HereIGoAgain2601

We had prepaid for a further 2 years upfront on our license across the Trust. Despite our best efforts with some very senior people the product was becoming increasingly unstable and over complicated. We tried for about 12 months to sync central staff. It was a disaster and a huge waste of time. We moved to an iPad based solution earlier this year and it’s been a breathe of fresh air - much easier to use, deploy new ones and cheaper too! Would strongly recommend moving away. Inventry has become the SIMS of the visitor sign in world. Too expensive and bloated with poor development.

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🚀 Exciting Opportunity – Join an Award-Winning IT Team! 🚀 Consilium Academies are looking for two new colleagues to fill fantastic IT roles based in our schools in Gateshead and Doncaster, joining an established, award-winning team that’s successfully delivered major IT transformation. You’ll work with a wide range of systems that are fully managed in-house and benefit from regular investment. You will have the opportunity to learn from experienced professionals who lead on sector best practice and be part of a really welcoming, supportive, and flexible team that lives and breathes excellence each day. We act with integrity to create and sustain a positive, inclusive culture that genuinely values collaboration, development, and work–life balance. With strong support, clear career progression, and real opportunities to grow your skills, this is a brilliant chance to take the next step in your IT career. https://mynewterm.com/jobs/138314/EDV-2026-AA-30194 Role is at Armthorpe Academy, Doncaster, £ 32,061 - £34,435

We gave notice to our account manager a year in advance via email and to the contracts address. They replied to say they accepted this. One school that left the notice until a similar time you mentioned was told they had to send a hard copy letter and did this as well as the email. They will do anything to try and cling onto some contracts because they know the product won’t sell itself.

Good luck to you Access is absolutely terrible for budgeting and just general day to day usage. User of 3 years - granted it’s probably better than FMS but that’s not much to go by. You should be able to get this switched on by Access if you can find someone helpful in their support team as we have the entire process conducted electronically. It took them about 2 years to get the auto emailing of waiting actions to work though.

We had something similar recently and were told they’d put some new IP addresses or domains onto their software which they didn’t inform us of…. So the firewall had blocked it. This might be your issue.

Been meaning to find this for ages, thanks for saving me a job!

It did on this thread where I’ve commented and been before so it shows the blue line and the changes. However if I go to a thread I’ve never been on before ever it just starts from the very bottom of the last page.

Just using the safari browser on an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Whenever I open a new thread on the “what’s new” page that takes me fancy it’s dropping me right into the “latest” post at the bottom of the thread so keep having to scroll all the way back to the top. If it goes across multiple pages I’m on the last page not the first.

On the mobile site whenever I open a thread it goes straight to the bottom and I find myself scrolling back to the top continually to find out what the thread was actually about rather than comments/replies.

There are so many different ways to work this out and there is no one size fits all approach. It will depend on the ultimate level of centralisation and the type of support and control needed. I have seen some Trusts just employ a “manager” who oversees the existing school based staff, this doesn’t tend to end well and ends up with lots of headaches and ultimately changes when they realise it doesn’t work. Others will try and copy the SLA costs of local providers where primaries are involved but this doesn’t usually cover costs - as others have said they usually do these as loss leaders and make money on selling equipment that the MAT wouldn’t. They also charge for projects which again the MAT wouldn’t want to. I have also seen other MATs where they include asset replacement and licenses in the costs as well as staffing; so this is usually a % of each school’s GAG but means they don’t need to fund anything else. Luckily in my current trust everything is centralised and we fully GAG pool; we have a really good staff structure that changes with the needs of the Trust and the budget to invest strategically. We don’t have every role but who does! My advice would be to draw up proposals for if you want an IT team that does X it will cost y. If you want a more basic service we can do it at Z cost.

Works really well for us, set it up and forget until the certs need renewing every so often.

We have this setup with CRB. It works just as well as the rest of our CRB schools…

Just to say that across our 8 school trust they have been trying unsuccessfully for months to get central to work. The fire evac app is a joke on anywhere and spends hours syncing. Escalated this quite high up and they still haven’t managed to fix it. Actual screens run like a dog when you put AV on them, we replaced all in 2022 and the spec level is shockingly poor given the cost. At the time I had bigger fish to fry so just renewed to keep everyone happy; sadly made the “mistake” of signing up for 5 years. The only saving grace is that the 4th and 5th years were paid as 3 payments, so we can technically afford to move from September. Safe to say we can’t wait to move to Sign in App! Absolutely no innovation at Inventry and it’s definitely become the SIMS of visitor management with the ridiculous costs to match.

