MIS review for new MAT

[JohnRMoore]

A rare opportunity for use to review our MIS provider as we set up our new MAT. My data manager peers seem to recommend iSAMS from a usability point of view and the fact that being cloud based I can administer all the schools easily. Is there any technical reason why this would not be a good choice, or anything I should be aware of?

 

Currently using SIMS btw.

 

(PS I have not looked at the cost of iSAMS yet!)

 

I hope this type of question is OK, I am assuming if we stick to facts rather than opinion no one is likely to get upset?

[elsiegee40]

I hope this type of question is OK, I am assuming if we stick to facts rather than opinion no one is likely to get upset?

Perfectly OK.

 

 

I will take the opportunity, however, to remind those working for or with MIS companies that this is not an invitation for you to market your product either in the thread or behind the scenes by PM or other means. You all know that this is not permitted.

 

[pete]

What's the SLA like on your internet connection? Is there decent alternate provision (4G coverage / MiFi 4G dongle(s) / backup adsl connection*) should you have an extended internet outage and need MIS access?

 

If you haven't, factor in putting that into place at each school in the MAT as part of your costings.

 

*which admittedly will connect via the same BT exchange, but if the outage is RBC/other provider related you've still got access to your MIS.

[matt40k]

What's the SLA like on your internet connection? Is there decent alternate provision (4G coverage / MiFi 4G dongle(s) / backup adsl connection*) should you have an extended internet outage and need MIS access?

 

If you haven't, factor in putting that into place at each school in the MAT as part of your costings.

 

*which admittedly will connect via the same BT exchange, but if the outage is RBC/other provider related you've still got access to your MIS.

Just a flip on this - what's the disaster recovery for an on-prem MIS? What happens if the server room catches fire for example but the rest of the building is fine? No-one stores spare paper\toner in the server room do they?

[Dave_O]

Just a flip on this - what's the disaster recovery for an on-prem MIS? What happens if the server room catches fire for example but the rest of the building is fine? No-one stores spare paper\toner in the server room do they?

 

There is no straight forward answer to this, it depends on where your internet ingress into the building is, where the core switch is, where your fibre runs are. We have a replica of the MIS server 30 mins behind the primary, so discontinuity would be about 1-2 hours if the core infrastructure is undamaged. in the case of a fire that takes out the core switch and fibre distribution, it wouldn't matter if it was cloud or on prem the discontinuity would likely be the same even if you had internet feed diversity.

[matt40k]

Sorry for derailing - but just a bit sick of "won't someone think of the internet connection" argument when talking cloud MIS. In terms of disaster recovery its lot easier, as you've said, its a lot of extra work to have a replica and you've got a lot of exceptions vs get some where with internet connection and carry on working, like another school or even some local office space for the backoffice functions - I'd hope the school already has a plan it terms of where you'd physically put pupils so its not that wild an idea. I get someone schools it's still a bad situation in terms of connectivity but like I've said before that's a bigger issue and the numbers are reducing.

[pete]

Just a flip on this - what's the disaster recovery for an on-prem MIS? What happens if the server room catches fire for example but the rest of the building is fine? No-one stores spare paper\toner in the server room do they?

 

We have offsite functionality to message parents.

We have a seperate BT phone that's powered via the local exchange.

Super-critical info (don't feed Fred peanuts etc) is replicated elsewhere.

IT critical info for DR needs is replicated to Office 365.

We have semi-offsite (separate building with decent fire gap) backups in addition to normal backups.

We know we can restore the SIMS VM and a DC to spare hardware (no room in other building for a full "servers", just a DR box stuffed with disks). Or I can install SIMS on a random laptop and restore the data backups.

 

If you're storing flammable material in the server room, it's not a server room and the school is likely in violation of "appropriate physical controls" if random staff are going in there to get paper.

[bigdannyb79]

Agree with MAtt40k. the world relies on the internet now and so not a blocker in any way to a cloud MIS, its just something that needs to be taken care of. Without wanting to offend anyone on here when considering MIS choice an ICT Manager's voice shouldn't be one of the key ones in this discussion unless they play a role in the use of the MIS. They have a valuable contribution in ensuring any technical considerations but the function and impact of the MIS should be considered first then consider its possible implementation and support.

 

You're MIS ultimately provides intelligence to support decision making in your schools and so you need to be considering those decisions and working out how and where the info you can capture in an MIS can support making timely, better informed decisions.

 

With a MAT the key benefits are collaboration and economies of scale. You want your MIS to support those benefits and help you work quickly and effectively across schools and be clear on strengths and weaknesses at school level and collate those to give a consolidated picture. So if you look at what you do now and how that may evolve as a MAT and then look at how the various providers can support those initiatives and systems in a multi school environment. I'd suggest when you start considering it from a MAT perspective and beyond a single school view cloud becomes favorable, not just due to cloud but also how the providers in that space have developed their products.

