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Just had a letter from our Education support services informing us that they wont be offering any more support for PARS Lesson Registration. Is it possible to get support direct from TASC for this? There trying to push SIMS lesson monitor as a replacement but the cost was about £5K last time i checked! cheers

Morning all, We're pretty much set on parting ways with this. It's been falling over daily and despite endless patches from TASC I think it's a dead duck. We can't rely on it and I'm getting endless earache. Any decent, reliable portal alternatives out there to ponder? Thanks everyone.

I,ve just been informed that the SLT want to publish the pars connect web site to the www. . Anybody doing this ? I can only see problems with expensive solutions.

I'd just like to share with you a timeline, now this level of customer service doesn't happen very often so these guys and gals need to be congratulated! Ticket Created by Maidstone Grammar School 27/11/2013 14:52:00 Hi Guys, we are testing (live) the Parents Evening module, so far so good. However we opened booking to staff only for a couple of days before parents, this was to enable teachers to pre book appointments with pupils that they specifically wanted to see on the night. this's fine, when parents login they can see all the appointments pre-booked for them and than fill up the remainder of the evening with other appointments. We would like to be able to click a button on the day before the event to remind all participants (Parents & staff) of their schedule. We note the report "all appointments" is an HTML file, so hope this function would be easy to implement? If so we would LOVE to try it out on the 3rd Dec for the Parents Evening on the 4th Dec. Can you clarify what the function of the email button on manage/parents evenings/Globe icon (Email) please. thanks Steve Support 27/11/2013 18:32:00 +3h 40m Processed (Fixed) 28/11/2013 13:18:00 +18h 46m ADDED: Parents can be emailed from the main Manage Parents Evening screen alongside staff. As far as I'm concerned that's above and beyond the call of duty (?) The new updated version was posted on their page today! Steve

I've got this all up and running now and promised a review a while back. So here it is. About TASC Insight TASC insight is an ASPX based web frontend for Sims data aimed at parents. Some blurb from their website "INSIGHT provides secure access to pupil data in your SIMS MIS, from attendance and behaviour and homework through to school reports, in a clear, easy to use and understandable manner. Now even non-technical parents can engage in their child's learning and participate in school life." Installation What a dream this was. Literally its one installer that runs on your webserver. Just make sure you install and update sims workstation on the server before running it and type in a sims username, upload a logo. Thats really all that was required. It was up and running in about 10 minutes. Documentation All the documentation is on a very well laid out WIKI here. Its constantly updated and relevant all the time. The only downside is you can't really print it out but sending the live link to anyone they can be up and running in a few minutes. Most things are self explanatory though. User Import Assuming you have parents email addresses in Sims and Parent priority levels set, all you have to do is click "sync" and it will create all the users automatically. You then have to "activate" them which will send them a welcome email and instructions on logging in. Parent feedback The best bit of feedback we got from the test users was the ease of logging in. They found it really easy to use the 5 digit upercase password that was changed on first login. They loved the fact the system emailed them all the details and also had great comments on the large buttoned user interface and how easy everything was to find. In summary they absolutely love it. Some parents have mentioned that a few small design problems with firefox and works best with IE which is a downside. Screenshots The competition To say this is better than our old system (Capita Sims SLG) is an understatement. Its around 10 times cheaper (yes I said TEN times!!), easier to setup and upgrade (SLG was a nightmare), easier to create accounts, doesn't touch your active directory. Much better user interface, doesn't require SharePoint. More information, laid out in a better way. I really could go on. In my opinion anyone who keeps SLG without investigating this product needs their head examined. SLG was a total failure for us in our school and a complete waste of money. Using TASC insight has shown just how much of a success this can be with well written software. I don't have any experience with the Bromcom Parent site so can't really comment but I doubt its any worse than SLG. Not sure about any other products but I did hear Groupcall were developing a parent app which could be very interesting in the future. Support I've had to telephone them twice, both times I immediately spoke to a support/developer. Both very good experiences and fixed the problem very quickly. Summary Really happy with the new system in terms of administration (from my point of view) and more importantly the parents love it and actually use it day to day. That is the real measure of success.

We are looking at various options for online homework setting. Something like showmyhomework but does anyone know if Tasc Insight can show homework set? It can be online resources or just a record of what homework has been set and when it is due. We have SIMS as our MIS.

Recently we have been having problems where students with identical or similar names, for example Fred Smith and Fredrick Smithe are being confused by admin and teaching staff alike. In one case we have a really good student and a really bad student being mixed up, much to the upset of the good students parents. The Principle has now asked what we are going to do about preventing this from happening again. Our office manager is would like if there is a way of getting PARS (and SIMS) to produce a popup every time they deal with one of these students. Whilst I guess this is technically possible should TASC & Capita wish to modify there software I am not aware of anyway to handle this as it stands. I personally think that needs a procedural fix to the problem, that is to read the name and form before continuing rather than a technical fix. However I would like to know how your staff make sure that they always pick the right student when there are those with similar names.

I am changing to Parrs system, they offer a general text and email service and a service for attendance and lates, can anyone tell me anything about them, any experiences they have had personally with them or know of any schools that have as i am currently with truancy call and want to compare....more importantly do they offer voice calls as this is where i get the best response from our parents.

Hi there, Whenever we send an email out via PARS it always goes into the recipients SPAM box. Regardless of ISP. Many have then marked as not spam but it is still happening. TASC say that it is not their end. Help!

