BLUESKY:So, if you were setting up your school from scratch, what MIS would you buy?

[PotNoodleTech]

Just out of interest, in order to ignore all of the potential risks and problems you can have when moving from SIMS to something else for example, imagine your school was a brand new school and the head says "so what MIS shall we get?"

 

What would be your answer and short summary of why?

 

Back in the old days, there pretty much was only SIMS, which is why so many schools *still* run it (including my school) - but starting from scratch? I wouldn't buy SIMS now I'd have to have a jolly good look at what's out there.

[Banjo]

http://food.fnr.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2016/12/8/1/JE0205H_Cacio-Pepe-Popcorn_s4x3.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.616.462.suffix/1481216491893.jpeg

[mavhc]

For what kind of school?

[djrscally]

Kind of hard to answer as I've only direct experience with Progresso and CMIS, so I don't know all the annoying problems the others have but that you don't see until you've used it for a while. The one that I liked the most at BETT was iSAMS, I thought it had a good combination of ease of navigation and intuitive-ness (what's the word I'm looking for here...?) which will please the teachers and support staff mightily and then the configuration for assessments and behaviour and so on seemed reasonable. Also it uses SSRS which is a really powerful reporting tool, so I can do anything I need to do with the data. Also also; it didn't look like it was made by the late 80's USSR, which is nice.

 

So; I'd start by looking there. Would need a more in-depth go at it to say I'd buy it though.

[FN-GM]

If it was a new schools in our MAT it would be SIMS as everyone else is on this.

 

If it was a complete new start with not MAT etc it would probably be iSAMS.

[Katy]

I'd probably say iSAMS - although I've only ever used Phoenix Gold, Phoenix e1 and iSAMS. And all I can remember about Gold is that the interface felt like it was out of the early 90s, and e1 everything seemed to take about a million clicks.

[2ilent8cho]

iSAMS because its fully web browser based. But not bluesky thinking for us we switched from SIMS to iSAMS last year. Teachers are happier, reports/profiles are easier, Exam Manager cannot believe how much better it is, our weird timetable swap over was half the work in iSAMS, and i have to do less 'updates' so i am happier. Only thing we have found we prefer in SIMS is Cover but hopefully that will get improved.

[PotNoodleTech]

Wow so far, 4 votes 4 iSams.

 

Very interesting mr bond!!

[Ditto]

Unlike Mr. Bond, the reality of funding restrictions would no doubt prevent me going for the MIS that was purely 'the best' - if indeed there is such a thing. I think we need to be more Penfold in our characterisation.

[mavhc]

You are saving, let's say 1 min per user per day, so 3 hours per user per year, that's £30-120 per user per year.

[jmak]

For a primary I liked the look of Scholarpack - on the basis of a demo rather than experience. I find that a lot (most) systems are over complicated for the requirements of a primary.

[Ditto]

Just out of interest, in order to ignore all of the potential risks and problems you can have when moving from SIMS to something else for example, imagine your school was a brand new school and the head says "so what MIS shall we get?"

What would be your answer and short summary of why?

Back in the old days, there pretty much was only SIMS, which is why so many schools *still* run it (including my school) - but starting from scratch? I wouldn't buy SIMS now I'd have to have a jolly good look at what's out there.

 

Of course another way is to see what the market is actually doing. There's an outstanding analysis by Joshua Perry with some excellent Tableau visualisations to boot - see Bring more data: MIS MARKET MOVES 2017: 860 schools switched MIS in the past year!

[mavhc]

Of course another way is to see what the market is actually doing. There's an outstanding analysis by Joshua Perry with some excellent Tableau visualisations to boot - see Bring more data: MIS MARKET MOVES 2017: 860 schools switched MIS in the past year!

 

So at least one of those annoying FOI requests was helpful

[RootsSchImp]

I think the most interesting aspect of an MIS is the extent to which processes can be automated (assuming SLT don't change them every five minutes) to reduce the need for admin staff. I think it's possible to run a large secondary with 3, office manager, data and exams and cover/attendance.

 

Sims is way behind the curve here, Bromcom is way better. I haven't seen iSams tho-what's its scope for automating reports, behaviour consequences, detentions, alerts etc?

[XiJ]

We have contact with arbor and from what I’ve shown to schools they like it very much.

 

My answer would be ‘anything but sims’ though. Awful software with costly licensing (or re licensing) and looks like it’s written in basic in the 80’s.

