This is an important reminder regarding the future of our FACTS School Management system.
Sunsetting Back Office System *No longer supported after 31 December 2024.
As announced earlier this year, we will no longer provide support, development, or technical assistance for the Back office after 31 December 2024. We understand that transitioning away from the back office may pose some challenges initially, but we are committed to helping you through this process. Our team will be available to provide guidance and support as you adapt to the changes.
Transition to Microsoft Azure
Additionally, we want to bring your attention to another important milestone: the transition to the Microsoft Azure platform [Cloud Hosting Flyer]. As of December 31, 2025, we will no longer support on-premises schools. By consolidating all our schools on Microsoft Azure, we aim to provide a more secure, scalable, and supportable solution for your institution.
Elevate 2024: Training and Support *Learn more about Web Debtors/Cloud Hosting.
We understand the importance of these changes and are here to support you every step of the way. At Elevate this year, we are offering comprehensive training sessions specifically designed to help you with the back-office functions and to discuss the benefits and process of moving to our cloud-based solution. Visit our Elevate Website for more information.
We're Here to Help
Please don't hesitate to contact our success and support teams if you have any questions or need assistance with sunsetting the Back Office or transitioning to our cloud-hosted platform. We are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for you.
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With Back Office now officially sunset and I am assuming FACTS is disabling access to it, has anyone else lost access to Spider? We are suddenly getting a “portal is locked for everyone” error message. We tried calling support but no answer. Ticket has been submitted.
We're fine - Back office is locked; but the web app is working normally.
Thanks Ben. By any chance are you using SSO?
We're not using SSO, just AD. That could easily be the point of difference.
Presumably you hit the error after the IdP login? Do you have a non-SSO login pathway for any user?
Yes, that could be it. Although I would've assumed that if it was a SSO issue, that the error would be that MY account is locked rather than a more ominous “portal is locked for everyone” which reeks of the old Back Office global lock tick box.
Oh well, time to send this on to our SSO provider. Thanks for the reply.
Given the timing, it seems plausible that it is an FSM issue rather than SSO-provider one.
e.g. Maybe the FSM web app login process/pathway - when using SSO auth - is checking the "backoffice locked" setting (when it should be checking the "web app locked" setting).
We are also experiencing the same issue here. Hopefully this can be fixed soon.
They've fixed it for us Sue. It turned out to be related to the Back Office lockout as I suspected.
Thanks Marlon. They fixed it quick which was good. I had some people getting a little anxious. :)
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