LawrenceRoyston

Hi Zag The new version of Emerge is running successfully in hundreds of schools. It maybe to do with the app version you are running as the new version requires both the server and app to be upgraded. Please contact support who will help you. Thanks L.

I use the Zagg Profilio Plus. Have used a keyboard with my pad for about a year. Its excellent, expensive but transforms the device into a mini laptop. Battery life is g8, about a month. The backlit keyboard is useful as well. L.

You need to get out more L.

Praise from Bromcom is praise indeed, thanks John! FYI. I personally took the photo's and video on my phone today to produce these figures, they were reported at the server in our log which reports received data and packet sizes L.

Its the former, its because its an Apple device L.

Hi Lots of different strands here, but I'll try and cover all of them.. 1. Apple devices can only sync via WiFi or 3G, so you can't use a physical connection. 2. We can't use Wifi in this situation, so 3G is the only option. 3. Emerge is very flexible in terms of its use of bandwidth for any connection including 3G, we can adjust all of the sync options to dramatically reduce the bandwidth usage to cater for this situation and are very happy to do it as part of an installation. 4. Although some people have commented to the contrary, Emerge is pretty efficient when it comes to uploading pictures and video relating to behaviour and achievement entries. See the following:- - Behaviour entry with 1 picture attached (76K) - Behaviour entry with 2 pictures attached (122K) - Behaviour entry with 11 second video attached (1.1MB) I just had a quick look at o2 and found the lowest data packages you can buy at the moment is 100MB per month. In simple terms, ignoring any other usage, that would be 839 uploads of 2 pictures or 100 uploads of 10 second videos clips each month. I suspect most people will have more bandwidth and even if they don't, that's still quite a lot of uploading. My conclusion is that Emerge is usable on 3G, you should look at your data allowance to make sure you have a sensible package and it obviously depends on your usage, but for all the reasons given above, if shouldn't be prohibitive. I hope that helps. Kind Regards Lawrence

Hi Zag The easy question 1st, Emerge HD with the new behaviour and and achievement functionality is in the App store. In terms of the upgrade to the server software, all Emerge customers will receive an email within the next 7 days detailing when their specific upgrade is due to take place. These upgrades will commence 24th sept, and complete nationally by week ending 19th October. I hope that answers your questions. Best Lawrence

As they say "Be careful what you wish for ...", its been done and will be part of the new release of Emerge which will be submitted to the AppStore next week (it takes a week or so before it is actually available). If you want to try it before then, give me a call in the office and I arrange something for you. L. FYI. New version has been heaviliy optimised, is dramatically faster and has a number of minor bug fixes.

Once a register is taken, it CAN be retaken. Best L.

Hi A couple of points to clarify and then I will explain what enhancements we are working on. The Serco API allows us to read and write all codes for roll call (AM/PM), so there are no problems marking a student with any roll call attendance code from Emerge. *You rightly say that the Serco Lesson Attendance API only allows us to writeback 7 codes and this is an issue. When taking lesson attendance, Emerge will show you the attendance code (in half intensity) of the AM or PM roll call, if there isnt already a mark for that lesson, otherwise it will show you the mark. At the moment, it filters out marks that cant be entered, so this is the situation you have described where an H entered by the office cannot be seen by the teacher taking lesson attendance. What we plan to do is allow the mark to be shown even though it cannot be entered, so a teacher would see the H and therefore not overight it. This should help, although its not a perfect solution. Obviously Serco's main focus is Progresso right now, but we have requested an update to the E-Portal API to allow us to write back all lesson attendance markks (which used to be there in an older version of the API). I am sure our customers support on this may help this happen quicker. Lastly, there is an argument to say that detailed reasons of why students are not attending a lesson are probably not known by teachers when they take lesson attendance, more likely they will be prefilled in by School administrators using the SERCO MIS, so the fact that the teacher cannot enter more than the basic marks is not such a problem. If that was true and as long as the teacher can see that mark, in the short term, the solution we have may be a useable workaround. Appreciate your comments, Best Lawrence

