October 2005

ENSEMBLEXP.NET VS 'THE REST'

By Les Wharram
ICT Project Manager North Somerset – Children and Young People’s Services

During 2004 it became obvious to the manager and staff of the North Somerset Music Service that the administration of their service needed an injection of sound software to allow them to continue to operate effectively and to meet their DfES reporting requirements. It was decided that a project should be initiated to determine the full administration requirements of the Music Service. Based on these requirements the software market would be reviewed and the best match selected for implementation.

The creation of a requirements document highlighted areas of concern which were not directly linked to software but would need to be addressed if any solution were to be effective. The total solution was therefore going to include the provision of a broadband connection from the Music Service Offices to the Town Hall some eight miles away, the creation of a local network so that all the Music Service staff could access a central database, and the purchase of new PC’s for all the administration staff.

The hardware and cabling sections of the project were initiated and the search started for the software with the nearest match to requirements.

After an initial review of the market software packages were selected which, on the face of it met, the needs of the Music Services and a demonstration copy of each of these was obtained so that a detailed comparison could be completed.

The main areas of functionality required for the effective operation of our Music Service included:

• Storage and retrieval of Pupil information
• Storage and retrieval of School Data
• Storage and retrieval of Tutor employment information.
• Creation and amendment of Tutor Timetables.
• Tutor pay/travel claim recording.
• The creation of generic and specific charge structures.
• Resource management.
• Invoice generation.

The trial use of the systems highlighted the following areas where only the EnsembleXP.NET software provided a solution which met our needs:

• Tutor employment information, contractual terms, availability, etc.
• Tutor Timetable Management.
• Tutor pay/travel claim recording.
• Invoice generation.

So, on this basis it was selected. We have been operating the EnsembleXP.NET software since May and now that we are through the initial pain barrier of establishing all the base data on the system we are starting to see the benefits of a fully integrated system over the disparate home grown proliferation of spreadsheets that we had been using to monitor and control the service in the past. We expect to see significant gains in our operational capabilities as the system beds in, our staff become more conversant with its operation, and new features are added.

If you would like to discuss specific points from this article in more detail my contact details are available from Simon Dutton Associates Ltd.

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