SIMS Alternatives

[matt40k]

I'm not getting into a debate about cloud/hosted, next generation of MIS users etc. etc.

 

Indeed, that debate is over, long live SIMS 8 and we'll be retired by the time those pesky kids turn up, if any of them sneak in, that's fine, Capita offer a 90min intro course for only £150.

I'm not trying to sell hosted SIMS to you, I'm not particularly that fond of Capita and their products and any opportunity to save a few quid is a good opportunity

I can't image it'll save any money - I mean you're just paying Capita to run SIMS on their hardware. So it'll be current £££ licensing fee + ££ hosting fee (which is actual Infrastructure + Capita markup)

[TechMonkey]

I know internet connections are a lot more reliable nowadays but what happens if your internet goes down, or the company hosting have issues?

 

Is it just a risk you take? nothing can be 100% risk free.

 

If your internet goes down the beauty of a cloud based, totally web based MIS is that you can use it on a mobile device, or someone goes home and accesses the information, or you set a phone up as a hotspot. You have more options.

 

You do have a problem if the company has hosting issues, but that is where you have to get SLAs, assurances, options and current user feedback.

[supportman]

Bromcom, iSams would be the 2 biggest I think.

 

Sims do not offer a cloud solution, but Sims 8 is in development. Expect to hear some more at BETT this year.

 

Sims "hosted" is NOT a cloud solution, the idea that it could be put in that category is plain wrong and it should not be identified as one. Its simply Capita running the server for you exactly the same as for the last 20 years of their product. If you want cloud (a web based solution) for sims then Sims 8 is the cloud product.

[mullet_man]

Yeah at some point I can see us moving to a cloud based system as with all services at some point, so when that time comes I would suspect backup internet lines would be the norm just in case.

 

Since we moved to Zen our internet has been rock solid.

[park_bench]

+1 Bromcom

 

We are a small MAT in Lancashire (1 secondary and 3 primaries) and we have recently all moved from SIMS to Bromcom. Initially, the reason to look at alternatives was financial - SIMS was going to cost an absolute fortune once we converted from maintained schools under LEA control to academy status. You will certainly save a lot of money making the switch away from SIMS, as not only do you save on the core MIS, but you can also cancel all the subscription to third-party packages that you need to make SIMS useful (Schoolcomms/Sisra/CPOMS/ParentsEvening in our case) - Bromcom has all this functionality built in.

 

Migration was a painless process and although there is always going to be some angst when switching a major system, the training plan provided by Bromcom was really comprehensive and they looked after us during the transition process. The Bromcom system is intuitive and learning/using just one system instead of SIMS plus 2, 3, 4 other bolt-on systems is so much more palatable for staff and much more efficient.

 

One of the major benefits I've noticed using Bromcom is that admin staff are becoming so much more self-sufficient with using the MIS. Previously our support for SIMS was via the LEA; we could be waiting days for resolutions to issues and the call logging process was tedious - this put pressure on the technicians who were the in-house fonts of all knowledge - now staff are happy to put a call into the Bromcom support team, who are superb and usually get you sorted in a few minutes.

 

Early days for us, but we're very happy we switched.

[CloudGeek]

+1 Bromcom

 

We are a small MAT in Lancashire (1 secondary and 3 primaries) and we have recently all moved from SIMS to Bromcom. Initially, the reason to look at alternatives was financial - SIMS was going to cost an absolute fortune once we converted from maintained schools under LEA control to academy status. You will certainly save a lot of money making the switch away from SIMS, as not only do you save on the core MIS, but you can also cancel all the subscription to third-party packages that you need to make SIMS useful (Schoolcomms/Sisra/CPOMS/ParentsEvening in our case) - Bromcom has all this functionality built in.

 

Migration was a painless process and although there is always going to be some angst when switching a major system, the training plan provided by Bromcom was really comprehensive and they looked after us during the transition process. The Bromcom system is intuitive and learning/using just one system instead of SIMS plus 2, 3, 4 other bolt-on systems is so much more palatable for staff and much more efficient.

 

One of the major benefits I've noticed using Bromcom is that admin staff are becoming so much more self-sufficient with using the MIS. Previously our support for SIMS was via the LEA; we could be waiting days for resolutions to issues and the call logging process was tedious - this put pressure on the technicians who were the in-house fonts of all knowledge - now staff are happy to put a call into the Bromcom support team, who are superb and usually get you sorted in a few minutes.

 

Early days for us, but we're very happy we switched.

 

All appears very interesting.

 

Which other MIS products did you consider and how did they compare?

