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

[matt40k]

FMS has a flexible import/export facility that allows central payments to be exchanged with other systems in LAs.

Sorry, was thinking more in terms of FMS integration with SIMS - ie what would stop you leaving SIMS. Of course can import rec files, do BACS etc

[Ditto]

Should probably take this offline as is commercially sensitive. Will PM

Just wondering - isn't this public money that's being spent and therefore wouldn't it be information that could be public domain?

[matt40k]

Put in a FOI to all the LAs and find out - https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/

[Banjo]

Put in a FOI to all the LAs and find out - https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/

 

And spend more public money collating the answers :-(

[Ditto]

I won't be making an FOI request as I don't think it warranted in this case, but if there was less secrecy on how public (our) money is being used, they'd be less need for some FOI requests. Anyways, we probably drifting off thread so I'll leave it now.

[Banjo]

From and LA's point of view whether you use Exporter or something else isn't a secret or how much you paid for it. It's more Groupcall/supplier(s) who wouldn't want this info out in the open as other vendors could approach and tout for business.

 

LA's have been known to compare prices for Capita One to ensure a level playing field. This demonstrates our level of corporate trust and faith in Capita as a company.

[GREED]

I won't be making an FOI request as I don't think it warranted in this case, but if there was less secrecy on how public (our) money is being used, they'd be less need for some FOI requests. Anyways, we probably drifting off thread so I'll leave it now.

 

Yep, absolutely - and that is down to all the customers using XVault (and it is XVault, because Xporter is in most schools around the country in one form or another) to decide to get involved. As a vendor, they are our customers whether public or private sector, and is not for me to publicly reveal this information about them. Otherwise why wouldn't we just make public our entire customer book for all products sold to anyone in the education sector?

[PotNoodleTech]

From and LA's point of view whether you use Exporter or something else isn't a secret or how much you paid for it. It's more Groupcall/supplier(s) who wouldn't want this info out in the open as other vendors could approach and tout for business. .

 

You will probably find that in your quotes you were given, and support agreement / lease documentation you will have been fobode from discussing prices under pain of forfeiting your agreement and facing possible legal action. So yes, it is a secret!

Edited February 16, 2018 by PotNoodleTech

[mavhc]

But the only reason it's a secret is so the company can charge people more.

[Banjo]

You will probably find that in your quotes you were given, and support agreement / lease documentation you will have been fobode from discussing prices under pain of forfeiting your agreement and facing possible legal action. So yes, it is a secret!

 

Hmmm, when you get the quote you haven't signed a thing unless you enter a pre-contact NDA which nobody does. Also which supplier is going to turn their noses up at $$$ because their prices were discussed.

[nicholab]

After chatting to iSAMS I believe one of the Finance system that can be used is Accounts IQ.

[PhilNeal]

For a LA school?

[matt40k]

@AButters @Banjo FYI - LA publish any expenditure over £500 (in a month). So you can find out how much, when and who with, just not the what without asking.

[deshills]

I agree moving to the cloud is a good idea for primary schools as it cuts costs (among other things), but a £11k in savings per school per year? I'm not sure I know many schools who spend more than £5k a year on SIMS and all the expensive bolt-ons in total, so how do they get £11k in savings?

I did the numbers on this and because we self host the cloud, and have made lots of other savings elsewhere (licensing costs (our costs were astronomical), 3rd parties, text messaging, self managing 1st line support etc) those are the group savings divided by the number of schools we have. Happy to share in greater detail if you want to discuss directly.

We used to use a combination of Facility CMIS and SIMS. We looked extensively at Progresso which in my opinion was a dead duck, and Bromcom tendered (i had never heard of them) and it has been a really positive change for us - irrespective of the cost savings we have made.

[Ditto]

Progresso which in my opinion was a dead duck.

We've been with Progresso for about 3.5 years and it's yet to be decided if it is to be used going forward. Like all MIS's it has its issues. I've looked at a few others, but not yet Bromcom. What for you made Progresso a 'dead duck'?

[deshills]

We've been with Progresso for about 3.5 years and it's yet to be decided if it is to be used going forward. Like all MIS's it has its issues. I've looked at a few others, but not yet Bromcom. What for you made Progresso a 'dead duck'?

