mthomas08

Is this really the case? We don't have a set menu on a daily basis and we are considering moving to Bromcom (our MIS). The restaurant updates the system at their end and change prices/items often.

Exactly this. In fact, I would double the praise for the main engineer guy, he has been brilliant. Can't say the same for anything else. Ordering: Took an age to get any kind of a response and when I do "we will get back". No response. This lasted for months. Support: We've had issues since the Summer and this is still ongoing. We phone them and after a long wait - we either get cut off or voicemail and if we DO get an actual person.. we get cut off or fobbed off. We have called them.. I'd say about 3 times a week? No.. more.. I'd say 4 times a week since the end of summer. We are tendering them. We've had enough. The whole year the service has been poor and it is very obvious something is happening. I've sent soooo many emails to different people and very lucky if I get a response.. on top of all the calls.

All sorts of weird issues regarding SSO and MCAS homework attachments not working. The good news, no slow issues for our day-to-day staff.

Apologies for a slight hijack but is anyone else having severe problems with Civica? We purchased equipment a few months back and this was a nightmare just to get someone to speak to me. Emails and phone calls galore and no one got back, in the end I had to go through any number I could find and given an email address of our account manager. This process lasted for about 8 weeks. Now, we have been having issues with the system since the summer holiday. We keep phoning and emailing. My technician has phoned an average of 2-4 times a day for over a week. -after a long 45 minute wait = we get cut off -after a long 45 minute wait = we get voice mail -after a long 45 minute wait = we get a real person and get cut off mid call -after a long 45 minute wait = we get a real person and a "we are the next priority support call and someone will get back shortly". Repeat the above every single day for a week. We were told over a week ago now that we were next in line. I emailed 3 separate people. I don't know if there is severe issues going on at the company but this problem started back in May and simply getting a person to respond has become difficult. Every response we get is "someone will contact us". I can't even blame just the support dept because I had this problem with purchasing back in May/April/June.

Great thanks. I think the only reason I never spent much time is because of it.. so I went ahead and built my own world. Assuming I can't copy/paste what I built already?! Think I used that mod many years ago. Not to worry if not! When I next go back to MC I'll jump in. I'm the kind of player that just is happy to build and continue building. Got an entire city built with a port and all sorts during the lockdowns.

Good job! I thought the server got the occasional wipe? So do the buildings stay put for good now?

We generally don't but if we ever have the equipment as a one off, we can but only with the purpose of not replacing them. PE do and ICT currently do. All classrooms have computer setups. Much more cost effective.

We went through the same process. Both are very close to one another and really depends what you want from it down the line. We plan on migrating away from our current cashless system at some point. I can't remember exactly but it is very important to note Timetabling - we had to purchase a 3rd party app even with Bromcom. Not sure if this was because we had SIMs (NovaT) or because of the limitations of Bromcom - I think the latter. It might have been updated in the last year or so, but we had to purchase Timetabler. The pros/cons - these are going to be the little things. Get the data manager involved and what they do all day every day - even the little once a year things. I can't speak for Arbor but Bromcom does have little niggles compared to SIMs. There are functions not available that we had before - little things (mainly to do with the data manager). We've had our ups and downs. Some of it caused by us as a school. The niggles I hate with Bromcom -getting students on the portal (it isn't fully automated) -getting parents on MCAS (but I do believe they are looking at this) - long winded process and not simple

The email we got indicates they will stop support for V8 next year October. And the part of this annoys me, we didn't long install our equipment... within say.. Covid.. just before or just after/during.... We are considering our options - and biostore from IRIS are another possibility. When we last did an upgrade, it was pretty easy minus serious performance issues in the early days. What has changed, is how we find it very difficult getting a response from anyone at Civica. Last time I had to chase.. chase.. chase.. to be constantly told "someone will get in touch".. so I chased and chased (kept getting cut off in the last few attempts...) and had to ask another person for a direct contact to our rep... We will probably do a tender early next year / late this year.

Apologies for a bump but yes.... We are actually struggling to get a response regarding some queries. Been a few weeks now and even after the chasing, I am still waiting. Now we are considering our options and there is a possibility that we leave Civica in favour of IRIS.

We didn't do a migration to iSAMS but I highly recommend you make sure everything is migrated - especially the important stuff. Do a list! Talk to every office dept! What is crucial etc. A few things at our end didn't migrate to Bromcom and by the time people noticed... it was too late. Even though we had a 'test' migration and people did not check. Instead.. they waited until we went live and not even right away to confirm what is/not there..... To make matters worse.. some TIME later.. something to do with the Census was discovered and it cost the school a bit of funding.

Same I see the approved/disapproved apps, some basic settings and that's it. Unless this is pure free version and nothing to do with the premium. I sign in as a teacher using the usual magic link method.

