Changing MIS - Pros and Cons

[RootsSchImp]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm preparing a series of videos to help schools considering switching MIS. Do any of you have experience of this? If you have it would be really helpful if you could post a couple of lines about who you switched to and from, what the transition was like and the pros and cons of the new system vs the old.

 

For the first series I'm focussing on secondary and thinking about covering SIMS (obvs), Progresso and Bromcom. If there are other systems you think I should cover please let me know that too!

 

Thanks

 

Ed

[RootsSchImp]

I've been reminded by PM about RM Integris - I contacted them to ask for demo access when I started the project but they haven't got back to me. If they do then I'll add them to the mix.

[GVaughan]

I know that @GREED has done alot of work on the comparison of MIS. Could be a good contact as I don't think he has gone into videos before. Edited February 4, 2016 by GVaughan

[GREED]

I have not no, but I suspect this is the same chap who I have spoken to on twitter. A great project, good luck with it let me know if I can help.

[Barcrest]

CMIS might be something to consider, I have heard it mentioned a few times but I have never used it.

[RootsSchImp]

Good suggestion - Progresso is actaully a new 'front end' for CMIS. They've been through a couple, I think it was called Facility Portal before. Are you a SIMS user?

[bobsmith]

I understood that Progresso was more than a front end, it's a whole new DB structure from what little I had seen. Also there was no application, it was entirely web based.

 

I wouldn't advise anyone to migrate to CMIS at this point in it's lifecycle, although Advanced Learning had committed to maintaining it for as long as customers used it, that's not the same thing as developing it on an ongoing basis.

 

ePORTAL was the CMIS equivalent of SIMS Learning Gateway - but was free and was the main interface for teaching staff unlike the locally installed SIMS.net

[Barcrest]

Yes we have been using SIMS since the old DOS days. You are correct it was Facility before, seems to be used a lot in Birmingham Schools.

[RootsSchImp]

You're right, it's incorrect to call Progresso a 'front end' as it's cloud based, although I think you still require Facility Scheduler to do the timetable. I'm waiting for confirmation from Advanced Learning about this.

[GREED]

Progresso is an entirely new product, it has no connection whatsoever (timetable aside) to CMIS, other than they are both under the wing of Advanced Learning.

[GVaughan]

You're right, it's incorrect to call Progresso a 'front end' as it's cloud based, although I think you still require Facility Scheduler to do the timetable. I'm waiting for confirmation from Advanced Learning about this.

 

I can confirm having previously worked with Advanced Learning that you would still use Scheduler for your initial creation and large changes. For smaller changes however you can do this from within Progresso.

[pcstru]

We, a large secondary (2000 students), switched from CMIS/ePortal to Bromcom, self hosted not cloud. We were prompted to look at what was available when Serco declared CMIS/ePortal end of life and we felt that the change to progresso would be as big as changing supplier, so it was an opportunity to look at what our needs were and what was available to meet those. As it turned out, CMIS/ePortal end of life changed with the changes in the supplier from Serco to Advanced Learning but as we were already embarked on the project, we went ahead anyway.

 

We spent nearly a year on supplier selection. The main tasks here were identifying and documenting requirements and inviting suppliers to submit tenders against those requirements. We created some quite complex scoring for evaluating the responses but we also had demonstrations, site visits etc and within the process also allowed users some scope for more subjective views. Perhaps the most important aspect of this was that users felt they owned the decision - they made the choice of the new supplier it wasn't imposed on them. There was a very strong consensus among the group that Bromcom was the best product - which went against senior management who put a lot of value on the 'safety' of choosing the market leader SIMS - a kind of "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" sentiment that probably keeps @PhilNeal sleeping soundly at night.

