 server developing a fault cause this kind of impact?? Surely, there are multiple servers that simply take over, and balance the load. Why are such a big organisation like Bromcom, who host thousands of schools, so reliant on 1 server???

Wow - you're kidding!? That's a bit scandalous, as the reason they're giving to customers didn't sound like that was the issue!

4th year in a row I believe...

Yes, our 4 x schools are also down this morning, for a second day in a row...

Are many other schools having no access or severely slow performance to Bromcom today?

The Virtual school is where our consortium schools struggle the most, the software isn't really fit for purpose - attendance/exams/access arrangements/documents, etc. do not flow back and forth from partner to virtual school. This is really problematic and time consuming for 6th form. Daily tasks are duplicated as a result. The platform itself seems to be managed by developers that are outsourced in another country, and therefore updates are not tested thoroughly before released - the outcome being there are lots of bugs after a release. I'll give you an example, last year, after Quick reports were introduced, there was wave after wave of assessment problems/bugs - it was driving me mad! I complained to Customer care about it, and I did receive one response, then Customer care went quiet and didn't respond to my emails. But the bugs continued for months! Our CSM left Bromcom in Oct 2023, but we weren't informed - I subsequently found out as emails just started bouncing back. So, no one let us know he was leaving and/or if he was being replaced. I later found out through one of our consortium schools that he was not being replaced. Though, we were discussing so many issues at the time - and the dialogue was actually really important, but was not passed on to anyone at Bromcom. The issues were simply forgotten. Their comms has been really poor. Helpdesk are good on the phone, but resolving cases sometimes takes a really long time to resolve - i had a lot of cases last year that were taking months to get resolved. I actually complained on here last year about the number of cases that I had open that were over 2 months old, some 4/5 months. I still have a case that is now 1 year old and not resolved!!! Fundamentally, they're understaffed and they are constantly recruiting to keep up with demand - ever since we joined them, they haven't quite kept up with their staffing needs. In our first term with Bromcom, helpdesk didn't answer the phone for at least 1.5hrs - you were in a queue for this long! Overall, I spend too much of my time either troubleshooting or logging Bromcom issues, often a software issue. Development ideas - finally someone has been employed to deal with the massive backlog of genuinely brilliant ideas, but there have been ideas on there rumbling on for 3+ years with over 200+ votes and the comments go on and on from customers. I think some are finally starting to be implemented into the product, but for example, simply printing a 2-week timetable on one page (arguably the most common function of a MIS) is still outstanding and something I voted for in Sept 2022 and has 200+ votes! Can you believe this is functionality is still so complicated and you cannot simply print a student's 2-week timetable (on one page) from the student's record by clicking a button!? Lastly, the status update page - this does not actually reflect how often the system is down or how many performance issues are present. It's only updated if all schools across the country are down!!! There have been countless times that we've been affected, but there's no update on their status page - then you ring the helpdesk and they confirm there's performance issues or that other schools have also complained that the system is slow or down completely... These are the things that spring to mind, but there are others...

I can't speak for Abor, but my advice would be stay away from Bromcom!

Supportman - you do make is sound quite simple. I can only imagine you're not configuring the back end, and/or trying to setup/run reports, using assessment on a daily basis, etc.? We moved to Bromcom 2 years ago, and it's been a nightmare ever since! There are bugs with the software all over the place, and the support is mediocre, with some cases taking months to resolve. I still have a case, over 1 year old!!!! For reference, I logged/found 2 more bugs this week! Development ideas taking 3+ years to go anywhere... My biggest complaint is their comms (or lack of it) and how after the first year, you're just a statistic and they don't really seem to care about you at all... We have so many problems with our Virtual school, and no one at Bromcom is listening to them, they keep passing the buck to someone else - i'm not entirely surprised, no one seems to understand the Virtual school on their helpdesk and only 1 expert at Bromcom on VS who takes ages to respond to cases. But the main problem is the product is not fit for purpose and doesn't really work for a consortium, but they do not want to hear our complaints at all, they just want our money...

Performance issues yesterday and again today - helpdesk just confirmed it. Is it on their status page!? Of course not....