Has anyone used SEEMIS?

[Voodoo]

First point to note folks, it's not CMIS I'm talking about, it really is SEEMIS - different spelling same pronunciation.

This has been suggested as a possible system for our move away from Phoenix Gold. From what I can see it seems to be more popular in local authorities than in schools, and may be more common north of the border than south. Does anyone have any experience of this as an MIS system and say what they felt its pros and cons were?

[jamesmacfarlane]

We've implemented SEEMIS Click & Go at our school, and it has made things much more complicated. Firstly, the absence sheet is of a different design which takes up twice as much paper, and only displays first three letters of the name. Secondly, the absence codes are new and differ from PG, so these have to be learned. Finally, the "slips" are "5-in-1" and must be returned to tutors everyday. I've got to stick with it though, because there's no going back. Don't buy this software. I think the only reason we did was so it could integrate with groupcall.


James

[ZeroHour]

Cheers for the feedback James.
I assume you are based in Scotland then?

[jamesmacfarlane]

Yes. I can't give a complete summary of the software, as I don't work in the school office, but have seen the absence report and registration slips.

It must also be noted that I like things as they are, so that may be a factor in my negative opinion.

James

[jamesmacfarlane]

I'd just like to add to my previous review.

Having used the software for a few months, my opinion of it is much higher than my original. What can I say, it's grown on me.

J

[Voodoo]

Now that you've got used to it, J, what would you say the pros and cons were now (including what you've seen and what you've heard from other staff)?

[redspecial2000]

Hi,

having been a user of both SEEMIS and Phoenix Gold I can probably give you Pros and Cons for both, but I'll concentrate on SEEMIS just now...

Pros:
Used by the overwhelming majority of Local Authorities in Scotland, and tailored to Scottish Education a little better. Phoenix only have 3 or 4 Scottish Authorities left and they are slow to tailor their new offering (E1) to the Scottish market.

You join a club, you dont purchase software. You become a joint owner of SEEMIS when you join, which gives you an equal say in the direction the organisation goes in, and all profit goes back into developing the product. It also means that you get unlimited licences, unlike Phoenix.

SEEMIS covers a far broader spectrum of topics, even having its own version of Groupcall- could save an Authority £20k a year alone. Also has HGIOS stuff, EMA, Clothing Grant, Nursery enrolement, and best of all Vision- which datamines all of your establishments. Oh and you get all of these modules for free with SEEMIS, unlike Phoenix.

SQA works a lot better. The pupil is tied to the timetable and the subject choice- which means that things like Scholar passwords are sent automatically. ScotXed is a doddle to do too.

Cons:
Local Authority mentality- their training isnt slick and they dont do marketing very well

Standard letters isnt as flexible as Phoenix

Not as quick to implement/accept local changes to the system


Most of the complaints from staff are down to changes in procedure. Once they work through it and see the long term benefits they come round to the new offering. On the whole, with a complete overview of the system, SEEMIS is far better in the long run than Phoenix Gold.

[ross_drew]

I have used SEEMIS products on a very in depth level as I used to be a developer.

The SEEMIS products are taking over Scotlands schools because of a few reasons.
Firstly there's a lack of competition. Pheonix are the only real other choice and while their products are cleaner, tidier, faster and better looking, Click+Go (the SEEMIS product) has a two week development turnover so it's entirely possible that within a week or two of a school suggesting a new feature that it'll be on the way to being developed. The helpdesk for SEEMIS is linked almost directly to the programmers who work on helpdesk all week in turns with a target to clear the helpdesk before the end of a working day so the support is great.
Secondly, Click+Go is government funded so, for schools, it's pretty darn cheap.
Thirdly, all SEEMIS software is aimed at education in Scotland only so you get a very customized product.
There's no way Pheonix can compete.

Click+Go does have it's problems though. There are no design documents and no design phase in old or new additions to the product and this slows production down a little which is then sped up again by having no real testing phase. So what you get is a pretty fast service that is very likely to suffer from bugs from it's early stages throughout it's lifecycle as it's continually patched.
There's also very little thought put into the HCI and as a result it can be very ugly on some sreens and every screen looks different.

All in all it's a great product but it's ugly, clunky and can be very buggy but there's a great helpdesk to make up for it

Hope this helps.

[jamesmacfarlane]

I know this is a really old post, but I just wanted to take back my original 'hatred of SEEMIS'.

The roll out now gives teachers more control over information management, e.g., timetables, class lists, etc. can be pulled up; reporting seems easier; registration can be taken period-by-period electronically.

I just made a bit of a fuss because it seemed like they were fixing something that wasn't broken.

There are still downsides, of course: number 1 - it can be really slow to load (but maybe that's our computers).

James

[vikpaw]

... Click+Go (the SEEMIS product) has a two week development turnover so it's entirely possible that within a week or two of a school suggesting a new feature that it'll be on the way to being developed. The helpdesk for SEEMIS is linked almost directly to the programmers who work on helpdesk all week in turns with a target to clear the helpdesk before the end of a working day so the support is great.
...

Man this is awesome. If only every company would try this out, the developers would have a real feel for what they were creating.