 

The following year we looked at data transfer, business processes and how we might actually go live without detrimental impact to the business of the school. Users were responsible for checking data quality and identifying what reports etc they needed to support their processes. We ran 3 iterations of the data conversion prior to the final go-live, that allowed for quality checking and corrections. We also started the roll out of training to admin and the teaching staff. We missed a few tricks; it was difficult for people to dedicate time to the tasks when the normal business carried on and there is a contention between training early so people have enough expertise to assess data quality within the new system and leaving training closer to go-live to reduce the amount of time people would have to forget! We did constrain change - looking to achieve a like-for-like coupling with business processes rather than re-engineering processes to make best use of features (or even system constraints).

 

Our final go live/no going back was Sept 2015 and it was relatively smooth considering the large scale of the change and the number of critical business processes that hang off the MIS. In part I think a lot of that was down to the ownership felt by end users - they had made the choices and as a result they felt they had to make it work. People would highlight issues but they were also coming up with the solutions - they had a stake in a good outcome. Had the decision been imposed on them, there would have been a lot of gnashing of teeth - of the "well, no one asked *ME*, did they!" type. The smooth transition also helped avoid loss of confidence that sometimes plagues new implementations, so teachers can't blame the MIS for not submitting registers on time, we know it is them!

 

So, summary : it is a big task. There was a lot of pressure to do it quicker than the two year plan I put together but two years for all the phases was IMO about right for a school of our size. It could probably be done quicker but with a loss of quality which would just increase costs when going live.

 

Pro's and Cons - I think they are probably too specific to each school for ours to be useful. That said, our users are generally very pleased with the new system and I don't hear much of people harking back to the "good old days". We are now embarking on a programme looking at our business processes and how we can re-engineer these to make best use of the software or dispense with 3rd party systems.

Edited February 4, 2016 by pcstru
clarity

[PhilNeal]

@pcstru have you seen the times of night that I post on this forum!! I don't sleep.

[RootsSchImp]

Thanks so much for sharing this, it's really great to hear the experiences of people who've been through this process. It's one thing for me to play with Demo versions and give my opinion on what I think is a good piece of software but it's very hard to imagine all the practical difficulties of a switch, especially in such a large school.

 

I'm pleased you resisted the herd pressure. While SIMS has improved a lot over the ten years I've been in the business I'm not convinced it's the best out there. I've been impressed with Bromcom too - i think it integrates different data types (eg beh and assessment) better than SIMS does. I wondered how user friendly it is though - did you have to provide a lot of training for Support Staff and Teachers?

[GVaughan]

Great read @pcstru! From experience the biggest thing I can fully agree with is spreading the buy-in so that not 1 person can be blamed. Something many should learn from to help them sleep at night!

[scholarpack]

Sounds like a worthwhile project, if only to build awareness that changing MIS is possible with too much headache.

 

If you do a series on MIS at the Primary level, please feel free to get in touch, we'd be happy to help.

[RootsSchImp]

Thanks @scholarpack! That's great news. I'm hoping to move onto Primary after Secondary but it's a bigger undertaking as there are more players in the market. I'll be in touch.

[pcstru]

I've been impressed with Bromcom too - i think it integrates different data types (eg beh and assessment) better than SIMS does. I wondered how user friendly it is though - did you have to provide a lot of training for Support Staff and Teachers?

 

We did provide "a lot" of training but then we have "a lot" of people. Training for most teachers (of which there are "a lot") was around half a day and they were provided with good documentation for the limited amount they need to do. We did more training with a few 'champions' and the senior leader who took the role of stakeholder representing teachers interests; they then rolled out the half day to the rest of the teachers. Admin staff tended to get much more in depth training - at least half a day but more if they were covering distinct processes or need to create bespoke reports. My MIS lead has probably done all of the training - some of it twice, so just for her alone she has done "a lot"!

