Damon

@paulkerton You were on the money until the contract mentions 120 days. So at the start of year 2 and year 3 they can increase by 2.5% + CPIH based on the 90+ day warning. You cannot terminate the contract due to these rises. At the start of year 4 (the end of the initial term and the start of the first renewal term) they reserve the right to increase by more than 2.5% + CPIH (the max charge). They have to give 120 days of warning and you can terminate the contract at the end of year 3 if you do so according to the termination clauses. I.e. 90+ days before the end of the 3 years (initial term). You can terminate at that point for any reason, they are just reminding you of this as though it's doing you some sort of favour!

If you are hosting it locally, it will keep working but no updates as above. If you are paying for hosted SIMS, that will stop working and I assume they will give your data back.

There is no 90 notice period for renewal as the current contract is being terminated. You are not opting to renew, you are opting whether to enter a new 3 year contract. Hence, you have up to the 31st March 2022 to decide.

The terminology is similar to their previous contracts but rather than being in the renewal term as you are at present (1 year) you're entering a new initial term (3 year) and if the renewals are another 3 years.. wow! I think it's been touched on in other posts but the next 3 years would be subject to limits on cost increases but they reserve the right to increase even more than that for the renewal. I.e. when you start year 4. You would be informed of that increase at least 120 days before the start of year 4 and you would need to make a decision 90 days before the start of year 4. So essentially, if you don't like the price hike you have 30 days to make the decision to quit SIMS otherwise you're locked in for another 3 years.

Check your SIMS.ini and specifically the SIMSDirectory parameter.

The termination clauses should be in the contract. I would imagine it's pretty standard, i.e. you buy your way out by paying the remaining years of the contract up front. Seeing as they haven't allowed any negotiation on the 3 year terms, I wouldn't expect any deals to be done on early termination. It wouldn't be in their interests to do so but likewise that's the nature of any contract. As always, read what you're signing up for

If you're talking about the normal 90 day notice period, I don't think there is one because ESS have terminated your existing contract. The new contract will begin in April if you accept the terms. Double check, but I believe you have until March 31st to make a decision.

My understanding is that there is no notice period because the existing contract is being terminated. As a school, you are ending your contract with the LA and starting a new contract with ESS. However, your LA may choose to enter into a facilitating contract so they retain an element of administrative control and carry out the recharging. So in essence, you should have until April to decide. The amount of spend on this contract is likely to trigger some entry level procurement controls so it's worth getting a couple of alternative quotes from MIS suppliers. Dare I say, you might want to get some demos too and properly explore the options!

Yeah LA's resell to Maintained schools, not Academies. In that case you have to go directly to CAPITA as a single site and pay for a new license (when you first become an academy).

I believe if your agreement is via an LA, you will have to keep paying for FMS as it's a package deal with the MIS.

As above, the support side of things is still catered for separately but it's worth noting that can be from CAPITA or a third party SIMS Support Unit. So depending on whether you have a support partner now, you should be able to keep them with the move to hosted.

I think tenders are often seen as a PITA and I totally get that but at least it means that due diligence is done on a major decision for the Trust. Regardless of whether that's for an MIS, catering supplier and so on, it's something you'd want to demonstrate to all stakeholders that you're making the most informed decision for the group.

Absolutely, I think there are a large number of schools that will barely even register this as a contractual issue or read the emails in the first place. Agreed that the PR damage has been done, but how many people will remember it in three years if they manage to improve the product somewhat? I think ESS made a calculated risk here and probably estimated that the carrot approach wasn't going to work. I think the disappointing thing is how anti-competitive this is. Of course ESS have a great incentive to do this but schools are getting the raw end of the deal in terms of choice.

This is where it gets confusing! So if you want to use their pre built app content you need one Pro license as you can't install power bi apps with a free license. But if like the OP or me you like to create your own, there's no need to upgrade to Pro. Hopefully my last reply to David explains why. @gh5000 that data studio sounds interesting, cheers for the tip!

Yeah it's only possible as the viewer is embedded within the platform. A way to describe it is like Bromcom is logging in to an account on your behalf each time. Then you get to see whatever content is on that account. So by uploading reports to that account you're not technically sharing with other Power BI accounts, so there's no need for a pro license.

It's such a shame that Microsoft create a decent product then limit it's use through licensing. One of the IT Managers I work with is impressed with Power BI but can't justify the expense when SSRS is doing the job with more affordable licensing (in his case). A couple of points to add, to what's already been said: If you have an O365 Tenancy you can create accounts that don't have password expiry enabled so the single account option is less problematic. However, I still wouldn't advise it as you're giving someone complete access to the report editing and the entire dataset. Lastly, you can go down the route of having a third party platform gather the data present dashboards. I think Groupcall, Wonde and Bromcom have such a service but I think the latter are the only one that actually allow you to host your own custom Power BI dashboards within the interface, without the need for pro licensing. Essentially, in the background it connects to an account of your choice and streams the dashboards to the users within the platform. At least that way you wouldn't have to limit your plans for it. I've set this up in some SIMS schools and it's working well. I've also got some schools where one user accesses the Power BI report template in the Desktop Editor and then creates a report for the rest of the school. In some ways that misses the point of the interactivity aspect but at least this means the author can direct people right to the issues.

It was meant to be far earlier than that originally. It's slipping like a dodgy clutch. No council I've ever worked in or with has top sliced School funding for MIS. They foot the bill then recharge the schools.

Yeah I've taught a fair few people how to use BI and everyone has picked up the concepts fairly promptly. However, MIS providers should always be providing as much built in analysis as possible. You go to BI when you need that extra bit of customisation. One thing I think we can agree on, is that the education space has been crying out for powerful, customisable reporting for a long time. I made a living from coding Excel macro reports and they are far less powerful than what you can produce in an hour of Power BI. Having support for third party reporting tools is a major benefit. I even use BI in single site schools for custom Assessment analysis, something that is difficult for MIS providers to produce an out of the box solution for.

I use it via RemoteApp but performance is slightly worse than with 2012. Also, there is the occasional issue with the session just turning black when you would expect a screen update and I think it's something to do with the rendering. I've noticed it on the CAPITA hosted platform too as they have moved to 2016. Anyone encountered this at all?

What's your source dataset? I.e. MIS.

I would have said Schoolcomms as that's the main one our schools seem to go for. Txt2Parents and the like are far too lo-fi. Groupcall is one that crops up occasionally too. I can feel your pain though, they all have their faults as you say.

Sounds like they need to whitelist your [email protected] address. I find it really concerning how In-Touch problems are just palmed off when they can easily present safeguarding issues. Hate to rub salt into the wound but there are some better messaging alternatives out there if you're nearing the end of your contract.

As AJP said, it's a standardised UI/UX so there's no issue with using it for an All-Through. There are a couple of options for things like registers to cater for a variety of requirements but you can pick one approach to use across the board. It's one dataset, one login and so on. Everything is centralised but you can assign responsibilities for different year groups if required.

No problem, glad that did the trick.

Probably worth checking the default app for XML