PaulHughes

@drsox ... I'm sorry you are not happy with service provided by ParentMail. I'm the MD and I'd very much like to help if I can. Please email me using [email protected]

Hi Chris, Are you using the latest version of ParentMail (PMX) or an earlier version (PM2)? As the MD of ParentMail I can tell you there is a world of difference between the two products. We have decided not to spend money on BETT for the last two years and instead to use that money for software development where we believe it will ultimately benefit users. With regard to hearing complaints about ParentMail when we're not present to defend ourselves I can only ask you to keep an open mind and judge us on your own experience. With regard to support generally we have invested in new telephone systems, online guided tutorials (which don't exist in any competitor software), training videos, and very shortly you'll see LiveChat introduced (PMX schools only). In short we're investing heavily in improving support for schools and parents and we're confident schools are noticing significant improvements already which will continue to get better. PM2 will be completely withdrawn from service by the middle of 2016 and all schools moved across to PMX (no cost for schools and no re-registration for parents). PMX provides many enhancements including automatic overnight synchronisation with SIMS (not previously available on earlier ParentMail platforms), a free APP for parents which allows email/sms/online payments/parents evening booking/form & surveys and online meeting booking. (No competitor provides all this in single APP format). The new payment platform includes debit/credit cards, PayPal (only school system in the UK!), PayPoint & PayCash (shortly Amex also) and now provides more payment options than any other product on the market (it's also the only platform offering PayCash the latest offering from PayPoint). I really hope you'll stick with us and if want a local representative to pop in and visit you for a face to face meeting to discuss any issues or concerns, we can arrange this for you. If you need any assistance (or support) at any time you can reach me personally using [email protected] and I will ensure you get it. Finally, if you want real testimonials from schools using PMX I can give you dozens and you can read case studies if you are interested here --> https://www.parentmail.co.uk/blog/category/school-case-studies/ BW Paul.

Hi Rob, I'm the MD at ParentMail. Please email me at [email protected] and I will sort this for you.

I am sorry to hear you were not happy. PMX is a first generation product and like all first generation products will benefit from a few updates. (It has already had 6 in the first 6 months and the things you've mentioned have already been attended to). However I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying SchoolComms ... in my experience they are a good company run by some nice people. Best of luck going forward. Paul.

@sjb - Thanks for the post. Can I quickly correct this comment. Parents only need to login ONCE. There is a 'keep me logged in' feature just like that found on Facebook which means parents click on the link in their emails and go directly to the message. (Any submissions back the schools (forms for example) require the parent to input their password so protecting against any security issue when using 'keep me logged in'). It's widely recognised now that ordinary email is not secure and that sending information (especially if it's personal) is not good practice. Now that ParentMail enables parental response (form submission/trip consent etc) it is NECESSARY that parents are logged in when they reply. This also provides 100% guaranteed delivery receipts and means parents don't have to trawl through junk mail in their personal email accounts to find school messages.

I'm sure you'll appreciate that I cannot enter discussions about individual school experiences or discuss the technical setup of our system in a public forum. Please email me [email protected] if I can help.

@jcollings. I'm not sure what more I can say? Clearly if it were down to me/us, there would never be system or environment problems & you can be sure that if the timing of these things was down to us, we wouldn't pick September! In the meantime I don't have a magic wand and can only work with our providers to correct the problem as fast as we can. We will do all we can to help including providing information schools can use to explain the situation to parents. Best, Paul --------------