[NotSoFast]

We're still happy with Progresso (on the whole!). Not sure how well it would work in primary though.

[park_bench]

All appears very interesting.

 

Which other MIS products did you consider and how did they compare?

 

We looked in depth (we got to the stage of inviting the companies in to demonstrate) at a couple of alternatives: Arbor and ScholarPack. We ruled out ScholarPack because it is only suitable for Primary schools and we thought it important to have the same MIS running across all our academies. Arbor looked very nice, but we found it's beauty a little skin deep - it didn't seem to be as fully featured or easy to operate under the hood as Bromcom.

 

Of all the companies we invited to demonstrate to us, we felt Bromcom were head-and-shoulders above the others in terms of wanting to listen to, and act upon our feedback. This was another important factor for us, as prior to switching, we felt we had zero relationship with SIMS as our provider - so the prospect of being able to have an influence how the MIS develops is very appealing.

[djrscally]

we thought it important to have the same MIS running across all our academies.

 

Why do you think this, out of curiosity?

[park_bench]

Why do you think this, out of curiosity?

 

Partly due to economies of scale; the thinking being that the more schools in the MAT that use Bromcom, the better the discount we can negotiate. Partly for operational ease; it was appealing for us to streamline our SLAs across the MAT and only have to deal with Bromcom regarding our MIS. Also, running two MIS systems would double our trainaing overheads for the central team and ICT support which services all schools in our MAT.

[elsiegee40]

And now... back on topic please. This thread is for discussion of alternatives to SIMS. I will move a few posts into the discussion thread that someone started.

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/political/200465-mats-got-bigger-theyd-end-up-leas-all-but-name.html

Edited October 16, 2018 by elsiegee40

[Sonic007]

Hosted SIMS?

 

https://sts.sims.co.uk/

 

 

 

Has anyone actually gone for this?

 

We were quoted £500 for Hosted Sims Per Year plus the migration one off cost of £495. That allows 10 users included.

 

Now that doesnt sound too bad until you are hit with this.....

 

 

 

Additional users (pro rata April-March): £30

 

Seeing all our teachers use Sims for registers and also the office staff we are looking at around 80 users which sky rockets the cost to £2400 + £500 takes us to just over £3000 and then you've not included licensensing and we've not even talked about FMS yet.

 

Think we'll stick with hosting it ourselves.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Sonic007

[matt40k]

It's Capita Freemium model.

[David44]

The only time I ever see Hosted SIMS mentioned is on the Capita Service Status page where it seems to be constantly not working correctly.

 

https://myaccount.capita-cs.co.uk/Notifications/capita-hosted-services-status-page/

[DODICT]

Please do a market review and recognise SIMS for what it is, an outdated horror of a product. Capita know it but after stagnating for decades they are obviously struggling to get moving again and produce SIMS 8. But you're crazy if you pick up the corpse of the product that is SIMS and then get someone to host it for you and think that is a wise move. Edited October 16, 2018 by DODICT

[CloudGeek]

The only time I ever see Hosted SIMS mentioned is on the Capita Service Status page where it seems to be constantly not working correctly.

 

https://myaccount.capita-cs.co.uk/Notifications/capita-hosted-services-status-page/

 

Trying to get a cloud services out of Windows desktop application (SIMS7) via remote hosting is nothing other than a round peg in a square hole. On this forum numerous posting explained the fundementally how flawed such approach is. On top, because it is so inefficient, it becomes very pricey to deploy across a school as found by @Sonic007.

[Ma2]

Depends how you say it. The base cost replaces a server's cost. Does then £2.50pcm per £2000 pcm staff member make it sound better? I've known remote access solutions that cost more, although admittedly this is only really SIMS remote access even with the Excel and Word access within the hybrid cloud environment. Could be competitive if you can find some glue and spare letters for the missing keyboard keys on those vintage laptops.

 

On the other hand, if you've got a working server and remote access to the network for senior leaders, maybe SIMS Teacher App? It lets teachers assess offsite at least, and do registers and conduct including offline.

[matt40k]

SIMS Teacher App is an extra?

[TechMonkey]

Depends how you say it. The base cost replaces a server's cost. Does then £2.50pcm per £2000 pcm staff member make it sound better? I've known remote access solutions that cost more, although admittedly this is only really SIMS remote access even with the Excel and Word access within the hybrid cloud environment. Could be competitive if you can find some glue and spare letters for the missing keyboard keys on those vintage laptops.

 

On the other hand, if you've got a working server and remote access to the network for senior leaders, maybe SIMS Teacher App? It lets teachers assess offsite at least, and do registers and conduct including offline.

