GREED

That will be fun then given the other threads here talking about UPN use. As an ID, there are other choices, and ones that do not rely on admitting students early

Parent Pay can only deal with on roll students?

I'll put this to our DPO.

We (Groupcall) have a statement on this topic, which for clarity have posted separately here: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/data-protection-information-handling/186289-gdpr-upn-use-statement-groupcall.html#post1595335

To all Noting that there has been a lot of discussion around what fields can and cannot be used/transferred out of the MIS to third party systems, particularly the UPN, and as an organisation that provides this service to third parties, we (Groupcall) have a statement to announce on this. Mods: I hope this is appropriate, tweak if anything is too advertise-y! --- We have received enquiries regarding the use of the UPN within data transfers between school MIS and third party software, and also noted the queries around this here too. This is covered by the DPA and under the DPA transfers are allowed provided the requirements of the DPA are met. Where we are instructed by a partner to include UPN in their data extract we ensure that the third party has appropriate Data Sharing Agreements with the schools that allow for the UPN to be transferred before undertaking the transfers, thereby ensuring that all is correct under the DPA. If the UPN is not clearly designated within the DSA as a data item to be included in the transfer, we do not transfer the UPN at all. The same due diligence checks apply to all other data fields that we are instructed to include into data extracts for our partners. Guidance from the Dept of Ed is unclear on the use of UPN. On one hand they state that it should only be used for transfers between schools, local authorities and other government departments whilst on the other hand it states that UPNs should only be disclosed to people with valid consent or legitimate reason. Whilst we believe that an appropriate DSA between the school and the third party supplier is a legitimate reason and the school, as data controller, has given consent to the transfer, we have also asked the Dept of Ed for clarification on this and will feed back their response once we receive it. Based upon this response we will also be liaising with our third party customers to ensure that they are compliant with any recommendations made. --- If any school, or third party, that uses Groupcall products, particularly Xporter, wishes to discuss further please get in touch (third parties, via your Partner Manager). We are also happy to discuss any concerns, particularly from schools, publicly here as it will absolutely benefit others. Regards Graham Reed Consumer Products Manager Groupcall

Choice is good, we have seen Xporter and other data extraction technologies work fine side by side - though the performance and timings of extracts are a thing to think about. Xporter, and I am sure others that work much the same, manages all the data extracts (jobs) so they are efficiently working with each other, and also not all trying to grab the same or all data at the same time. Different systems will not interact like that, but to be honest some clever scheduling will sort that no problem. Can easily see a near future with several data extraction apps working side by side, perfectly fine. In Xporter, you can just shut that job off in the console, or if nothing is using Xporter any more, just remove the application - simple! A bigger concern is about the data each is extracting, and how. Xporter's efficiency works by looking at all the jobs needed, combining the data fields into one extract, pulling that, then sorting it all out on the server after, so each data stream only gets what it is authorised to have. We do NOT pull everything up to the cloud then farm the data out to whoever wants/needs it.

I'll pass the feedback along Mike, I was not in control of that message content (unfortunately) - I agree it is a bit... verbose...

It is what it is Tony - many seem to be heeding the advice, feel free not to I'll point out that the reports of companies pretending to be us, or a third party, or an MIS, were reported here first before we released this statement. You seem to be the only one feeling like we are trying to protect our market share - if only it were that simple. What said companies are doing is at best cheating to get their products installed - that is cheating schools, at worst are installing software for purposes that they are not stating, we may all find this out today, or sometime in the future. I/we are not going to open up the floor to any company denying involvement by naming here - we are not 100% sure ourselves who they are, which if you read previously I have asked for any evidence of this to be submitted to me. If it is proven, we can decide to take action. All of this is for Groupcall to deal with - this message was a reminder to be vigilant against this sort of thing, and to alert the school community of what we have seen - which I think everyone will agree is a positive thing. To be honest, there have been names mentioned in this thread that will help you to your answer. Finally, again, this is not about showing shade on competitors, there are competitors out there for the Xporter market, we have a civil relationship with most of them, they have good products just like us. We welcome competition as it forces us to make our own products better, and as always, suggest you and third parties using Xporter-type products to review the market and pick the best one for you. What this is doing is tarnishing our name and our partners names by pretending to be us or them. As I say, take the warning for what it is, a service, or don't

Hummmmm.... but we'd have to pay for the SMSs still... it is an emergency... but money...