We have had a variety in recent years having moved from Civica. Most of our schools are with Cunningham Impact and hosted by then offsite in Azure. This has made things much easier for the IT teams as we don’t have anything to manage! That being said, we do have some issues where Cunningham blame the “network” and we never seem to get it resolved. This seems to be their get out and pretty sure it’s an azure scaling problem rather than our brand new hardware running on brand new infrastructure and gigabit leased lines. Vericool I had great hopes about. On the whole the service has been good and for most things support is prompt. However, one issue we do have is with the biometrics keep stopping working on a regular basis. Whilst support has been very helpful we don’t seem to have been able to stop it from actually occurring. These issues have led me to decide that there are issues with all cashless systems so I’m just leaving it be!! At least it’s not on our servers so other than ring for support and ensure strong connectivity not much we can do. I know the catering manager wants to try Bluerunner but as this is a ParentPay/ESS product I have my reservations.

We have this same solution with docks and Latitude 3510s, have about 450 of them out in our Trust used everyday in classrooms and haven’t heard any complaints of this as yet. Not helpful I know!

Good morning all, Just looking for some advice - we are currently paying a significant sum each year to ESS for FSM/Pupil premium eligibility checking - https://www.ess-sims.co.uk/online-free-school-meals As we are moving to Arbor in January, I am wondering what alternatives are out there. Arbor don't seem to have anything similar to this. ESS have said we can retain this service but I'd rather cut all ties if at all possible! As far as I can see the only other alternative is to go back to each of the LA's we work with.... does anyone know of anything else? Thanks!

I couldn’t get any new devices to enrol via DEP last week, complained about certificate problems. Will check this out and see if ours is the same.

Hello, We had a great experience at the first school that we moved across to the platform. School was very pleased and reliability much better than the CRB system it replaced. Second school didn’t go so well, constant up and down in terms of reliability. The support team haven’t been too bad in responding but we still haven’t figured out the issue 9 months in. Ended up having to move back on premise which is not what we wanted. Have a meeting later this week to see about it going back to the cloud…. The suggestion is that it’s something specific to this school but I can’t see how when both schools have identical firewalls. Internet lines are gig leased lines with 200 meg backup lease lines. Cisco meraki across the school… so go figure!

There is still time to apply for our Trust Senior Engineer role. If you want to work for a supportive Trust that values and supports staff then this is the role for you. Based at one of our amazing Salford secondary schools you will be empowered to make a difference, going above and beyond for our students all whilst achieving professional growth. I am so proud to work at Consilium Academies and lead our fantastic IT team. What we have achieved as a team in the last 2 years is nothing short of exceptional. Now is a great time to join our journey as we continue to move towards the cloud. The pay and holiday allowance isn’t bad either! Get in touch with me if you’re interested and would like to know more, or you can apply below. https://lnkd.in/ePRGpRbn

This job has been advertised two or three times in the last few years so either there has been a string of failed appointments or they keep changing their mind about the role!

The scary thing about this is that there has recently been a ransomware attack as a result of Inventry and their lax approach to setup. They have changed the default passwords on the machine but said it’s the customers responsibility to ensure its secured with antivirus etc! I tried to join one to our domain years ago and it never worked properly so hesitant to do so again! Will definitely be moving away to another solution as soon as our contract is up. Sadly we are only 18 months into a 5 year

We are looking to appoint a Senior Engineer to join our Trust IT team. You will be based within our Salford Cluster at Ellesmere Park High School. We have a strong team that works together to deliver the majority of IT services in house. Now is a great time to join us to develop your skillset further. We offer fantastic benefits and all staff receive 34.5 days + bank holiday annual leave entitlement each year. Flexibility is also offered for staff wishing to take leave during the term time. https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/trust-senior-engineer-north-west-salford-2084266

Hi everyone, We currently have a license for the Barracuda O365 cloud to cloud backup solution. The 3 year contract expires later this year so just wondering what other products people may be using and would recommend. Thanks!

Does anyone know when the clause was added - we are coming to the end of our 3 year contact in April 2025 and actively looking at alternatives.