JRA

We had, at various points: - An "art gallery" (just a powerpoint) of student artwork set in little frames that rotated. - A few snips and school statement from our website. - Menu occasionally. - School council statements/key issues/projects. - Exciting things coming up this term. - The day before a school holiday it'd just swap out for a little animated thing with "Have a super break! Students return on Monday Xth of %month%" and I'd put a little sprig of holly on it or some snowfall and a winter scene or Santa or something. If it was summer.

Have had a very encouraging chat with someone from ParentPay technical support today, in conference with our support provider. Conversation around roadmaps and movement from SIMS > NG and, whilst there is a move to be made, there's an awareness a battle for hearts and minds needs to run concurrently with progress - which needs to look more like a helping hand than a steamroller. I have only vagueness around some things (because to be honest I was happy to have a genuine conversation with a genuine person and was not fishing for deadlines to hold him to) but it is my understanding that: - Comms will improve/increase around shifting functionality from SIMS to SIMS NG. - Their own telemetry within SIMS that reports back to them shows them what elements of SIMS are being used and how frequently, and they're factoring this in to conversations on what gets shut off. As in, if nobody's using SIMS for attendance for example and everyone's using NG then that aspect can be looked at for retiring. - Unhappiness around upheaval will be passed on up the chain, because there is actually an element of that organisation that cares about happy customers rather than enforced and clumsily-handled change. Got a glimpse of that for the first time today. Take from that what you will if it's any use at all, but thought I'd share my thoughts at least.

Cheers - would do but has to be 17". At least. Or they'll turn around and beat me with it! There's a few models I've found that fit the bill but it's the warranty issue with running our own image I'm not having much luck clarifying with anyone. Could try making some calls (and will do if it gets into next week) but if we've got any tame/nice suppliers on the forum I thought I'd pitch it here and see.

Head's laptop has this habit of eating batteries and the last one was the last straw. I've only been buying refurbs for the last century and not even sure where to go really for all the following! Hopefully someone out there has some idea where I'd find the laptop of my dreams: - Must be brand new. No refurbs at all. - Screen must be at least 17", the bigger the better. - Hopefully has the letters "HP" on it. - Must image nicely/pxe boot. - Warranty can't be tied to OS (see above) and must have some sort of warranty with the less quibble the better. - W11 compatible (hopefully they all are at this point!) - Performance has to be as decent as I can get. Minimum 16gb RAM but honestly if an upgrade option to 32gb I'd like it. - I'm going to wince over £1k. But I think we're all wincing at RAM prices anyway so I am prepared to wince. Post up here or inbox me or tell me I'm dreaming! Thanks all.

Well thank you for the clarification. And honestly the technical support teams answering the calls for this have my sympathy. I think things are about to get a bit wild. EDIT - Just an edit here to ask something. For those schools who have issues now in SIMS NG completing the census, and who have had the SIMS NG redirect forced to be permanent from Home > Admin Console > Redirects, have you released them from this?

For all its faults no we're not getting that issue here in Next Gen.

You're joking me, right? You're absolutely joking me. NO company would be THIS comprehensively useless as to pull a stunt like that. (...are you joking or is that, like, really happening???)

Unless you've done the opt-outs in the NG redirects page you'll start to see lots of things migrate to SIMS NG now. However these are only temporary measures and will be forced eventually. Our account manager at ParentPay informed me "weeks" when I asked about timelines and extensions. I understand this to be a graduated move though (as in, not all schools at once) so might be different for yours if you're opening the redirects page and see them all pending (or if you've been in there and already put them off.)

They're hobbling SIMS and forcing us.

Yeah deeply wishing we weren't in the situation of being forced into a dying company's incomplete pet-project web portal, but here we are. But who knows? Maybe NG will be the very bestest of the best online MIS-es and everything will be rosy. And if we find ourselves looking at greener grass on the other side of the proverbial fence, a scrupulously fair tender process will begin where everybody will have an equal chance to bid for the project.

UUUuuuuuuurrrgghhhhhhhh. I see. Oh well. Good luck over there btw. We're taking the plunge and NG-ing the census here. Think we'll be ok.

Yes frankly I've found ParentPay to be, er, let's call it "somewhat lacking" in about every single direction and interaction I've had with them. Our support provider however have been lovely and extremely patient with my generalised "wtf" around the whole thing, and I think thanks to them I'm getting onto the right track now. Did you get the link from ParentPay regarding the SSO setup and the cryptic/silly deadline of 8th October? I'm hoping I can throw the switch there and achieve the seamless SSO experience I'm sure we're all wanting, but I'm not ready to let student accounts in yet or indeed anyone who isn't staff. I think if not this is best managed from the "users" tile in the id.sims.co.uk portal by padlocking those, but I'd rather have just a bit more control over it. I haven't thrown the switch though, still querying a few bits with (the frankly very lovely people at) SIPS. With census looming though I've got the patches scheduled, gotten the business manager (I hope lol) set up with the right permissions now - which should transfer over seamlessly but something wasn't right in the to-and-fro there for us. That should keep the wolf from the door whilst I keep staff abreast of the changes bearing down on us.

Afternoon all. Functionality is creeping along and we're probably among the latest of late adopters, but very slowly getting to grips with things. Census is the first "big op" with it, though don't anticipate any issues as it goes, all seems quite do-able. How has everyone else found things? Learning curves/horror stories/staff in outright rebellion or all been plain sailing?

I can vibe-code that and even a random assortment of other rude words into an Arduino to do that for you and keep it all offline in about ten minutes. It would not do wonders for the self esteem I don't think, after a few months of living with my offensive-fridge-bullying device, but at least Jeff Bezos won't be selling off your data because of it. And ultimately if you didn't like the feature you could uninstall it, take it to the garden, smash it with a brick and shout "who's the fatty NOW, misery-box??" while you did it.

I'm sorry I must be new to this modern world or something I swear someone just posted that the damn FRIDGE bricks now because of firmware updates. My fridge is like this little cupboard thing that keeps stuff cold. Like salami and energy drinks and that. And broccoli. I plug it in and it gets cold in there. ...firmware?? /dramatic old-man outrage