[matt40k]

So at least one of those annoying FOI requests was helpful

Afraid not - data is from DfE, when you submit the census has has a field for the MIS system that was used to generated the return. We do it via WhatDoTheyKnow so it stops us duplicating requests to the DfE for the same data and most importantly it saves having to bug every single school. Still the DfE have said this data cannot be released as it is commercially sensitive - you can't make it up! - https://data.gov.uk/data-request/software-supplier-school

[PotNoodleTech]

Thanks for all your replies so far peeps! Very interesting!

[TechMonkey]

iSAMS because its fully web browser based. But not bluesky thinking for us we switched from SIMS to iSAMS last year. Teachers are happier, reports/profiles are easier, Exam Manager cannot believe how much better it is, our weird timetable swap over was half the work in iSAMS, and i have to do less 'updates' so i am happier. Only thing we have found we prefer in SIMS is Cover but hopefully that will get improved.

 

Same here. There are still niggles but only in the same way we have niggles with software generally. I have actually had emails from staff thanking us for making reports easier to write and almost enjoyable. But considering what we were on we could have changed to anything and gotten better really!

 

Of course another way is to see what the market is actually doing. There's an outstanding analysis by Joshua Perry with some excellent Tableau visualisations to boot - see Bring more data: MIS MARKET MOVES 2017: 860 schools switched MIS in the past year!

 

Only issue with that is it is only State schools, misses out the Independent sector.

Edited February 8, 2018 by TechMonkey

[Katy]

Same here. There are still niggles but only in the same way we have niggles with software generally.

Agreed - there are a few things in iSAMS where I sit there and think "...WHY have they done it like that? That's stupid, why isn't $option possible?" but you'd get that in any system. And I can't off the top of my head remember what any of those are so they can't have been that big a deal!

 

I think reporting (not academic reports) is my favourite thing in iSAMS - they are all just SSRS reports, you can download the built in ones into visual studio if one just needs tweaking, or create new ones from scratch and add them to any module. Today I've just knocked one up to give the minutes late per AM/PM registration session per child, for $daterange, totals and averages at the bottom as the built in one just gave percentages for "time missed".

 

Our previous system was Engage (EXE based rather than hosted or web based) and the fight I had with that for the monthly update was unbelievable (it broke Crystal Reports every time and needed re-installing). (Yes I'd forgotten about Engage when I said I'd only used Gold/e1/iSAMS earlier, must have repressed it out of my mind).

 

Edit: Another thing I like over Engage is the API section. When we used to use Groupcall Messenger, we had an Xporter job that connected into the Engage SQL server and ripped data out. On iSAMS it just connects to the API and gets data that way - so if an update changes the database schema we don't have to get Groupcall in to write new scripts as the API should remain the same.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Katy

[Zoom7000]

We recently moved over from SIMS to Bromcom MIS. Again, fully cloud hosted and browser based. I had demos from a variety of vendors but went with Bromcom because they were the only company who could guarantee me connectivity with all our existing 3rd parties, as well as a willingness to develop the system further to our needs. The personalised support so far from support desk right through to CEO has been brilliant.

[altecsole]

iSAMS because its fully web browser based. But not bluesky thinking for us we switched from SIMS to iSAMS last year. Teachers are happier, reports/profiles are easier, Exam Manager cannot believe how much better it is, our weird timetable swap over was half the work in iSAMS, and i have to do less 'updates' so i am happier. Only thing we have found we prefer in SIMS is Cover but hopefully that will get improved.

We looked at iSAMS but the deal breaker for our exam team was that you couldn't seat internal exams? Is that still an issue?

[2ilent8cho]

We looked at iSAMS but the deal breaker for our exam team was that you couldn't seat internal exams? Is that still an issue?

Not sure, it has an Internal Exam manager but we do not use it. Did it have that module when you last looked?

[Katy]

Not sure, it has an Internal Exam manager but we do not use it. Did it have that module when you last looked?

We also don't use the Internal Exams Manager. No idea how we do ours, whether we have fake exam cycles set up on the main Exams module for the internal exams or not... I've had a quick look and can't really see much but I don't have anything to do with Exams and I'm scared of breaking something whilst poking about in the Exams module

[djrscally]

In contrast, my exams guy refuses to use our MIS for seating internal exams as he reckons it's easier to do it the old fashioned way!

[DODICT]

In contrast, my exams guy refuses to use our MIS for seating internal exams as he reckons it's easier to do it the old fashioned way!

 

that is only because Progresso screwed him over 2 years in a row and he had to re do it ! When that happens its definitely quicker to do it once manually !