The Access Group

Access Synergy Education Management System

Synergy helps authorities to support families more effectively by spanning the full education and child-services spectrum. Used in over 90 authorities as a proven, flexible, modular system encompassing School Admissions, SEND, Pupil Support, Family Information Service, Early Years Funding, Children's Centres, also offering generic case management functionality for wider uses.

Features

• A shared Children and Young Person record across all services
• Share data with multiple services and agencies
• Online portals for citizen and professional access to key processes
• Completely customisable and mobile-friendly public website
• Supports customisable SEN processes, with external access via portals
• Built-in statutory returns e.g AP Census, Early Years Census, SEN2
• External integrations with key systems including Mosaic Social Care
• ‘Web first’ approach to support digital by default strategies
• Information at your fingertips for effective decisions and timely interventions
• Integration with Core+ CCIS and Youth Justice

Benefits

• Take the administrative burden away from complex management
• Save time on data entry
• Providers have more time to focus on improving outcomes
• Full visibility of each child, insight to make good decisions
• Self service for parents involved with education processes
• Strong return on investment by saving time and money
• Reduce IT involvement and empower your staff with intelligent tools
• Improve data accuracy
• Improve your service and evolve it easily
• More support for vulnerable children

£150 to £500 a user a year

• Education pricing available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

374021337363647

Contact

Access UK
01206322575
tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model: Private cloud
• Service constraints: Planned maintenance: We will advise customers 5 working days in advance of a 'normal' change.; Software upgrades are carried out at the customer's request following release of new software.
• System requirements:
  • Microsoft Windows 10 or above
  • SQL Server 2016 or above
  • Windows Server 2016 or above

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Access has developed a range of support plans. Our online Knowledge base and Community service plans are available to all our clients. We have made significant investment in our client support tools. The Success portal provides around the clock access to log incidents, browse articles and videos to find solutions. Our Support teams are available M-F 8-6. On these plans P1 cases are responded to in 30 minutes. Please refer to Access for further details.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Basic Success Plan - provides you with an on-line support experience with on-line support case submission and self-service Knowledge Base access. No additional cost Standard Success Plan- offers an enhanced reactive service, including telephone and e-mail support, as well as priority response times and longer support hours. Larger customers will also get access to a primary named support analyst who will deal with the majority of your support questions. Charged at 15% of your subscription fee. Premier Success Plan- provides proactive services, including access to a customer success manager with quarterly and annual review. Charged at 25% of your annual subscription fee.
• Support available to third parties: No

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Onsite/remote training will be scheduled as part of the project plan and agreed by both parties.; Delivery of the training will be modular and will follow the logical relationships between the system and the data.; Following any changes to the solution, all relevant training material will be updated as appropriate and additional training will be made available as required.; We will ensure that users learn through doing. Our consultancy and training services cover:; - Overall application overview; - System administration and setup consultancy; - Document management; - Application sub-modules, specialist service area modules; - Reporting; ; And include:; - Full user guides for each attendee, supplied in electronic format; - Train-the-trainer approach; - Use of on-line Support and Customer Portal; - Use of on-going support via the Support desk
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • PDF
  • Other
• Other documentation formats: MS Word on request
• End-of-contract data extraction: All data held in the solution belongs to the customer. Data can be extracted via table views from the application into CSV, via Reports or via chargeable services to extract data which is otherwise unavailable to extract via the front end application.
• End-of-contract process: Data is provided to the customer in the agreed format as described in the response above. ; The data is deleted securely when the customer has agreed all data has been provided and drives holding the data are securely cleansed.; Access can provide an Exit Management Plan to highlight the steps involved in decommissioning the Synergy application. ; Support can be provided to extract data for you on a time and materials basis.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems: Windows
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Web based portal modules of Synergy are designed to work responsively to the device used. Administrative functions and bulk processing facilities are kept in the back office.
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: To support external systems in viewing information held about a child/young person, Synergy is provided with a REST API that allows an authorised user to retrieve information for a given child/young person.
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: PDF
• API sandbox or test environment: No
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Via configuration options and parameters

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Proactive monitoring of performance, capacity and connectivity on the platform is provided using Opman / Appman by ManageEngine. Where a server or other component is deemed to be nearing the threshold requiring additional resource the issue is rectified.; Customer environments are hosted on either segregated VLANs or dedicated VMs meaning data is held on entirely separate, dedicated servers for each Customer.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Service metrics are provided in the form of call lists which users can filter on calls outstanding either by call reference, created date range, call status, name of reporter, assignee and summary. Customers can log in to the online support portal to view this information as and when required at no additional cost. ; Service measurements are used internally to monitor performance accordingly. ; Reporting of SLA performance and KPIs can also be provided.
• Reporting types: Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Conforms to BS7858:2019
• Government security clearance: Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a Tigerscheme qualified provider or a CREST-approved service provider
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Data can be exported from Synergy in a number of ways. Synergy provides built-in Query search features which enables search criteria to be inputted the results of which can be exported in .xls format.; ; Using SQL Server Reporting Services and Synergy’s user friendly Report Model, reports can be exported to any industry standard format e.g. .txt, .csv, .xml, .xls, .doc. pdf etc.
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats:
  • XML
  • TXT
  • XLS
  • DOC
  • PDF
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats:
  • XML
  • TXT
  • XLS
  • DOC
  • PDF

