BrownShoes Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 Anyone else thoroughly underwhelmed with SIMS 8 / Primary? Back in 1975, or whenever it was they announced it, this might've been just the thing. The ambition seems to have faded a little - increased staff engagement, more intuitive, much easier to use - hopefully so, but what happened to all the other stuff about it being a 1-stop, everything-you'll-ever-need system? If they're keeping something back - or putting something back(dashboards/reports) - I'd love to see it - and soon, other applications are available...
FishCustard Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 Tried it at BETT a couple of years ago and asked some pointed questions of the rep - I wasn't impressed at all, particularly with the (lack of) reporting features.
BrownShoes Posted May 28, 2019 Author Posted May 28, 2019 Most queries met by Capita rep with answers indicating things were either going into development, were actually currently in development or were awaiting development. Some of these questions weren't supposed to be too difficult.
FishCustard Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 As usual, paying customers are beta testing a Capita product. 1
BrownShoes Posted May 28, 2019 Author Posted May 28, 2019 Not just testing - actively providing assistance in it's design. Sorely tempted to ask "is it finished yet?" - upon pain of a blow to the head from one of my superiors.
DODICT Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 (edited) not being funny but when you look at their 'current' product, I use that term very lightly, are you really surprised their 'next gen' offering is years late and ridiculously off the pace ? The market has moved on but unfortunately a lot of schools haven't, yet . . . . They are missing the point badly - as said above they dont realise the fundamental point that the value of an MIS is the intelligence you can GET OUT so when you develop an MIS from scratch with a laughable effort at reporting you're kinda creating a car without wheels and showing everyone what a lovely steering wheel it has. Their current product has forced their customer base to utilise and analyse their data out of the MIS in excel or third party products in inefficient and ineffective ways. So I am not sure they really have a clue what they need to provide their customers with as they have relied on others to fill that gap for a long old while. My only other point would be why stick with a flawed solution waiting, and waiting a good while !, for them to perform a miracle, with little encouragement of them achieving said miracle, when there are better solutions available ? Edited May 28, 2019 by DODICT
TwistedHelixis Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 None of the schools I look after can (or are allowed) to switch to a better MIS, due to the fact it integrates with FMS. Our LA will only allow FMS in county schools and the bursar's all need the staff costing projections that are pulled from Sims.
Ditto Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 Everyone has to forget about what they have and what the future may hold. Look at the whole MIS market today, not promises in the future, look at the functionality, the cost, and make your decision.
DODICT Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 None of the schools I look after can (or are allowed) to switch to a better MIS, due to the fact it integrates with FMS. Our LA will only allow FMS in county schools and the bursar's all need the staff costing projections that are pulled from Sims. pretty sure that will be breaking some procurement law somehow ! But doesnt surprise me - the LA's have contributed to the market monopoly as much as anyone. And FMS is as flawed and outdated as SIMS itself but its ridiculous that a schools MIS is being dictated to them by their LA on the strength of a financial return. That should NOT be supplier specific. I appreciate primaries (assuming its mainly primaries if they are using FMS) don't utilize MIS systems as much as secondary's but having a simple cloud based MIS is a much better option for most primaries and removes the need for a server to be kept onsite for the purpose and the need for someone to keep the MIS updated and patched (regularly). This is why, when being afforded the choice, scholar pack and integris amongst others have grown quickly in the primary sector. So disappointing to hear LA's are still restricting schools in this way.
DMurray Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 not being funny but when you look at their 'current' product, I use that term very lightly, are you really surprised their 'next gen' offering is years late and ridiculously off the pace ? The market has moved on but unfortunately a lot of schools haven't, yet . . . . They are missing the point badly - as said above they dont realise the fundamental point that the value of an MIS is the intelligence you can GET OUT so when you develop an MIS from scratch with a laughable effort at reporting you're kinda creating a car without wheels and showing everyone what a lovely steering wheel it has. Their current product has forced their customer base to utilise and analyse their data out of the MIS in excel or third party products in inefficient and ineffective ways. So I am not sure they really have a clue what they need to provide their customers with as they have relied on others to fill that gap for a long old while. My only other point would be why stick with a flawed solution waiting, and waiting a good while !, for them to perform a miracle, with little encouragement of them achieving said miracle, when there are better solutions available ? Consider how Nokia lovers fast voted with their feet and picked up smart phones. If MIS wasn’t a sticky application, schools would have switched to cloud by now. Clearly it looks as if MATs jumped ahead and soon LAs will follow and switch to cloud. If large MATs can switch so can LAs.
AsifMangera Posted May 29, 2019 Posted May 29, 2019 We had a similar issue and wouldn't want to switch the MIS if there wasn't an integrated finance system that allowed statutory reporting back to the LA. We have now cracked this with a group of Nurseries going live with Bromcom MIS/Finance in April - the plan is to offer it to Primary and Secondary as an option for go live April 2020 (decisions to be made by October 2019). The key is to involve all parties (LA, Bursars, SBMs etc.) during the planning phase. Ultimately the LA just want to ensure financial controls and transparency is in place. In fact the our LA was very excited about the change and Bursars can now login from anywhere rather than visit each school.
TwistedHelixis Posted May 29, 2019 Posted May 29, 2019 We wanted to go with Bromcom, but our LA refused to even talk with them when we asked.