 

As the other user commented, you seem to be trying to force SIMS to fit all uses, and uses it is not designed for.

 

At what point do schools actually take stock and say SIMS should no longer be the default choice, that there are other better, more modern, less clunky systems out there? I'm not going to use the term unfit for purpose as it does work, but a horse is fit for purpose as transport and I wouldn't want to use it all the time as my main mode of transport or go on a long trip using it.

 

Adjusting a great quote I read yesterday for a different system, I now hold more firmly to the opinion that the persistence of SIMS can be attributed more to the conservative nature of schools than on the functionality it offers.

[supportman]

I now hold more firmly to the opinion that the persistence of SIMS can be attributed more to the conservative nature of schools than on the functionality it offers.

 

This is so true and I'm guilty as well. I've changed and upgraded everything in the school to modern technology and "best of" systems. But the MIS is the single thing I am actually too scared to change.

 

The monopoly position of Capita and the fact other systems work so well on-top of Sims has contributed to us not looking at other products. I'd love to change though.

[TechMonkey]

This is so true and I'm guilty as well. I've changed and upgraded everything in the school to modern technology and "best of" systems. But the MIS is the single thing I am actually too scared to change.

 

The monopoly position of Capita and the fact other systems work so well on-top of Sims has contributed to us not looking at other products. I'd love to change though.

 

I'm not trying to diminish the scale of the project needed to change the MIS or that it isn't a whole school decision that actually shouldn't be driven by IT. I have been very lucky in that our MIS when I joined was incredibly old, badly used and unanimously loathed, so I was allowed to go ahead with a tender process as it was either upgrade to the newer version of what we have or go to something new. With SIMS 8 coming up maybe that is what schools should be doing, if there is a mass training programme needed to update staff skills for the new version maybe a wholesale change should be looked at. This is especially true considering the majority of schools probably haven't thought about their choice of MIS since the last major SIMS update, so early 2000s I think?

 

I'd probably guarantee that just about everything that works with SIMS will work with the other major systems now, and if not they don't need it as that function is built-in. As another commenter said there are so many add-ons to SIMS needed that other systems just have built in. Always worth it as an exercise, even if you just show SLT/Governors that you are spending X amount on your MIS functions and could spend between Y & Z with other systems, or as an impartial weighing up of the schools current position and potentials.

[FN-GM]

SIMS Teacher App is an extra?

 

Unfortunately so.

[WSEAGERS]

I was a Data Administrator in my previous role and we used Progresso it's developed by a company called Advanced. I'd say it's worth looking into although the customer service isn't great they will keep you on hold for ages, the UI doesn't look great and it can be quite slow. Still they are constantly updating it, I know that when I first joined we were considering switching to Isams or SIMS but we opted to stay with Progresso.

[Katy]

We're iSAMS here (moved about 3 or 4 years ago, from Engage), while there's some bits where you go "why on Earth have they done it that way?" generally it's much faster, more reliable and less complained about than Engage (which was a local client like SIMS).

All the Independents in our trust are using iSAMS on a couple of shared Azure instances, so it's cloud but managed by our trust IT guys. iSAMS still have access for updates/support etc.

 

I like not having to update it or back it up, not having to do any messing about with clients and also custom reports are all done in SSRS.

[park_bench]

This is so true and I'm guilty as well. I've changed and upgraded everything in the school to modern technology and "best of" systems. But the MIS is the single thing I am actually too scared to change.

 

The monopoly position of Capita and the fact other systems work so well on-top of Sims has contributed to us not looking at other products. I'd love to change though.

 

For years I felt the same way about the MIS; we had always had SIMS... that's just how it was... and even though it felt as if we were constantly flogging a dead horse, that's how it would always be. We'd just kept purchasing more and more bolt-ons, kept spending inordinate amounts of time and money developing systems to compensate for the inadaqute reporting/analytics and kept just hoping things would get better... one day.

 

When we found out that the cost of flogging the horse was going to go through the roof when we academised, we just realised it was a crazy sitation and we needed to look at alternatives. We started having a look around schools using other systems and invited some companies in to school to show us how they could do things better. It was a real eye-opener to see how much more effecient and productive we could be given the right tools!

 

Change is never going to be straightforward, and you have to make sure you have buy-in from all stakeholders in school - get staff at all levels involved in the discussion about the pros and cons of switching. We made the decision to switch from SIMS to Bromcom in June this year. Migration of data was done over the summer and I'd say, as we approach half-term, we've just about got over any fear and anxt surrounding the change and the vast majority of staff are now very happy we switched.