Folks ... many apologies! We will be issuing a statement to schools/parents for the recent problems in the next day or so we will provide this as soon as the situation is fully resolved. The root cause of the problem is with the hosting provider who had a fibre outage to their SAN about 3 weeks ago. They told us the problem had been fixed as soon as it happened but we've had to commission further diagnostic work to prove that the problem remains with them! The quality of this connection has degraded which means that our database is getting timeouts (connection errors) and this is what is producing the slow response on the website. I've now contacted the Global Chief Exec of the provider and he has pushed down so we're seeing a more focused response. The hosting provider has both US and UK experts investigating the situation and they are giving us updates every hour. In the meantime we've taken the opportunity to perform a number of 'optimizations' to the PM2 environment which has helped but which weren't technically necessary and certainly weren't responsible for the current situation. We are putting maximum pressure on the hosting provider and will let you all know as soon as we have a complete resolution. It is an incredibly frustrating situation for us being out of our direct control and all we can do is ask for your patience. This type of problem has never occurred previously in twelve years of business so it is a first for us. Clearly as a result of the issue we're now considering our hosting provider and how to avoid such a problem in the future. The situation affects ParentMail 2 users only, while ParentMail 1 and PMX users (latest platform) are unaffected. We will issue official communications through appropriate channels as soon as we are able in the next few days. Apologies again ... Paul ----------------

For me this thread is about whether 'consolidation' of systems being easier for schools, is actually good for schools in the long term. I fear that many schools will be driven by what's easier for them and I believe this is very dangerous as ultimately it will remove choice from the market. You only have to look at our high streets and the supermarkets to see the same thing happening in another sector. I am NOT saying that schools should choose inferior products just to ensure choice, but I hope they will not be driven simply by what's easy without considering the consequences.

Impartiality please gentleman ... I'm sure it's as boring to everyone else as it is to me to hear the same couple of people banging on about the same supplier at every opportunity across multiple threads :-)

What no-one seems to discuss here is whether you wish to deepen your dependency (and potential risk) by relying more and more on SIMS. Capita would have you believe that 'making your life easier' is all that matters, but by doing this all they're actually doing is making it impossible for you to ever leave and go elsewhere. Furthermore do you all want to see the end of 'choice' in the market (by going with Capita) or do you want to give the smaller guys your support and encourage Capita to spend their time improving the core MIS?

The new ParentMail APP will be in the iTunes store in the next day or two but despite the money and time we've invested I can say we won't be building another one. IMHO the APP is dead or will be very soon (the fact it drove 'mobile' is irrelevant or we'd all still be using steam trains!). As has been said by others in this thread HTML5 in combination with faster processors, better cloud technology and constantly improving connectivity will be the end of all but the most specialist APPS. From a commercial perspective, why would a company choose to support a website, and android app, a windows app, an apple app etc when a single html5 site would do it all??? Will HTML5 Spell The End For Apps? | Business Computing World

I'm not so sure you are correct there CyberNerd. What if you inform parents and they object? It's a bit late then isn't it? The general principle of telling people AFTER you've shared their data is not a good one! Paul.

Yikes! Be EXTREMELY careful just exporting parent contact data our of SIMS to third parties! You may well fall foul of Data Protection Laws and the punishment can be severe! You need specific permission from parents to export their data anywhere outside of school systems. Paul.

Hi - I'm the MD of ParentMail so I'm not an impartial participant - however I'd like to offer some impartial advice! Schools have a tendency to 'commoditise' services i.e. "what are their rates", "how cheap are their text messages" etc but this is dangerous because what all schools need is reliability. Messages that go out when they're supposed to, payments appearing in the right accounts, parents being able to top up dinner accounts during busy periods ... etc etc! Saving a few pennies here and there amounts to nothing when your systems stop working (or money goes in the wrong account) and all the parents start to call you! My second piece of advice is to do with systems being 'fit for purpose' by which I mean that 'everybody and his dog' is now jumping onto the payments wagon (just as they did with the comms wagon 7-8 years ago). This might seem great but choice can be overwhelming and tiny companies can make themselves appear larger and more capable in this modern age. That should act as a warning for schools to be extremely careful with choosing - it's easy to buy the wrong system ... especially if you're focused on price. Finally payments cannot exist without comms i.e. you need to tell parents when things need paying for and also when they've paid (receipts). Some systems are strong with payments but useless with comms and some are the other way around. Several now are partnering up i.e. comms and payments across two systems (which just gives you two problems to fix potentially)! When you make a decision please check the rounded capabilities of the whole system. Since it's difficult to step out of a payment system easily (see earlier comment) it's well worth taking your time and making the right decision. Best of luck, Paul.