SIMs 8 reminds me of my Steam wishlist, absolutely full of Early Access games that never seem to be released. Almost 100 games and quite a few of them are 3-5 years old... yet Early Access. Still, on a positive note I think Arbor and Bromcom etc growing is good for the MIS market. It kicks them in to gear.

Yes - this. We already had to pull info out of SIMs some time after switching to Bromcom.

I completely agree, we are paying for the whole package but how is that service level? People are angry because of the level of service support reliability development customer service For such a high cost product, should it be better? Yes and that's why people are angry about the cost. Also, if I chose to compare an MIS to a game.. I'd choose an MMO... which do go through developments and updates etc.

Sadly I wouldn't say we're one of them. Left SIMs to go to Bromcom and I still get staff wanting to go back to SIMs. This includes the data manager /attendance / behaviour teams. From what I understand with the attendance problem, it has something to do with the 'mass' daily function of sending to multiple parents at once. They spent a bit of time on the phone with Bromcom and the conclusion is.. can't do it like the SIMs way. The data manager.. I think she moaned about a similar thing, a quick function that existed within SIMs doens't in bromcom. I advised both of them to put it in the ideas area. One thing I can specifically say and this isn't down to the MIS comparison, is how EduLinkOne is far better on getting parents onboard and the ease of parent evenings.

No issues at all? No parent complaints? Previously did you generally deal with parent issues/complaints on ParentPay? Any missing features? Can parents save CC details? Apparently this is missing? Do you link up to the Civica (previously NRS) cashless catering system? This is on our list to sort out.

Disagree. Once signed on and using MCAS = good. The sign up process though has far too many of our parents confused. If they wanted a good example system, try EduLinkOne - the process was easy for us and even easier to continue pushing it out to parents with a pre-setup custom email all in the same screen. Their virtual parent meetings is brilliant and simple too. We switched to MCAS early last year and still have parent problems today. We had to go elsewhere for a simple parent evening system because I am told the Bromcom one isn't as simple as it needs to be. Also problems with kids suing the student app - apparently they are looking at all these systems to improve things. Soon we will look at switching from ParentPay to MCAS for dinners etc but I'm not exactly holding my breath on how good the system is.

Why? If its their preference and requirements? Their preference is to stick to one OS type and I really don't blame them. We went down the route of MS and Android tablet schemes in the past. The problems we faced with MS devices were down to things out of power. Simple things like students forgetting them / damages / insurance and warranty claims. OThe only problem software wise we had.. some staff expected the Adobe suite package to work on basic spec netbooks.... When we tried Android, we found staff were struggling to find app versions of the software we already had. If your system was based on Chrome or Apple, I would always advise to stick to what you have (if you can manage or afford it). And I'm saying this when I prefer to buy iPads to run a few elements around our school - they simply sit there and perform 1 single function and I know they should continue to work for many years down the line. @ OP We've run schemes in the past but these were just before 365 really kicked off. If we did the schemes now, I think we would face a bit less trouble. If you want more details I'm sure I can provide them so drop me a DM.

Can't talk about Paris but Orlando for us was 10/10. Back in the day when we had money.. My only regret is not saving up the money and going with our daughter. She would love it.

Slightly misleading headline though isn't it? Reading through the article - they said no to the 'free version' of these systems and the paid versions could still be an option. The article discusses GDPR and complying with EU policies and Microsoft aiming to have it setup by end of 2022 (apparently Google are already setup). A few things about US > EU data links being resolved for privacy. If I'm reading this right....

I'd be out the door. Why do I want to be employed as a babysitter when i chose the job to be in IT. We all take responsibility for students when working in education but this is beyond me... I've never in 20 years heard of something like this. There are things I would tolerate and put up with and bend for.. but this... The last movie I watched is... nope.

I've still got the hundreds of emails on SIMs issues we suffered over the years. I didn't forget about the patches and updates crashing the system or the extra hours keeping it all working. However, We've suffered far more Bromcom issues in 6 months since joining them compared to the previous 18 months on SIMs. I won't include the comparison of our parent/student portal reliability, because our previous system very rarely had any issues in 5 years.. Again, I just hope these are teething issues with all the new schools joining them and the dust settles and reliability truly kicks in.

I'm usually a calm one but we have seen consistent issues since returning this month. I like the new UI but, as you said.. we didn't get told it was coming.. and shock to the system for people that instantly panic when something looks different. I really hope Bromcom are learning from these problems and improving the system to cut these out.. I'm starting to sway toward.... is this a mistake.. leaving SIMs..

Had moments yesterday, slow. Today, slow down slow down. We did have a few issues around June/July.