 

Did we need to? Is Bromcom so friendly that you can get away with no, or less training than we did? I think we needed to because a) users told us they needed training - not providing that would then be a barrier to adoption, b) because we wanted the project to be a success and training plays a significant part in managing various risks to that, and c) because we want to get the maximum value from our investment and if you don't train people to use the tools you provide, you won't do that - or at least you won't do it very quickly/to a deadline. Bromcom is friendly enough but schools MIS systems are large complex things and there are limits to how accessible you can reasonably make one. So, IMO, don't skimp on training even if the product does look quite easy to use.

 

Overall I think Bromcom is a good system. Well designed, accessible and good value. The people who have to use it in anger seem to like it and that speaks for itself. Technically; hosting is not problematic, the database is complex but well designed, the code that I have seen is well documented and written to a professional standard, there is obviously no client software to install so no faffing around with fat client installs, updates are applied by support so we just need to schedule it in rather than running any upgrades. I am glad we self host despite the significant additional product cost, it gives us some control over when we have to roll out large updates such as the new interface which we would struggle to roll out training for to Bromcom's timescale (I do think cloud providers need to have a little more empathy for the difficulty in delivering training/awareness to hundreds of teaching staff on site (or sometimes system constraints like 3rd party interfaces which drive other systems which may need updating)). Support has been good - response times are generally quite quick and we have had a couple of bugs which have been chased down with dogged determination. All in all I don't think anyone here has regret, so for us, so far, it has been a good move but we probably need 2-3 years to get a good return on our investment involved in the change ignoring product costs (i.e. just our costs involved in the change). I think that is probably quite good compared to other products that were short-listed.

[RootsSchImp]

This is such valuable information, thanks again for taking the time to share. I didn't know Bromcom gave you the option of self hosting. I think you're spot on about the time investment before and after migration to realise a full return on investment. One of the issues I see in schools is short horizons (this year's y11 results!!) so it's great to hear about a school with a five year plan to control costs and improve at the same time. Good luck finishing the job!

[lisaj]

Great discussion and the MIS market seems to be opening up with more of the cloud providers bringing fabulous products to the market I watch with interest...

 

Lisa

[AlexWilliamsBromcom]

Thanks for the information here. It is good to see how investment in training is money well spent. I have found that lots of schools want or need to take an approach that suits them. The use of a 'discovery day' to really work out work a school needs and when is a great tool in understanding how to implement and manage change.

[vikpaw]

Happy to help if I can @RootsSchImp

 

I moved a school single handedly within a few months over the summer from Capita SIMS to Double First Engage. No where near the kind of planning took place that @pcstru describes - great info there though. We had looked around a lot, but the decision to change was rather abrubt and timescales were very tight.

 

Some info here: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/148000-end-era.html#post1267132

 

Haven't had a chance to update. After initial setup we (I) made the mistake of allowing change to take advantage of new features this added complexity and took time away from other tasks. There were two reasons for this, 1) management insisted on some changes, and so it made sense to make the process better at the same time, 2) there was a lack of buy-in from some staff and the resistance to change was overcome by showing some of the improvements over the old system.

[Bromcom_John]

Sorry for bringing my reply to the party a little late, but its been a busy month here at Bromcom!

I just wanted to add my tuppence of experience from the supplier side.

Specifically to the commentary from PCSTRU, I have to agree that close and effective project management is absolutely indispensable. It helps in managing user expectation for transition, adoption of new work flows, ownership in general and most importantly confidence in any new system.

Since I've been involved in various stages in deployment on multiple new implementations I've seen the above processes done well and "not" so well.

The "not so well" can still be worked with and it won't prevent the deployment of the MIS but the impact it has on the overall project implementation can be massive.

I've seen the same MIS implementation plan, that completed in a matter of weeks in a school who managed their side of things well, trudge on for months and months before finally being signed off to the satisfaction of all parties.

All for the absence of anyone taking the task of managing the transition properly.

 

I know the above reads like common sense, but I am regularly amazed when things "don't" get considered properly.

 

All of the above is of course subject to exceptions.. to which Vikpaw is a clear example Kudos to the one man implementation army!