AsifMangera Posted May 29, 2019 Posted May 29, 2019 What LA is it? I'm happy to have a conversation with them and point them to the following guidance from the DfE - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/moving-your-school-to-the-cloud/moving-your-school-to-the-cloud As someone who has worked in multiple LAs in London in senior roles, I can say that you just need to get to the right people who see sense! 1
DODICT Posted May 29, 2019 Posted May 29, 2019 (edited) Consider how Nokia lovers fast voted with their feet and picked up smart phones. If MIS wasn’t a sticky application, schools would have switched to cloud by now. Clearly it looks as if MATs jumped ahead and soon LAs will follow and switch to cloud. If large MATs can switch so can LAs. LA's arent the best at managing change and there is little motivation for them to embrace it and many actively discourage it or suggest it isn't possible ! Many have traded services reliant on supporting specific products and as we've heard finance teams who refuse to accept information from systems other than the one they know. I've worked with LA support teams that had multiple staff just doing SIMS upgrades and installs etc and charging a decent sum to do so - go cloud and that team suddenly looks a little bloated ! Progress is being made but its a slow burner but very glad to hear some are willing to discuss options especially when we know there are viable and often favorable alternatives for the schools. Edited May 29, 2019 by DODICT
Damon Posted May 29, 2019 Posted May 29, 2019 I echo the sentiment of this thread. When we received word that CAPITA were producing a new product from the ground up, I breathed a sigh of relief. However, I should have recalled the pain of SOLUS 3, InTouch, Agora and so on. It's become quite apparent that they are unable to develop high quality software, despite having a significant amount of resources. I remember that even in the early days of Solus 3, £1.5M had been spent on development. Considering how terrible that piece of software is, I don't have much hope for SIMS 8. SIMS.Net is showing it's age, the replacement has no official release date and is already several years behind schedule. If you haven't been looking at other options, it's time to take that leap. A lot of support teams are wary of change or still think the competition is miles behind. I would have thought most MIS suppliers will happily work with support teams (like the case of ours with Bromcom). Let's not forget that teams have to pay CAPITA circa £20k a year to support SIMS! All of this gets charged back to the schools at the end of the day. That's not even taking into account the accreditation charge of an additional ~£6k every two years.
matt40k Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 None of the schools I look after can (or are allowed) to switch to a better MIS, due to the fact it integrates with FMS. Our LA will only allow FMS in county schools and the bursar's all need the staff costing projections that are pulled from Sims. I'm guessing they don't use FMS - I remember Capita renaming the menu within FMS from something like SIMS integration to MIS integration and that was like 10 years ago. I also remember seeing a survey which said zero (0) LA would block (in anyway) schools switching MIS, again, that was a few years ago... so lot of outdated information floating around, bit like FMS design
Edu-IT Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 I'm guessing they don't use FMS - I remember Capita renaming the menu within FMS from something like SIMS integration to MIS integration and that was like 10 years ago. I also remember seeing a survey which said zero (0) LA would block (in anyway) schools switching MIS, again, that was a few years ago... so lot of outdated information floating around, bit like FMS design [emoji3] At least more progress has been made with regards to FMS and they now have cloud based SIMS Finance.
matt40k Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 WAIT, WHAT!!?! School are actually using it? OMG That's awesome news!
Atomic_Zombie Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 The only reason the new FMS exists is because it's a re-skin of another existing Capita finance product. If Capita Education built it from the ground up no doubt the heat death of the universe would occur long before the lone developer locked in a basement in South-East England manages to get together a coherent GUI.
BrownShoes Posted May 30, 2019 Author Posted May 30, 2019 Our meeting with Capita: Us : OK, SIMS Primary, show us what you got… Capita : What would you like to see in there? Show us your templates. What reports do you want? Give us your data. Have you any suggestions?(get a move on…?). I think that’s possibly in development, I’ll have to check… Did this meeting take place? – A. 2015 B. 2017 C. April If you answered A or B you really should find another forum...
mthomas08 Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 Their current product has forced their customer base to utilise and analyse their data out of the MIS in excel or third party products in inefficient and ineffective ways. So I am not sure they really have a clue what they need to provide their customers with as they have relied on others to fill that gap for a long old while. And this is it ladies and gents. You have really hit the nail on the head. Staff should not need to be exporting the data and altering in all kinds of ways with excel. The work load this creates is manic. Not to mention how they currently link up their products from one system to another (SLG, SIMs Service Manager, InTouch and SIMs Online). Yet companies that pull data out of SIMs to sync can do it in a lot less fuss and with ease. Take EduLink for starters which pulls data out and injects it back in SIMs. You would think after all this time they would have a far better system that is automatic, easy to setup and little to no maintenance. A member of staff here is looking at taking over options and even looked at the online version but was that simple? Nope. They can't even make the timetables without a bunch of required steps. We have not long found out that SLG is being decommissioned. We are still having memory errors and I am very tired of jumping through hoops that are on fire just to record these for zero solutions on the horrizon. I need to breath.
Damon Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 Our meeting with Capita: Us : OK, SIMS Primary, show us what you got… Capita : What would you like to see in there? Show us your templates. What reports do you want? Give us your data. Have you any suggestions?(get a move on…?). I think that’s possibly in development, I’ll have to check… Did this meeting take place? – A. 2015 B. 2017 C. April If you answered A or B you really should find another forum... This! So much! For the last 5 years or so. I dipped out of the Beta a long while ago and it's not exactly moved on. At the time I remember asking if they could enable access to Assessment and Reporting modules. "Oh yeah they haven't been deployed to the Beta platform yet but they're coming..." They never came.
Edu-IT Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 WAIT, WHAT!!?! School are actually using it? OMG That's awesome news! I know of a few. It seems to do the trick but as pointed out probably because it’s just a customised version of an already established product.
LSt Posted May 31, 2019 Posted May 31, 2019 I quite agree. Our LA goes to pains to not influence schools, any supplier is allowed to bid to go on the framework. I agree that the procurement is slightly questionable if this doesn't happen!
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