GREED

@matt40k Nice to see you are deliberately skipping over the key point again... name me a mobile app for an MIS that has been designed to work online as you suggest is the future... that can work offline? TeacherApp yes (for a 'legacy' product as you like to call it, despite SIMS having 84% of the schools in the UK... I'd say current personally), Emerge Yes (same argument). I don't feel there is need to make this personal with attempting to shrug off my legitimate comments by attempted smearing.

App code working offline is one thing. Data access and security totally different and not covered by simple 'local hosting' as a generic response... No need to try and stoke a fire that is not there Matt, note I equally included TeacherApp in there as well.

Working offline/without internet/without servers/in emergency?

For Parents, it will be Groupcall Xpressions the product you are looking for (formally Emerge for Parents which may be the confusion) that covers the requirements. Emerge is for Staff.

With BETT only a week away would it be sensible to go to the show and speak to the usual players in this market and see what thay have to offer now?

Paul Have you contacted the help desk about this?

Sounds more like BS to me. Although I do get ill whenever I go near router, but then I worked as an IT tech for years and think I have been scarred for life...

It is a trade off, how much time does it take your staff (who could also make mistakes) to enter the details from paper, not to mention the collective postage and printing costs etc, aginst them doing it. With them doing it, this conversation has described how to minimise the errors with technonogy

It can't. But then few systems actually can in the world. Best you can do is validate on the formation (number of numbers, starting with a 0, area codes even). Think how online shops collect the data, and mimic their validation such as repeating email lines for example, validating by emailing or SMS.

@matt40k we only use PR too.

Send an SMS to the number with a code to enter on the website

Just checking Matt, are you expecting the school to code all of this or to buy into such a solution?

Sad news.

He isn't but never mind. Would you care to comment on the other items mentioned, about your products perhaps? I'm sure schools would be keen to hear from you on those.

Oh boy is thay going to open a can of political worms...

@RobFrain I would be happy to answer any questions you might have about Groupcall Emerge, just ask away. I am Groupcall's Product Manager. To answer your specific question, for your school for just 2 iPads, the cost would be £424 per year (+ VAT). If you wanted more devices, you can buy individually more on top, or we do a site licence based on pupil numbers (unlimited users/devices). We offer a 4 week trial of Emerge (no obligation and all that) where you get to use on unlimited devices, full services and with your own data (inc writeback, so you can take attendance and all that!). Hope that is of some use to you. Graham

Do it, they great company to chat to. Reasonably priced and company has a good track record in this sector! Everything I have seen from schools that use it say it is simple and easy to use.

Have you looked at FasTrack by Biostore?

If course, you have been a SIMS customer for long enough to know the usual updates sometimes have issues that means they are withdrawn from SOLUS! Either that or Apple have the hump!

Has this been since this was 'fixed', has there been another release since early October then?

Just to balance the conversation (advertising of TeacherApp), thought I would clarify some of the points raised about what Emerge apparently 'does not do' "Real time attendance": No, it is not connected to and reading the database 'live', is caches the database so that you can use Emerge anywhere not just when within the school Wifi or other internet connection. This is deliberate to add functionality to the app. Complaints that this is slow, or requires synchronisation, have been raised and we have taken steps this summer to massively improve the sync of data as well as the writeback to the MIS (not just SIMS). Attendance in particular (all staff writing registers at the same time!). "Slowing down SIMS every 15 minutes": As above I will assume, but if this is happening and you believe directly related to your use of Emerge, please give the support desk a ring. "Emerge overwrite": Can you explain more about this? "Dinner Money": Emerge writes the dinner register and if you school uses/wants to use this (Primary Schools most commonly) then the interface alters slightly, so as a teacher takes the register it is performing the two register is one action. This has been in a large number of schools since release in April and is proving invaluable as well as saving a lot of money now schools are accurately able to record meal choices every day, and taken no more time than taking a normal register.

Importing back into the MIS is an interesting job - for one you do not want this to be automated as you will want to verify and sanity check the data before writing back - so you need a holding area to review this... now it is complicated. For the collection of the data (which then exports to an Excel file), have a look at these guys: https://www.parentpaperwork.com/

Not at all @PhilNeal voicing opinions which are valid. No one wants poor service, in the same way good service should be praised and would like to see more of that on here!

Indeed... not knowing your own communication system is not working isn't a good way to run a railroad. Or are these excuses the catch all for a number separate issues?

Have a look at Pebble, UK based company that does this.