 

ISAMS and Bromcom have impressed me previously and my only worry with ISAMS, when I last looked in detail, was its relatively new presence in state schools but their development team seem responsive and proficient so I would have expected them to have smoothed off any bumps in transitioning from a primarily independent school base by now.

 

So again sorry if I offended anyone but I wouldn't be considering your fire proofing or internet redundancy in your initial shortlisting but focus on the systems, staffing and initiatives you see running across the MAT and ask how they could be supported by an MIS and ensure you have something that is effective, value for money, sustainable and scaleable.

 

So to simply answer the original question no there is no technical reasons to think this is a bad choice. Get the right product and then explore how it needs to be implemented to ensure its resilient and reliable.

[pete]

Agree with MAtt40k. the world relies on the internet now and so not a blocker in any way to a cloud MIS, its just something that needs to be taken care of.

 

My point was "have a backup plan so you can function when some herbert takes out your fibre". I wasn't advising the OP to retain an onsite MIS. I'd jump at the chance for a clientless MIS* that works in a modern browser but because we're in darkest Lincolnshire with not-that-great provision we're more susceptible to twerps on tractors causing connectivity problems.

 

*not an invitation for sales PMs.

[bigdannyb79]

Good to hear ! Too many NM's in schools spend far too much time supporting one single application and I find it frustrating when resilience then becomes the primary discussion point when people talk of MIS choice. If I added the hours NM's spend in large schools trying to get updates out and troublehooting some legacy MIS systems it would be much more of a worry to me than the resilience of my internet feed.

 

The market has stagnated for too long due to a monopoly - lets move on and see how much more effective NM's can be when the extent of supporting an MIS is adding a URL for users to access ! Everyone's a winner.

[Ditto]

A rare opportunity for use to review our MIS provider as we set up our new MAT. My data manager peers seem to recommend iSAMS from a usability point of view and the fact that being cloud based I can administer all the schools easily. Is there any technical reason why this would not be a good choice, or anything I should be aware of?

Currently using SIMS btw.

(PS I have not looked at the cost of iSAMS yet!)

I hope this type of question is OK, I am assuming if we stick to facts rather than opinion no one is likely to get upset?

 

Staying away from the important internet part of this thread, I did look at iSAMS a year ago. It struck me as a mature and broad functional product. The UI perhaps didn't feel as modern as others, but to be honest its all about the functionality and speed. For us cost was a big factor and being a modular product, costs did seem to mount up, but you'll need to number crunch for yourself. I got the 'feel' it was a better deal for large schools than smaller, so maybe the MAT level buying power will help. A big plus was they can set you up with a 'try-it-out' environment. I'd probably think you'd need to look closely at how well it support a MAT in terms of school separation and the trust level combined processing.

[TechMonkey]

You will need to talk to them as I can't think of an easy way, as is, to setup iSAMS for a MAT. They do have a feature called Divisions that allow you to segment a school, think dividing a school in to nursery, primary, secondary and sixth form/college, but that is not implemented across every feature so you could end up having staff wade through many pupils they never have anything to do with. Though this does not mean they don't have something that can accomodate you. Worse case scenario you have individual setups and as an admin you just have to sign on to each one. As it is cloud based this is less an issue.

 

They are geared towards the independent market so you may have to be careful on that front.

 

Beyond that iSAMS is a great MIS. When we were investigating the most resounding recommendation was a teacher I spoke to about using iSAMS who said "Yeah, it's all right.". A teacher who isn't actively annoyed by the MIS was a first for me. Staff at ours have been overjoyed by reporting and ease of use.

[2ilent8cho]

We moved to iSAMS last year from SIMS, everyone is happy with the move, and teachers much prefer iSAMS. Only area we feel SIMS was better is in the cover module. So i can recommend it, if you contact them they will get somebody onsite to show it off and you can then fire lots of questions at them.

[nicholab]

If I was looking at MIS I would look at anything but SIMS as they will build and work to create your environment. Also can you pick up any other things like publishing reports, SMS and e-mail as part of their system which could save hassle. Edited February 27, 2018 by nicholab

[djrscally]

Staying away from the important internet part of this thread, I did look at iSAMS a year ago. It struck me as a mature and broad functional product. The UI perhaps didn't feel as modern as others, but to be honest its all about the functionality and speed. For us cost was a big factor and being a modular product, costs did seem to mount up, but you'll need to number crunch for yourself. I got the 'feel' it was a better deal for large schools than smaller, so maybe the MAT level buying power will help. A big plus was they can set you up with a 'try-it-out' environment. I'd probably think you'd need to look closely at how well it support a MAT in terms of school separation and the trust level combined processing.

