matt40k

4 years... not much has changed...

You're google skillz are failing you ... http://www.edugeek.net/forums/sims-bulk-import/99098-sims-bulk-import-5.html#post1563549

If Capita has phoned up saying they won't get patches, that says to me, no they aren't. £1500pa plus £500 setup - That's just for hosting. If you look at Digitalmarket place you can get an entire MIS, hosted, managed, all in for around that sort of price, SIMS just looks expensive. https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud/search?q=mis

Pretty sure Capita still charge you £'s for SIMS even if you are hosted. I'd wager they charge more too

The same way they do in business. You learn it on the job. The only place you use SIMS is in a SIMS school. ...The only way to learn Sainsburys systems is working in Sainsburys... ...The only way to learn DirectLine systems is working at DirectLine... ...The only way to learn NatWest systems is working at NatWest.. The list goes on and on. Employers have the obligation to train staff, schools are no exception, in fact they should be champion it, education is their business after all!!

What are you trying to do?

No pay, no patches. No patches, not gonna be able to do Census. You could switch MIS, but I doubt you'll find one or doesn't charge you. You've got to at least pay the maintenance cost.

You can download it... just got to ask the right question to the right people (not me!) Also I thought this was baked into SIMS now? - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/191767-updating-field-spreadsheet.html#post1642781

If only you had a tool that could do it yourself... https://simsbulkimport.uk/

What about staff?

Suspect the argument would be your support unit should be testing for you, its what you pay them for, so you shouldn't be doing it. As for training, you should sending staff on (official) training course rather then let them wander around a (test) system blindly. The other argue would be like @vikpaw said, training data will be configured differently so it wouldn't be that useful. Ideally you want a massive pseudonymization button.

See what you mean @CAM, but Microsoft aren't writing an Add-on for Capita. Capita are adding support for (another) Microsoft (product). It's like how they integrate with Word \ Excel.

Problem is the homepage etc auto refreshes, so that'll show someone is "active" when really they just left there machine on and logged in and it isn't a question of just killing connections because you could have someone who is actually working. Guess it's a question of checking in SM7, or is 8 years too quick for Capita development

Pretty much every parent app, ever - part of there onboarding process - here is an example letter to send to parents with details about who we are, why and what we will do with the data, please consent (or if left us know if you reject before x date) AGAIN, nothing new, just seems to be cutting corners.

If you data is hosted with Capita that's fine. It's no real change, no problem. Problem is most SIMS schools is on-prem and now, because of this app, it isn't the case. This is potential changing overnight and schools are being told by Capita they don't need to ask for parental consent to roll it out. If this genuinely not seeing this as problem and I'm wrong, then hey - how about Capita state, officially, that individual can't opt-out* and you don't need parental permission, publicly on there site, and I'll refer to it ICO etc and they can slap a seal of approval on it or slap them with a giant fine. * Still haven't got a clear answer on that - heck we may all be wasting our time talking about this. Come on - clear advice please! Phil - you might be right, but I've been asked about all the other third party apps - schoolcomms \ parentpay - and I can opt-out - why can't I on this? Seriously, I thought you were no1!

This has nothing to do with the cloud!! You yourself have said before sending data off to a third party you need to get parental consent! This is no different. This is a bolt-on. Pure and simple. It doesn't stop the school from working if it doesn't use it. If it did, why hasn't SIMS had a way of doing this from the start? Heck even a way of bulk updating! It's a good idea and it's brilliant you are rolling it out for free. My issue, is purely you have a fundamental flaw, how do you opt-out. You still haven't said if you can or can't either. Personally we both know you will have that feature in the future if you don't today.

This isn’t about a question about if I trust the cloud. This is a question of do I trust a third party who takes my families personal information without my consent or even knowledge and gives me no way of opt-out. Far as I am concerned, this is theft and a breach of GDPR. I just hope my data isn’t sat on Capita servers To be clear, I'm not talking about Microsoft. I'm talk directly about Capita.

Apples and Pears. This isn't a cloud MIS, its a bolt-on. A school doesn't JUST move MIS system, what we're talking about is overnight sensitive data is being sent to a third party with consent and no way of individual refusing. If my son school moved to a certain cloud MIS and I didn't trust the company, I'd have to move him to a new school, which isn't ideal - but at least I have an option, be informed and time to do so. When applying for a school, I have the ability to find out where the data will be stored etc (ie which cloud MIS they are using). This is fundamentally different and it's worrying Capita don't appear to have designed this from the off - what's next we'll be finding out they have no way do deal with the "right to be forgotten"? Can imagine any Capita storing data forever and a day with no way to remove

I'm with you with that - Personally, I'm happy if they stick something on the school newsletter and going hey we'd doing this, if you've got an issue, tell us (I'm sure GDPR says otherwise) my issue is I still haven't had a official statement from Capita saying this is how you opt-out individuals from the process which is seems extremely disturbing for Capita to do considering there position in the market and the fact this isn't something new either is it. Its a fundamental design flaw if it is the case. Again, just working on limit knowledge, but its a pretty big marketing failure if nothing else. Until they confirm they have a way of excluding individuals, asking for consent is pointless. You can't do anything with that information!

No. SIMS .net is physically hosted on-prem in the school. Shipping the data to a third party, in potentially a different country is not the same. Currently, the only way that data enters Capita control is if a problem occurs, the school then agrees to send the data, the data is then purge once they have completed it - there is a lot of regulation and policy around this. This isn't a slight tweak, it's major change. It hasn't been essential function previously to do historically. Can't just wiggle the goal posts, this is will result in a GDPR fine. This is no different to having to get parental consent to use any other third party tool (SchoolComm \ ParentPay \ GroupCall \ Teacher2Parent \ etc)

...but the data would have been sent to a third party that I haven't given my consent for.

It doesn't seem to indicate you can exclude individuals, so like its all or nothing :S

I'd expect Capita to set the golden standard - especially as they have a much larger base then anyone else. Also have you ever tried contact the supplier directly? Capita you hit a pay wall very quickly.

You can see the irony right? You have a document describing how a parent service works, which no parent can access directly. If I was a school I'd be worried if I could share it as behind a password-ed site only schools could access and has Capita copyright\legal stuff all over it.

Any reason it isn't public?