Whilst this is technically possible, there are other issues. Most UK schools would not, and should not allow parental input on a website to automatically update their MIS. As a Data Controller, they have a responsibility to maintain the integrity of the MIS data and this leaves it open to abuse. I agree with others that data should be maintained in one place (the schools MIS) and used many times, it is a core principle of interoperability and anything else is a backward step. Whilst there is an appeal for parents to maintain their own data, in practice, it’s not a complete solution and hence is flawed. It seems to me that there is no difference between manually copying data out of a returned CSV file or manually typing in changed parental contact information from a form. If that is true, why go through the whole process of creating parent accounts, securely sharing logon details with parents, maintaining all of that, when the information you get back has to be entered in the same way as if you asked the parents for updated contact details every so often. There is an illusion that this is saving time, on the basis of the above, it looks like it would take longer. Schools have a responsibility to maintain their MIS with parental contact information for students in their care. We are one a of few companies that read MIS live and in real-time from SIMS and other systems, we don’t copy the data, and we don’t export it, which means that none of the synchronisation and security issues highlighted above apply. Lawrence

Hi vik The next version of emerge has full SMS facilities built into the app and will be released immediately after the easter break (and it's works internationally). Kind regards Lawrence

Hi Vikpaw We had the 50 hit list because its takes slightly longer for the whole student list to load and we didnt think that users would browse a list of 1000+ students (without searching), we wanted to keep the usage fluid. But noting your points, what we have done is the following:- 1. The list now has a 100 records in it. 2. When you search (e.g. for "Be"), it now orders the list to display anyones surnames that start "Be" first (like Becker, Boris; Beckford, Karl etc..) and then will list students names that contains "be" (like Abbey, David). I think this is better, appreciate your comments, we have already put this in the server side update, which will be available to all existing (and new) customers for Emerge which should be auto-updated later this week. Hopefully, this highlights something else, which is that Emerge is a framework, the App on the device doesnt know about schools, students or parents etc, it is completely controlled by the server that gives the device the data and the way it should be displayed and used. It makes it extremely flexible and extendable. The current version of Emerge is just the begining, its the functionality and data that we have thought of together with input from schools. Where it goes is based on the feedback and ideas for functionality we get, which are always welcome. Finally, we will have a look at the idea of a configurable auto-disable, such that it would disable even in offline mode after N hours/days. Currently, when online a user can be immediately disabled, but I take your point about offline. Thanks and Regards Lawrence

Hi There have a been a few comments about the Groupcall Emerge ‘app’ recently, particularly relating to the charges we impose for the 1st device licence. (posted by ‘Glenda’ yesterday). I wanted to set the record straight by stating that the higher initial licence of £ 299 for secondary & £ 199 for primary schools is in place to cover the initial Emerge Management Module installation, configuration and training charges. Also the primary school site licence @ £ 1995 is incorrect, the annual primary subscriptions is £1000. Lastly, regarding Vikpaw's "further queries" which are included below, I have added my comments as follows:- Q: iPod Touch 4 is currently around £150 here for an 8GB. I think 3rd gen is cheaper still. Will it work on that? A: YES, as long as the device is running iOS4 or above, however, in performance terms, it runs better on the 4th Gen iPod Touch (this is the recommended option). Q: Is the pricing annual? Or is there an on going cost? A: YES, but the product is rapidly evolving and all upgrades are included. Q: The demo, appeared to have a limit of around 50 students on a search, but i may be wrong. When searching it finds the character / combo in any part of the name, so 'al' returns 'sally' and 'wallis'. That could be a limitation for me! A: When browsing you see the first 50 hits, however when searching it searches all students in the school. On the second point, the ability to do this type of searching is more flexible, but thats just my opinion. Q: Can it access UDGs so when used for a school trip all info is in one list? A: Yes, this is possible. Q: Any recommendations on management software to lock down usage of the devices? A: The system comes with a management console that controls security and access to the MIS data on the device, no other software is required. We are looking at the ability to control profiles on the device to lock it down, so it could only be used for this purpose (if required by the individual school). Hope thats useful. Happy to answer any other queries. Regards Lawrence

Thanks, to answer your questions.. 1. Cant answer in detail at the moment. What I can say is that the security on Emerge for the iPhone was our top consideration, there is no point doing something like this unless you feel VERY comfortable with the security of pupil data. This same thinking is being applied to the Android version. 2. The Xporter/Emerge Server ("management/comms software") is the school end of the solution, it needs a live connection to SIMS (i.e. installed on a machine with SIMS installed). 3. The mac version is not browser based, it is a native mac app. It is very much in our plans to have access to accessment soon. Emerge was designed as a framework, so its very extendable without having to revert to a developer. Hope that helps. Lawrence