Obviously just my opinion! but I had a number of issues with it. Bearing in mind we were looking to migrate 40 odd schools, the migration process was poor, (i believe i was told at the time it was easier to migrate from SIMS to Progresso than from CMIS to Progresso??) and the thought of having to rebuild each instance of Progresso manually (as opposed to one master version) with full assessment set up, reports etc would have been a nightmare (human error etc).

For me though, the worst aspect was their unwillingness to embrace feedback/suggestions aimed at helping them a better service provider. They (in my opinion) genuinely thought they understood what schools wanted better than the schools themselves. I also found that their core group of customers we got to know, were never really happy with the product, and the things they were pleased with, seemed very basic (and that's being polite!)

I spent some time working in their offices to get to know the system better, and they were genuinely great people, so i hope that it is a success for them, but at the time they seemed miles off a finished product that was fit for the demands that we (and all schools) have.

[Ditto]

Obviously just my opinion!

Of course - and valued, thanks for the further details.

 

Bearing in mind we were looking to migrate 40 odd schools, the migration process was poor, (i believe i was told at the time it was easier to migrate from SIMS to Progresso than from CMIS to Progresso??) and the thought of having to rebuild each instance of Progresso manually (as opposed to one master version) with full assessment set up, reports etc would have been a nightmare (human error etc).

We had minimal migration of primary data from scholarpack but it was before I really got involved, but I can believe it's quite manual. Assessment setup is challenging but powerful with reporting if you have time and SSRS expertise. What would be insightful is to know how AET managed. I think they are around the 70 schools mark, but I don't know how many have moved across - any AET commentators out there?

For me though, the worst aspect was their unwillingness to embrace feedback/suggestions aimed at helping them a better service provider. They (in my opinion) genuinely thought they understood what schools wanted better than the schools themselves. I also found that their core group of customers we got to know, were never really happy with the product, and the things they were pleased with, seemed very basic (and that's being polite!)

That's a killer in any business setup! Their ongoing support is patchy and they do let themselves down quite often.

I spent some time working in their offices to get to know the system better, and they were genuinely great people, so i hope that it is a success for them, but at the time they seemed miles off a finished product that was fit for the demands that we (and all schools) have.

Wow - that must have been interesting. When did you look? Over the 3 years it has improved. There added lots of new reports, but really it's presented in a very unstructured way. There's still a cluster of real small but really niggly day-in, day-out issues. Fix those and the experience would be so much the better. In May they start to roll out a new UI/UX and are supposed to solve some of those. There was a new UI rolled out a couple of years back, but they never finished it so in May I think we'll have a mixture of all 3! If, and it's a big if, hey can roll out the new UI across the whole system in quick time and address the small things, they'll be in a much better place. However, I do think the competition is hotting up. Arbor and SchoolPod are new(ish) kids on the block and could be a real threat to those that don't keep up.

[deshills]

I'd also be interested to hear how AET got on, that must have been a massive job! We (2 of us) migrated 40 schools in 8 weeks, and that was tough. Thanksfully the migration process to Bromcom is a doddle, and without doubt the best aspect of the migration process. Training was ok, but could have been better (we found we had to redo this) but the follow up support was very good to be fair.

I worked with them about 3 years ago, think i spent 3 or 4 days up on Derby. Was a fascinating insight and one that was really useful to me.

I've heard really good things about Scholarpack (at Primary) but haven't had the chance to look in any great detail. You should have a look at Bromcom (i am not on commission - although i should be!) as you will be surprised how good it is. Their reporting isn't as good as CMIS (which i still say was the best of the non cloud MIS) but they are getting there with some help for us and their other big customers. Their biggest strength is their willingness to adapt the system for changes that will benefit all.

[bigdannyb79]

Good old CMIS - all else fails a bit of 'Execute SQL' could get me anything I ever needed ! How progresso got so many things wrong when they had the basis of many good things in CMIS is beyond me. I know they were shafted by the agreement they had with Patni for a while but I concur with above that their 'we know better than you' attitude is the reason why their product still falls so woefully short in some areas years later.

 

Frustrating thing is the influx of customers form AET then got them a hot line to development and ridiculous things like the 'Big Bell' got thrown in overnight when long standing issues sighted by the majority of customers sat on the roadmap for eternity. Rarely heard anything from AET schools - ominous ?

