Online software

[Kerry84]

Does anyone use these for all their bookkeeping, learning journals, contracts and such like? And how does ofsted feel about these? Was thinking it would limit paper work but not sure on ofsteds views! Can anyone help? Thank you in advance:-) xxx

[VeggieSausage]

i tried one system for a while, didn't like it, went back to paper......

[Rick]

I use a free one called Orbit Early Years which does observations and assessments. I still print them out though and stick in learning journals in date order with other photos and artwork etc. The worry is a computer malfunction or internet failure during an inspection which means you have no evidence to show an inspector

[Kerry84]

Luckily my man is an IT geek for a living lol so no danger of that :-) thank you for your replies xx

[shortstuff]

I use it and love it. Ofsted were ok with it but she didnt really know anything about it so I had to show her where everything was.

[Antics]

Whilst on the subject of 'Orbit' does anyone have problems with pages taking an age to load? Is it normal, me or my computer? I have only just started using it, but already I want to throw my laptop out of the window

[danielleM41]

I use Orbit and their software has been affected by some sort of hacker this week (probably one of their competitors who are losing out because Orbit is free and does the same!). They say everything is secure but access to the system has been affected. They've been really good trying to fix everything and seem to be keeping everyone updated on Facebook.

[Antics]

Oh and how to do you print the learning journals / outcomes?

[davidorbit]

Orbit has been out of commission pretty much over the last few days. We did set it up under a different URL so people could access their data. Below is the email we have been sending out. The site is still a little slow as our users try and catch up and the internet catches up with the changes we have made. Many users now have full access to the app and the website (many before our internet provider had updated so the app worked again). In terms of question about Orbit either ask them on our forum as there any many people there that help each other out or email our contact@orbit.so email address and we will be happy to help.

Our current email so you are aware of where we are and what is going on:

LATEST UPDATE:
Orbit is available on the following url if you can not access orbit.so. You may get a security error - this is expected, the site IS secure (read below)
https://orbitapplications.com

We are hoping that the internet will catch up with the changes we have made and orbit.so (and therefore the iOS app) will be back online soon.

Please keep an eye on our Facebook and/or twitter feeds. We have been subject to a denial of service attack (we are the second free early years provider to be targeted in the last couple of weeks!). This is looking more and more like this is a targeted attack to bring down free EYFS providers and we have reported this to the police in order to get to the bottom of the attack.

All of the data on the site is secure... it's just no one can get to the orbit.so site as the 'pipe' people have to go through to access Orbit is being attacked. This is why we have moved to the new domain https://orbitapplications.com

Unfortunately by moving the domain the iOS Early Years application will no longer function as it requires access to orbit.so.

We are working with our service provider to try to block the people doing this and regain control of the domain at which point the application will work again.

Sorry for any inconvenience this is causing. Unfortunately it is beyond our control.

[sarah707]

Thank you for updating our members DavidOrbit I know there has been a lot of confusion over the last few days.

I am sure they would appreciate an update when everything is running smoothly again.

[Antics]

Thank you, that is really helpful. I really like the site and was getting so frustrated. I will leave it a couple of days and come back. Thanks again.