Progresso to SIMS migration

[Ms_Kuk]

I'm about to move from Progresso to SIMS, and have been given a massive list of reports that need creating. Has anyone already done this and would be happy to share their reports?

My limited skills in ssrs report writing are a major reason for leaving progresso in the first place! I need too collect the data by 5/6/17!!

Any help appreciated

[Ditto]

Sorry, can't help, but will be following the thread with much interest as a fair few staff here would like to make the same move. Cost has been a big issue but perhaps you overcame that? Was it just your SSRS skills that allowed the jump or were there other major contributing factors? I would also expect something of the maturity of SIMS to have stand Out-of-the-Box reports to meet most needs.

[Ms_Kuk]

Our initial move to Progresso was based on a need for a cloud based solution which at the time was not offered by sims. However, the implementation and training for Progresso was very poor leading to bad staff buy in. Having no skilled ssrs writers has been a significant problem too. There are two of us are self taught, but are not speedy by any stretch of the imagination.

We've now got a new principal who wants sims, and they now provide a hosted service and a teacher app. It was significantly cheaper than buying the internally hosted product. All admin staff expressed an interest in returning to sims.

Personally I like Progresso, and its flexibility but to win people over is more effort than its worth.

I'm happy to update this thread intermittently with our progress. We are due to go live for 2 schools for September- a mad rush! So tip number one- give yourself plenty of time! If you are going to move I would start the process in January- and not in May as we have!!

[Banjo]

Good luck. Will the students attendance records be transfered by Capita or will they have to be typed in?

[Ms_Kuk]

Nope- we need to generate reports for attendance for the last 3 years!!

[Banjo]

Ouch!. I've done Facility to SIMS and getting the data out of Facility is pretty straight forward. Most of the reports are already available to use within the system or could be shared from other school who have gone through the process. Not sure this is the case with Progresso or cloud based MIS in general. You should have a 'project manager' from Capita to help with this conversion. Ask them for the name of any other school either going through this process or one that has very recently converted. Worth giving them a ring as they may be able to help and share their experience.

[Ms_Kuk]

The sims chap yesterday said that facility to sims was fairly straight forward, sadly progresso is not!

We met with the project manager yesterday, he didn't mention getting the reports from another school- its probably a breach of contract in some way. I will ask though.

[PhilNeal]

We don't have a lot of schools moving from Progresso - schools tend to come directly from Facility. We don't have access to any other MIS but if you can get attendance data out we should be able to read it in.

[Ms_Kuk]

Thanks, I wouldn't assume that you would have access to another MIS. I'm looking for a contact who was progresso based, who may have create the reports already as it is generating the reports to get the data out that is the issue!! I've already tried and failed with one of the simpler reports, for exclusions.

[Ditto]

Initially I thought you were looking for SIMS reports, but now understand your need. I have hit the challenge of reporting on previous academic years a few times. Progresso at times does get somewhat blinkered in the current year. I have a few ideas and potentially a solution for example for the historical attendance reports. Could you PM me as the details might clog up the forum, but I'm happy to update the thread in summary form if things work out.

[Xeba37]

Morning. Following this now with interest due to being thrown into the same position at my new school. We are super worried because we have nobody on site able to write SSRS. The last DM has moved on and I have had no SSRS experience - I think I was employed more because I know SIMS! Eek

[Ditto]

Do you have a project team including SIMS consultants supporting this or are you just being asked to provide data to in specific formats to allow import to SIMS? What timeframe are you working too?

[Michael]

I'm curious, what's the reasoning behind moving from cloud > legacy and not cloud > cloud?

[Xeba37]

We will have a project manager from SIMS who will apparently make contact with me in 2 weeks time - when I am out of the country... Hopefully I can have a chat with them on my return. I am not totally sure of the services they offer however I believe, after talking to a fellow DM, they will likely supply templates which I need to populate. I am also likely to have to export extra data which is not deemed mandatory.

[Xeba37]

I'm curious, what's the reasoning behind moving from cloud > legacy and not cloud > cloud?

I am new to the school - I started a couple of weeks ago so I do not know the full history. I believe that they signed up with Progresso on a 5 year contract. There were a lot of issues initially which has affected staff confidence in the product so they felt they needed a change, in addition, they were struggling with being able to extract the information they needed with SSRS. As for why SIMS, they went through a process of researching alternatives and decided upon SIMS. I was not here at the time so I don't know the full details/ins and outs of why SIMS to be honest.

[Michael]

Unless you're virtualising, you may need an additional server which will probably cost thousands. Was just interested in the thinking behind it.

[t_1875]

Hi - sorry to bump an old thread but did anyone make progress with the tonnes of SSRS reports there are to be written for the migration?

[jammers]

Were you able to move the documents stored against learner easily?? Did they have to be manually saved???