Us? Yes we do have a quadrillion people on our mailing list, although it seems we also missed @witch as well Not sure why it came so late, they all went out at the same time... The marketing team use HubSpot for these mailing (irony seeing as we are a messaging provider and aggregator!), all I can assume is it was done in batches and a delay via that.

Hello all. Apologies for my tardiness in responding here, thanks for @vikpaw for the heads up. If you are not already aware, I am the Product Manager at Groupcall and usually represent them with anything official on here, as I will do now. We set this out in response to an influx of communications we have has from customers, both direct (using our products) and via schools using only third parties that use Xporter. These rather worrying communications, from rightly concerned schools, have reported at least one company (it may be several) calling to demand access to their MIS servers to replace Xporter with some other tech. Most concerning of all is that these calls claim to be from either third parties (who when challenged separately know nothing about this), from the MIS supplier (who would never ever get involved in this) or from Groupcall ourselves. We are taking this extremely seriously, not least for the reports of people claimed to be Groupcall or representing Groupcall, but also the possibility that these people or the tech involved is not who they claim to be, or what it will be used for. Our advice, in this email as well (pardon the obvious marketing bumpf!), is to be alert, challenge the caller for evidence or verification if needed, ask questions, and if it doesn't seem right then do not allow them to do anything on your systems. I note too that several reports claim these individuals are pushy to get this done, so do stand your ground - if it does turn out to be us after all, our staff all know about this and will not take anything personally! If you have any concerns over any communications you have been sent around this/us/Xporter, from companies you think might not be true or us, or if we have indeed contacted you for some work/support and you are unsure if it is really us, then please get in touch with me directly at [email protected] . (Mods, I'll behave myself and won't be any promotion of products!) Thanks all, and thanks Mods for the freedom to address this. Graham Reed Product Manager Groupcall

Agree with @maturelady here, electronic consent is only of any use if you can be sure the person giving the consent is who they say they are, meaning an Identity management system plays an essential part in schools.

Just throw a screenshot up and put this to bed Phil

Can I assume there will be a quick visual way to achieve the same result, just not using attendance codes? Like a notes field? I guess something like that would also be useful for other things like 'forgotten homework' and the likes, another frequent use for this.

They are owned/run by the same people.

That's poor form...

I'm just not sure what the problem is, if schools have learned to use the system to x, who are we to tell them it is wrong?

But it is very quick, even to add a quick behavior is several clicks per child. This can be done as quick as a register at the same time as a register.

Playing devils advocate - then why have SIMS not just done it? As a supplier of these such products, and the Product Manager for our own specifically, I can tell you it is a task to not only provide the features schools need from their MIS, but also offer services that are USP to make attractive to buy. Further, not every product does it the same, and so is not right for every school in every area all the time. Otherwise, there would be no choosing of products - what makes you choose one product over another - because it does something better or in a way you prefer over others.... the next chap prefers option 2 because they prefer something else...

Well yes, why has someone not yet produced the perfect platform that does everything everyone everywhere wants... Doesn't one suspect it might be a little harder to get it right for everyone all the time, otherwise someone would already have done it...

Thanks @maturelady for the positive message.

Really?

I would love too, unfortunately I'm a commercial vendor and don't use SIMS itself day in day out... I just know the data and what schools have done with it.

I've worked with a number of schools that do this, called behaviour for learning. Relatively simple, easy to set up.

Because when has that mattered when it comes to staying on topic...