 

Did you get a play with it at BETT? They're rolling out a new UI - significantly less 80's USSR.

[rfakes]

Without trying to sound dumb, what does MAT stand for?

[elsiegee40]

Without trying to sound dumb, what does MAT stand for?

 

Multi Academy Trust

[Ditto]

No, but we had a go in the demo environment just under a year ago and it did look dated, but it didn't overly concern me. A new UI may make it an easier sell but I'd want to be confident the new UI is at least as efficient as the old.

[Katy]

You will need to talk to them as I can't think of an easy way, as is, to setup iSAMS for a MAT. They do have a feature called Divisions that allow you to segment a school, think dividing a school in to nursery, primary, secondary and sixth form/college, but that is not implemented across every feature so you could end up having staff wade through many pupils they never have anything to do with. Though this does not mean they don't have something that can accomodate you. Worse case scenario you have individual setups and as an admin you just have to sign on to each one. As it is cloud based this is less an issue.

We've got about 12 schools sharing an iSAMS setup in our trust, it appears to be 12 separate installations on the same server (there's a web server and a separate SQL server both hosted in Azure - on the SQL server there's a separate database per school). We then use the divisions to segment each school into primary etc. Unfortunately this means each school gets its own large annual bill but presumably it's on par with other MIS costs (I've never been involved in the billing side of MIS before so no idea but I doubt we've have moved to it if it cost more than we were paying for the old system)

 

 

Edit: Yes the UI theme appears to be styled on XP but it's no big deal, although a theme refresh would be nice.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Katy

[TechMonkey]

Yes the UI theme appears to be styled on XP but it's no big deal, although a theme refresh would be nice.

 

There is a new theme under the development app. Just a bit more of a flat design.

 

 

For a screenshot.

Edited February 27, 2018 by TechMonkey

[Katy]

There is a new theme under the development app. Just a bit more of a flat design.

 

 

For a screenshot.

Looks good, shame I don't have the option to try it out, must need to be installed on the server by our trust techs. Also don't think I'd be brave enough to switch over - when we moved from Office XP to Office 2003 we got a lot of noise from teachers (and the only difference then was the grey toolbars changed to blue!)

[2ilent8cho]

Edit: Yes the UI theme appears to be styled on XP but it's no big deal, although a theme refresh would be nice.

 

Thats one of the reasons i love it, so many OS's and Apps are just so bad looks wise now with things hidden, too much white space, flat design. I feel the XP era was when the interfaces were good. Nothing is hidden and the icons make sense, and everything is clear. I still do not have the new dashboard turned on in iSAMS as the old one looks better, only advantage the new one has is you can add widgets.

[PhilNeal]

So what this debate doesn't seem to be addressing is the needs of the MAT. These may include things like running costs ease of use etc but the real issue for MATs is accountability. This requires serious attention to processes in each academy and x-school reporting. The team at the centre will need to be able to understand how each school is performing compared to every other school. The MAT will need to be putting in place common behaviour policies etc so that it is able to answer rigorous questioning by Ofsted. This isn't about XP preferences!

[elsiegee40]

So what this debate doesn't seem to be addressing is the needs of the MAT. These may include things like running costs ease of use etc but the real issue for MATs is accountability. This requires serious attention to processes in each academy and x-school reporting. The team at the centre will need to be able to understand how each school is performing compared to every other school. The MAT will need to be putting in place common behaviour policies etc so that it is able to answer rigorous questioning by Ofsted. This isn't about XP preferences!

 

I agree that the needs of MATs are largely down to central reporting. Those processes and standards need to be clearly defined.

 

However, and I am speaking as a MAT Trustee here with recent Ofsted experience, having all policies as common across a MAT isn’t actually a necessity or even likely. I promise you that Ofsted worries about what happens at academy level which may, or may not, mean that policies are central.

 

Central policies are those which cannot vary between schools - Employment policies (because everyone is employed by the MAT regardless of whether their contract specifies a particular academy), whistleblowing, complaints, Health & Safety (probably but not necessarily)

 

MATs include many types of school not necessarily all in the same town. Some things will be Academy specific:

Marking and behaviour are two that come to mind immediately as what works for one Academy and Principal may not be appropriate for another.

 

We have a central standard for academies to report progress, attainment, exclusions, attendance, attitude to learning and staff & pupil context which is challenged by the MAT Standards Panel so we can compare like with like. How all that operates on the ground in the school in terms of policies may be entirely different.

 

And yes, that doesn’t include XP preferences or even linked (or linkable) networks.

Edited February 27, 2018 by elsiegee40

[PhilNeal]

Agreed. I’d say that assessment needs to be consistent.