rikcoz

Im sure that one of the schools we spoke to went from RM to Progresso. I will double check and PM you their details

I have spent most of today using the demo account, and I have to say that I'm impressed. The front end is very intuitive, and speed is good (which is always a concern when moving to a cloud solution). I spent 30mins on the phone before lunch with my Account Manager who advised me that the demo system is hosted by Amazon, who is the provider used for the live Progresso site. He's also sent me some reference sites to speak to, and a couple of case studies. I questioned the negative comments posted on this forum, and the Account Manager was very open with me. We've discussed the historic problems that Progresso has had since Serco launched the solution, and the process Advanced Learning have taken to get the solution to a stage where live schools taking benefit from the technology provided. What I did like too, was that there was no real pressure for me to commit to a sale. Maybe its because I don't hold a budget at the school! @penfold, this is test demo data, as Advanced wouldn't be allowed to show actual school data for a number of reasons. Our Account Manager did say that they can offer a service where by they can take an extract of our data and put it in a Progresso environment. This is something that they charge for, so I have asked for a price..... I await my quotation. Oh, one other thing. I've just logged into the system via my iPad which works perfectly fine, which is a huge benefit to our school. Liking this a lot :-)

We received our trial login details today. I've not really had a full chance to put it through its paces, but from what I've seen so far I'm impressed. The email you receive comes with some hyperlinks to short training overview videos, and some embedded PDFs, which make the basics easy to follow. The account itself is populated with some decent functionality on the main dashboards. I'd reccomend people take a look at this, but I will update further when I've had time to drill down into some of the detail......

Yep, we've now registered..... awaiting login details now

Calling all data junkies! We've been considering a new solution for a while, and have been kicking the ball about considering all the usual stuff SIMS, BOMCOM, Advanced Learning.... cloud vs hosted..... local vs SaaS etc.... A colleague of mine was on the Advanced Learning website last night, and sent me the following link. You searched for trial | Advanced Learning You have to agree to some T&Cs online, but it doesn't seem to hold any obligation to purchase etc. I've got my business manager running over the terms as we speak!

I've sent you a PM. Many thanks

Hi, I mean hosted by the provider, with all the relevant fail over provision. Not a box sat in my server room, that we can dial into! I want someone else to take care of back up, updates etc...

Hi Minimanwill23, We currently use Pearson as our MIS provider, but they are pulling the plug on us from next year, which to be honest gives us the oppertunity to look at other things. I have been advised that Pearson have struck up a deal with RM, which lets us move to Integris (cloud based) for free. This looked like a good idea to us, as we have Kaleidos in place. I've visited a school using Integris, and the whole system is pretty basic, and to be honest its missing loads of things that are key to us, such as document storage (you'd think that this is a must in this digital age!). I've since heard that Kaleidos is going end of life...... we must be a jinx! Taking a look at Progresso in a couple of weeks. From what I've read the software has had its challenges, but Advanced Business Solutons have purchased the software from Serco, and by all accounts seem to appear to be getting it right. I've planned to look at Follet and S'pac at BETT. I don't really know much about either solution, and don't know any schools using them. Can anyone point me in the right direction? In reference to SIMs, my brother in law is a techie in Birmimgham, and told me a funny story....... he was at a demo and a primary raised the question about SIMS being cloud hosted, and was told "well you can access it via VPN, which offers you a cloud based experience!". What won't they do / say to sell! Maybe Mr Neal will have a word with his sales team about bending the truth..... but he probably won't ;-) Keep in touch, and I will let you know how I get on with my demos etc RikCoz

Hi funkyfin, Many thanks for the info. How many people ours has the migration taken you? Thanks, Rikcoz

Hi Andrew, Many thanks for the imformation. My experiance of RM tells me that there will be a significant cost to migrate to the new solution..... please tell me that isn't the case here, as we have spent 100s on people hours and 1000s of pounds in cash developing Kaleidos Many thanks, RikCoz

I think many schools have! But have you heard anything about RM pulling the plug on it?

Hi all, I've heard down the grapevine that RM are set to discontinue their LP Kaleidos..... we haven't heard anything official, but I wanted to see if anyone had any further information on this?? Someone from RM maybe??!!!