SIMS or Facility??

[Dill]

Hi all

 

I am looking to tender a new MIS to a secondary school. I wondered if any of you have any opinions on which is best? SIMS or Facility. I have read pros and cons for both, but wanted some experts opinions!

 

Comparing -

Reporting

Teacher access (internally and remotely)

Set up

Migration

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

Dill

[GREED]

Is Facility even still for sale?

[Dill]

Ha ha well i guess that is the first question! a few of my schools have it already, and a few have SIMS so I want them all on one. The facility users seem to think it can be rolled out to other schools, but I have heard the support is not much use/no longer available?!?

[bigdannyb79]

why are you just considering just those two ? I dont think I've heard anyone ask this specific question since about 2005 !!

 

And whats your role with the schools as I would also consider, if appropriate, how well the MIS supports visibility across the group etc.

 

If your doing a tender surely you want to look across the market for the most appropriate product not just limit choice to ones currently in use ?

 

And if you want a personal opinion if I was procuring a new MIS to a secondary school I would definitely be looking to review other solutions than the two you have mentioned !

[Dill]

Thanks for the response Bigdannyb79.

 

I am looking at these two as they already exist and are in use in the schools. I want to be able to send teachers to any school and for them to be able to use that system without a training need. I realise I am limiting my choice but to avoid full upheaval I would like to make sure we still have experts in some of the schools for the initial migration, hence why I have asked which is better.

2 schools have facility, 4 schools have SIMS. I wanted to get an opinion on which of these systems the forum thought would be better.

I understand there are other systems out there, however for a smoother transition I would have thought keeping at least one of these would be best?

I thought SIMS was market leader hence had the most support?

Which would you go for from other MIS systems?

[matt40k]

I think you're under estimating how big a thing this would be. You're talking about sinking £50k+ into Capita's pockets. So what? teachers can work across schools? Does this happen? Is it a real problem?

[NotSoFast]

One option would be Progresso. In the Facility schools the teaching staff would see a relatively similar interface to ePortal, and you can set it up across a group of schools (it's hosted). We found it much cheaper than SIMS, though things may have changed. Of course, as others have said, there are lots of other options!

[RootsSchImp]

In my experience schools over estimate how much MIS training is needed for teaching staff and underestimate it for SLT and admin staff. Entering registration, behaviour events and assessments should be so simple teachers need virtually no training on a new system. I wouldn't factor 'teachers familiar with system x' in my decision to switch.

 

Your MIS can have a huge impact on how well your school runs but in order for it to do so you need to know what it can do and senior and admin staff need to be capable of using it well. If I were you I would spend time thinking how, in a perfect world, the MIS could make sch run more efficiently (better notifications, automated tasks etc) then write those up as requirements for a tender.

 

At a low cost to you, MIS companies will tell you how they can make your life easier while supplying a plan for training at the same time.

[Michael]

Neither solution is any good. If you look at the bigger picture, you're still going to need a physical or virtual instance per site. Both products are at the end of their life and the future of MIS systems is the cloud, there's no question of that. Chances are other solutions they're using are already cloud, such as Assessment and Safeguarding applications.

 

Here's a good site to show what's out there

[Banjo]

If it's a simple choice between those two products then SIMS is the winner. SIMS is still be developed and supported whereas Facility isn't going to see any new features.

[bigdannyb79]

I still think if your planning any change at all, and any MIS change is a significant one, you need to ensure its best choice for all and for the group moving forward not just the best of what is currently in use.

 

Whats your roll in relation to the schools and whats the link between the schools ? It might be slightly more difficult if the schools are in no way linked but still in that case I'm not clear on what the business case would be for changing - if its just ease of supporting the MIS for you as an external party then I believe that would be a crazy justification for specifying the MIS choice for these schools.