Banjo

You can reset the SA password from SSMS without the need for scripting. One reason why the LA may be reticent in giving out the SA is that its generic across all their sites. In some schools the LA will also manage the SIMS backups, changes to the SA password may prevent these software plugins from running. If your an academy then you have to buy from Capita, no alternative. If your still maintained, then the LA most likely hold licence and schools pay AM to Capita via the LA. If you want to buy your own licence, then you have to go to Capita and get a quote, they may do you a multi year deal linked to support as well???. LA's aren't allowed to cross sell AM/licences to schools outside of their LA (anymore) so your stuck with Capita or your own LA.

If you use SIMS then Schoolcomms works very well Schoolcomms | Functionality and Features of the system better than intouch

It's live now you just need a username and password to login. Someone from Capita mentioned the date of 2024 as the death-knell for SIMS7 - I would expect this to move and not be fixed based upon take up of SIMS8.

And then 'cloned' looking at all the photos of the pupils: :-)

I think Serco Learning got it right if we look at chronology, but I agree with your point. In the later versions of Eportal you also had the option of Skins/Themes which would be nice to see on SIMS8. Users could then set their own colour scheme wouldn't be too much of a development stretch. You can run SIMS the same way as Facility with just a shortcut to a shared folder containing Pulsar. Useful for teachers and their non admin roles.

I am unable to comment as to XXX performance/attendance/attitude etc.. is HR speak for they don't hold them in high regard.

And yet with references you cannot escape the personal bias which based upon the employer - employee relationship at the time the reference is written. My experience with the above were quite recent, and ended up being quite negative. If you have had a different experience with dealing with them then lucky you and you can carry on waving the flag on their behalf, but you need to accept that not everyone wants to join their fan-club.

An yet when you advertise a job, you take up references from a person(s) you have never met. Personally, I'd rather ask around before jumping in with both feet. We have dodged some bullets in the past by going this route.

You obviously didn't look very hard as I'm no fan of Capita ES and have given them a hard time on these forums before now. I don't believe I've been rude about the makers of Progresso - for a start I was referencing when it was developed and that was Serco Learning, not the current owners. I haven't met them personally, but I heard nice things said about the chaps from ScholarPack from colleagues and also RM staff seemed pretty decent.

I hope you do!

Census Office? not heard of them before, you mean the DfE?

I would ask what agreement the school has with Capita re hosting. The school may be already paying for support from Capita with regard to upgrades.

Why don't you want the staff to see it? If only one member of the SLT need to see this information export a blank marksheet out of AM as Excel and put the values in their on a shared drive just with that member of staff. Any data the school holds on an individual is subject to a Subject Access Request.

From my experience the 'people' would put me off doing business with them.

A cure for insomnia more like.

I agree, there should be a detailed project plan listing all the MIS functions and then all the staff that carry them out. From this matrix you can build up an understanding of any future training needs that can be costed and built into the procurement process. From experience this is usually an un-costed after thought.

Capita's loss in market-share is in the primary sector, so bringing a Primary version to market first would make sense.

But a lot of HT/SLT/governors do not factor in this cost of change - they just look at the initial cost saving from licensing. Capita charge £1200+ per day for onsite training as an example. Costs can easily mount up.

If you already have a decent spec'd VM with the full version of SQL you could possibly host SIMS yourselves. You could still buy the support element from the LA but without the hosting/backup fees. This way you will be able to use the LA's SIMS licence and reduce your costs. The LA should accommodate this request and may already support academies that fall outside their central hostings. It should take no more than a day to install and roll out across your school - so you may/or may not get charged for this work.

From memory there was a link up to a financial package could have been HCSS, but this was never carried through into Progresso. As for the Patni deal, it didn't so much go to India, but came to Derby. The coach would turn up offload the developers in the morning and then pick them up in the evening. Desperate times, desperate measures, but a reflection of how poor the communication was across the organisation and project.

But you don't need a a 'cloud' for that, you just need a browser based MIS.

Trust me they did, one of many emails conversations that took place (below) "I am currently reworking the exclusions tab for Serco’s new Progresso product. In reworking it I have identified a couple of possibilities for the tab, but I need to ensure I fully understand how exclusions should be recorded. The available government guidance doesn’t cater for these eventualities, so I thought it would be appropriate to contact you and ask for your input regarding how you expect an exclusion to be recorded. Specifically, I would like to know whether you would ever foresee a fixed term exclusion or lunch time exclusion including sessions where a learner must attend (ie non-consecutive). Eg one fixed term exclusion has sessions within it where a pupil should attend. Or One lunchtime exclusion that happens every Thursday lunch for a month, but on no other days of the week. In the examples above are we looking at one exclusion or separate exclusions? Eg So for the fixed term it’s either one exclusion record or, it’s one exclusion up to the session the learner is expected to attend and then another exclusion for sessions following this. And for lunch time it’s one exclusion or, four/five separate exclusions. Additionally, if it is the case an exclusion can only include consecutive session, would the ability to record multiple exclusion records through one window for an individual learner be useful or would it be more appropriate to deal with each exclusion record separately?" If you have any thoughts or ideas of your own these would also be welcome. Thanks for your time.

People get very excited about the 'cloud' and appear to loose sight of the fact that its just a means to an end. Take a figurative leaf from the 'Apple Tree' and if it "just works" for the end user, then software platforms and visible masses of condensed watery vapour floating in the atmosphere, are of little concern.

People get very excited about the 'cloud' and appear to loose sight of the fact that its just a means to an end. Take a figurative leaf from the 'Apple Tree' and if it "just works" for the end user, then software platforms and visible masses of condensed watery vapour floating in the atmosphere, are of little concern.

Another con, the user base of Progresso is small, and probably falling - so this will lead to a number of consequences for those schools that are using it. The pool of people familiar to the system is limited and the amount of money invested into the system won't be as much as when Facility had 1600+ schools using the system. Progresso was initially supposed to be all singing all dancing, but that was quickly scaled back and modules were stripped out of the design to get the product to market.