Hi I know a few people on here use Insight and I am currently talking to their support staff who are excellent but wondered if anyone else had an Idea or has used User-defined pages in Insight. I have been talking to Tasc Software and they have helped us link in our automated web based Progress tracking and Intervention system we have created into Insight using User-defined pages and linking to student no which looks like it will work brilliantly for us, so that students and Parents can see this information. Just wondered if anyone knew if their was a way of linking a specific document or video in here to specific student using User-defined pages.

Sorry for the aliteration, couldn't resist! I'm looking at Insight as a possible system to distribute reports to parents online. What experiences have people had with it and how much would a secondary school of about 1000 kids expect to pay? Recommendations for other systems welcome too (though SLG I already have experience with).

Two pieces of software from Tasc. At the moment it is all setup and running fine. However, the url they use are just ip's and I want to secure them down. Anyone have any guidance on this? How do you do it? Secondly, I can't get them to run on iPads, which, I am presuming is because of the security certificate (it's a self signed server certificate). Again, anyone any ideas or tips? I've inherited the situation so could do with a little help. Cheers Andy

Hi Just thought I had to report this as I thought this was exceptional support I use PAR's for Attendance, Behaviour etc and Insight for Parental Portal, anyhow I found an issue with a custom report I use in PAR's its a long story but I create a custom report in PAR's export it and import this into a SIM's Marksheet to get info into SIM's student reports as I said long story so don't want to go into why I do it this way. Any how I noticed that the figures weren't quite right for lates in the custom report so I put a call on their Helpdesk, five minutes later email back saying the incident had been updated so we exchanged a few messages on the Helpdesk to try to resolve the issue and tried a few things all the same day. I leave work have my tea etc then login to work about 7.0pm just to check a few things as we all do and check my email and have one from their Helpdesk just after I left so I think might as well update the issue on their Helpdesk thinking they will pick this up tomorrow, 7.30pm get another email saying my incident has been updated which I totally wasn't expecting anyhow we update the Helpdesk incidents and they have investigated this further and explain their is an update that should fix this issue install update job done all fixed so in essence they were replying and sorting my issue out until 8pm. This was last night by the way. I then thought perhaps I might be better getting info about updates extra functionality etc in an Email that I could opt into as you needed to login to see download updates when you want so not forced to update (some companies no names though) any how raised this on the same incident, Tasc software no problem we will take a look at this added this to my profile so login to helpdesk click a couple of check boxes received email saying their was an Insight update, oh wasn't quite what I wanted as I wanted what was included in the update so extra fuctionality or whatever, so back on the Helpdesk mentioned this 20 minutes all sorted so they have updated their website just from my request. So if anyone is using PAR's or Insight if you logon to the Helpdesk and update your profile if you want to opt into receive emails about PAR's and Insight updates with what has changed. It is not the fact that I can now opt into if I want to receive Emails about updates etc it is the above and beyond way they go about their support to be honest nothing less than I have come to expect except I really do think this was above and beyond.

Good Morning One and All, I am currently working through each part of a trial version of TASC Insight with the potential to purchase. and the question I would like help with is - Is there a way or option within Insight to enable users to be automatically logged out of Insight after a period of inactivity ? Any help on this would be gratefully received. Thank you in advance

Hi, sorry if this has already been posted somewhere else - I have tried to find a response to my query but couldn't find anything! We currently use Insight at school and I want to develop it's use to collecting GCSE option choices for our pupils instead of using paper forms. Does anyone do this? If so, would anyone be so kind as to point me in the right direction of setting this up? Thanks, Lianne

We're considering getting TASC Insight; I have a question for all you enthusiastic users : When setting homework assignments, does it give you the same choices (and ease of choice) in who you're setting it for (class etc) as SIMS Homework Diary? SMT here like the look of SHD's feature of actually setting homework from inside SIMS, but I'd like to ditch clunky Gateway altogether. I assume TASC doesn't allow setting homework from inside SIMS (?) but presumably by looking at the same data it does allow you to easily set it for a class defined in SIMS, if you see what I mean?

Hi. Our school currently uses a paper based system for behaviour management. I am researching electronic alternatives but starting from a zero knowledge base. We are using SIMs and will stay with this MIS for at least the next two years. MIS systems get used most when they are simple and transparent to use. The SIMs process for behaviour management is a satisfactory way of logging an incident but looks rather limited eg there seems no way of 'pushing' out an update by email. What we really want is a SIMs add on that stores data within SIMs but emails the form tutor, head of year, or head of department to inform them of the incident. We want the ability for managers to generate behaviour reports based on key variables. The only package I can find that seems to fit the bill is PARs from TASC. Is there anyone on the forum who is using PARS and can give feedback? Or is there an alternative add on that can be recommended for behaviour management tracing within SIMs?

I understand that TASC Insight needs to be hosted internally on an IIS server. We are considering moving to this in favour of SLG but one thing concerns me: how have users of this product maintained the security of their public facing IIS server? Almost ever other week there is a report of a huge multinational getting hacked, I can't imagine that the resources of a school are up to the task of maintaining web server security...

Hi everyone! We currently have a situation at our school where the teachers are complaining that PARS takes too long to load in the morning. From our investigation from first boot in the morning PARS does take a while to load and when a say a while 1 minute, but apparently this is too long for teachers to wait! After this first load PARS will open within seconds. Our PC's all run windows 7 and have at least 2GB of RAM and an Intel core 2 duo processor or above. Our server are Server 2008 R2. Please would it be possible for someone with a similar setup to test how long it takes PARS to open on their network? Simply login as a teacher and double click PARS and start a timer. We have been in constant contact with TASC but they cannot seem to find a solution to our problem and say we are the only school that has complained of this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.