[Van-10]

Hi

 

Having worked with SIMS and Scholarpack I would recommend the later for primary schools.

[Green_Eggs_No_Ham]

We're CMIS at the moment, thinking of moving to Progesso at some (!) point in the future. I feel obliged to keep pointing out to my LM that there are other suppliers out there, and I keep seeing good things about Bromcom and Scholarpack on various forums, but also - they're fairly new aren't they? Is it better go go with someone more established? Or is that something that I shouldn't worry about at all?

It's not as if I make any purchasing decisions or anything but it's something I'm curious about.

 

Edit to add:- I know the reporting in CMIS is......clunky but I have learned to use it over the years and love the fact that if there's data in there I can get it out. I worry about losing this ability in another MIS and I keep hearing that reporting is easier in other MIS's - but does easier mean simpler in a bad way. I'm not expecting answers to all this but these are just thoughts that I wanted to throw out there.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Green_Eggs_No_Ham

[Ditto]

When we had Scholar pack, in primary, it seemed quite popular. Have not used SIMS so not really in a position to judge, but there's no shortage of opinions out there!

 

Once the school selected progresso, there was no way they wanted to pay for 2 MIS's in an all through school so Scholarpack went. Scholarpack do seem to had made good progresso in primary schools. This article shows market shift - not the whole story but interesting. Whist Advanced Learning are still investing, it gives some reassurance, but the market share drop is a worry. I'm not totally convinced the traditional big boys are as safe as they were - just look at discussions around CAPITA in these forums for the last month. Maybe an up and coming MIS provider will be tomorrow's safe choice?

[Ditto]

Good old CMIS - all else fails a bit of 'Execute SQL' could get me anything I ever needed ! How progresso got so many things wrong when they had the basis of many good things in CMIS is beyond me. I know they were shafted by the agreement they had with Patni for a while but I concur with above that their 'we know better than you' attitude is the reason why their product still falls so woefully short in some areas years later.

Frustrating thing is the influx of customers form AET then got them a hot line to development and ridiculous things like the 'Big Bell' got thrown in overnight when long standing issues sighted by the majority of customers sat on the roadmap for eternity. Rarely heard anything from AET schools - ominous ?

 

I'e PM'd three AET contacts to invite them comment - didn't want to call them out unannounced. Let's see what we hear...

[CloudGeek]

We're CMIS at the moment, thinking of moving to Progesso at some (!) point in the future. I feel obliged to keep pointing out to my LM that there are other suppliers out there, and I keep seeing good things about Bromcom and Scholarpack on various forums, but also - they're fairly new aren't they? Is it better go go with someone more established? Or is that something that I shouldn't worry about at all?

 

It's not as if I make any purchasing decisions or anything but it's something I'm curious about.

 

Yes, this is an old saying “you do not get sacked for buying IBM”.

 

This was fear, uncertainty and doubt tactics by dominant suppliers world of 1980s - before Apple, Google and cloud.

 

Even big MATS appear to be doing it - voting with their feet and switching over to cloud with the new boys because the big dogs didn’t / could’t get their act together!

[owen1978]

Lots of interesting posts going on here!

 

I wouldn't be averse to looking at a cloud solution. The problem with moving everything into the cloud is you are relying totally 100% on your fat pipe and if anything goes wrong with that then the whole school is screwed.

 

Also regarding costs - you'd have to upgrade your broadband line to go full cloud, and given that the difference between a 100mb and a 1000mb line is circa £6k / year for a single line, you won't actually save any money as you're spending the 6k/year saved on servers, on broadband, and that's not even with a redundant connection.

 

I'd have to think long and hard about it - having had our main fibre line cut through by an over-enthusiastic gardener with a chainsaw, I know all to well that things can happen with your broadband line that are totally beyond your control!

 

The server room on the other hand, is totally within my control.

 

A bit late too the party but we have recently moved to an new ISP in prep for future cloud based MIS, we have gone with Evolving networks who specialise in bonded connections they have bonded two FTTC connections for approx 3k. We also purchased a virgin business connection for extra resiliency and they have bonded that too.

Edited May 23, 2018 by owen1978