What do you hate about your MIS system

[johnhunsley]

What's the most annoying thing about your MIS system, be it SITS, SIMS, Unit-E, EBS, etc... etc...

poor UI?

inability to integrate 3rd party applications?

difficulty in reporting/exporting the data you want?

The cost?

The list goes on! Please let me know what MIS system you employ and what you would like to be able to do but can't!

Many thanks.

John.

[kmount]

SIMS

Most annoying thing is if something is broken in an update, it often takes months to be resolved in another "update".

[CyberNerd]

lack of support for open standards is my biggest issue.

[SYNACK]

MUSAC

Does all of the above count as an answer:
based on an access database
only just moved to all 32bit system files
truly awful GUI that does everything with buttons, single actions taking up to 15 individual mouse clicks.
slow usage due to calling a full screen redraw when scrolling through a document and slow db access
etc, etc etc.
/justified rant

[powdarrmonkey]

CMIS/ePortal

Really, really quirky interface. If you don't click every button in exactly the right order, it ignores what you asked it to do earlier on.
Logging in with a wrong password does nothing - no error, not even clear the password box - so users keep clicking the button until it locks them out.
And as far as ePortal goes, I've had to write my own app to store letters against girls for their parents to see, which I really shouldn't have to do.

based on an access database
only just moved to all 32bit system files

ewwww! suddenly I feel I have it easy!

[AngryTechnician]

SIMS.

My biggest gripes are the unreasonably convoluted install procedures for some patches, and the poor (often utterly inaccurate) documentation that comes with them.

Having to manually configure the ODBC connection for each user is slightly irritating too.

[zag]

SIMS upgrades always breaking something leading to staff hating it.

[forcryingoutloud]

SIMS

Same problems as everyone else - Upgrades breaking things, leading to more upgrades. The SIMS Manager blaming everything on everything else but SIMS....

[AyatollahPies]

SIMS.

My biggest gripes are the unreasonably convoluted install procedures for some patches, and the poor (often utterly inaccurate) documentation that comes with them.

Having to manually configure the ODBC connection for each user is slightly irritating too.

How come you're still doing that?

[User3204]

Originally Posted by AngryTechnician View Post
SIMS.

My biggest gripes are the unreasonably convoluted install procedures for some patches, and the poor (often utterly inaccurate) documentation that comes with them.

Having to manually configure the ODBC connection for each user is slightly irritating too.

How come you're still doing that?

Yeah, I only have to do that when installing FMS fresh.

I used to hate the massive upgrade apps, but they seem to have slimmed down from 100mb...

The most annoying thing now, is the fact that EVERYONE within school thinks I know how to use it... I just install it, I have no idea how to do anything with it.

[MattGibson]

SIMS - Find it being very slow when running on clients and hungry for very memory.

[skunk]

SIMS here.

The most annoying thing is the Dept for Comedy and Science Fiction imposing rediculous "statutory requirements for data" on the development team. Which means they can never spend any time on making the thing work well for end users.

[stratisphere]

We use SIMS.Net here, from my point of view (mainly technical and developing)... i find it really annoying when they cant design the forms right. They dont seem to have consistent design standards.

Stupid i know, but I can live with all the other things... :P

[bossman]

I have only had one minor problem with Sims when we migrated to SQL2005 enterprise and that was a duplication of the document server which i quickly remedied, as for the last 7 years of Sims usage touch wood we have had no real problems to write home about.

We can interact with Sims by exporting csv files and then reading the data from them with scripts and it just works. If i could wish for something then it would be direct integration with SQL via an interface specifically designed to create what we needed from Sims to allow us to run other services for our staff.

[sparkeh]

Yeah SIMS updates again. Had a real bad run recently.

The most annoying thing now, is the fact that EVERYONE within school thinks I know how to use it....

Absolutely! I feel your pain. I just think I have earned that status by being prepared to investigate all the modules and just see what I can find, and setting up loads of reports for the secretaries so they dont have to hand crank anymore.

I think a lot of problems with SIMS (well certainly at my schools) comes from the fact the GUI seems convoluted and the language used isn't always straight forward.