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: We will use commercially reasonable efforts to make the SaaS available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, except for unavailability during emergency or routine maintenance.
• Approach to resilience: Each tenant is implemented in a PRIMARY >> WARM-STANDBY model i.e. with a primary service under normal operation & with a failover to another server on different host in a different data centre available for failover if access to some or all of the PRIMARY is lost for any reason. More detailed information is available on request.
• Outage reporting: Users can subscribe to email alerts giving updates on scheduled maintenance and outages.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication: Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: We operate role profile based Access Control - based on least privilege access. This applies to all our services
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: ISOQAR
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 01/09/2014
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Nothing is excluded from the Standard
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: All controls included within Annex A of the ISO27001:2013 standard. Statement Of Applicability (SOA) available on request.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: All change management is undertaken in line with ISO27001:2013 using JIRA for audit purposes.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Patched and audited by our patch management system. All non-critical OS patches are applied within one calendar month of release, first into pre-production and then into production, as part of the scheduled maintenance window.; AV Updates - Signatures are updated hourly. / Rules are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. Logs are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. ; Access staff responsible for the maintenance of our hosting services subscribe to industry newsletters, belong to various security forums and we additionally receive notifications from our vendors.
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: We have traffic monitoring and content based alerting on changes to the site and/or traffic flows implemented at infrastructure level. We keep daily historical reports from servers which provide the facility to identify when changes occurred. We proactively monitor third party suppliers vulnerability reporting and security fix availability. We patch any vulnerabilities found in a timescale appropriate for their level of severity. Our infrastructure response is within 1 hour in the SLA period 8am-8pm Monday – Friday.
• Incident management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Incident management approach: We operate a robust incident management process in line with ISO27001:2013 Staff are encouraged to report all incidents using a pre-defined process using a form available on our Company Collaborate site Incident reports will be provided following forensics and closure

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Access UK Limited is a Software author and provide associated services, including Hosting, Payroll Bureau and Payment services. We recognise that although we do not undertake manufacturing, our day to day operations will have impact on the environment at global, national, and local level. We are committed to the care of the environment and the prevention of pollution. •Access ensures that all our operations are carried out in with the minimum adverse effect on the environment but implementing many available resources and approved processes •We protect the environment by striving to prevent and minimise our contribution to pollution of land, air, and water •We keep wastage to a minimum and maximise the efficient use of materials and resources, and manage disposal of all waste in a responsible manner •We use energy, water, and natural resources wisely and prevent pollution by minimising waste, recycling whenever possible and properly disposing of waste that cannot be recycled. •Our management processes are developed to ensure that environmental factors are considered during planning and implementation •We raise employee awareness and encourage best practices for sustainability at work

  Equal opportunity

  We want everyone to feel at home at Access, knowing that they are valued for what they do, not who they are. We want people to feel that they truly belong here regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that makes them individual; after all, if we were all the same it would be a pretty dull place. We love the fact that we’re all different. Having more diverse perspectives at work improves how we run our business, helps us support our customers, and when you think about it, it's just more fun. For us, this all starts with helping everyone feel part of the family and being at their best every day, making Access a place where everyone can love what they do and do what they love. We all have regular check-ins with our leaders, take part in monthly employee surveys, have lots of chances to share our views and ask for help, and with our own learning system, 'Access Shine', we really can make things even better each and every day. At Access we'll always hire the best candidate but we're continually looking for creative ways to increase the mix of diverse candidates into our recruitment process. On the basis that you ‘have to see it, to be it’, one thing we're doing is sharing more stories to celebrate the wonderful diverse range of talent we have at Access. It is important for us that our employees understand and reflect the customers and communities we support, and we want everyone to feel at home here, knowing that they are valued for what they do, not who they are. We want people to feel that they truly belong here regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that makes them individual.

  Wellbeing

  Access places specific emphasis on the health and wellbeing of its staff and provides a “Well-being” hub in workspace that provides support for Mental Health, Finances, Social, Physical, Emotional and purpose. Assistance from Health Assured is available for all staff and there are training resources for “working in the new normal” and “Mental health and wellbeing” . Access also has “well-being” champions throughout the organisation. This is supported by monthly employee “check in” surveys and offers of flexible working for staff to meet caring commitments.

Pricing

• Price: £150 to £500 a user a year
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: No

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.