Launching New Cloud MIS Systems During the C19 Disruption

[NotAGeek]

Hello,

Has anyone gone ahead with plans to launch a new MIS and/or Finance system during the C19 disruption? We were planning to complete our procurement but we are now concerned if the training/change management is too much of a risk during this time? Would be good to understand any experiences (positive and negative) if anyone has tried?

Many thanks

[sonofsanta]

We were meant to switch MIS just after Easter, with our first on-site training day scheduled for, I kid you not, the first Wednesday of lockdown. I was hovering over the news praying we'd get three more days, just three more days... but alas.

 

So: in conversation with Bromcom (our new supplier), we pushed back our launch date to the June half-term, in the optimistic hope that all this would have blown over and we'd be able to get the on-site training day done in May. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Never mind.

 

What we ended up doing instead--we did need to change still, our existing MIS contract runs out at the end of this month--was buying a bunch of long HDMI cables so that everyone could connect their laptop up to a TV, and so follow the presenter on a big screen while logged in to the system themselves still. Not as ideal, but it did still work okay. People have gotten surprisingly competent at working from home through all this.

 

The downside to launching during lockdown has been that we've not been able to as easily have conversations on the way we want things configured--I actually went in to school yesterday for a couple of extra webinars (stuff that wasn't essential for launch), and we were able to make decisions there and then on config settings as we were all in one room discussing it as we were trained. I've also not been able to just sit down with our new data manager and just blast through a load of decisions/precedents--there's been some long email chains, and that's a slower way to work than a conversation in person.

 

The upside to launching during lockdown, and tbh it's been a considerable upside, has been all the pressure off. Our live system was handed over about 6pm on a Friday, and in other circumstances I'd have spent all weekend working to get it ready for Monday 9am, but in the event there was no-one on site needing to take a register. I spent half an hour Sunday evening getting logins out to everyone, but other than that I've been able to work on the system without the pressure of "normal school business can't proceed until you do this" and without interruptions for printer jams etc. It's been a much more relaxed way to launch something that otherwise I've spent years dreading as a task due to the scope.

 

This is the only Bromcom migration I've ever been through so I don't know what it would have been like under normal circumstances, but I've never had a "I'm on furlough" autoreply, I've never struggled to get hold of anyone or been stuck waiting for a reply, and it's all felt pretty much business as usual from their end. Migrating now is absolutely viable, maybe even preferable.

[sodslaur]

The downside to launching during lockdown has been that we've not been able to as easily have conversations on the way we want things configured--I actually went in to school yesterday for a couple of extra webinars (stuff that wasn't essential for launch), and we were able to make decisions there and then on config settings as we were all in one room discussing it as we were trained. I've also not been able to just sit down with our new data manager and just blast through a load of decisions/precedents--there's been some long email chains, and that's a slower way to work than a conversation in person.

 

The upside to launching during lockdown, and tbh it's been a considerable upside, has been all the pressure off. Our live system was handed over about 6pm on a Friday, and in other circumstances I'd have spent all weekend working to get it ready for Monday 9am, but in the event there was no-one on site needing to take a register. I spent half an hour Sunday evening getting logins out to everyone, but other than that I've been able to work on the system without the pressure of "normal school business can't proceed until you do this" and without interruptions for printer jams etc. It's been a much more relaxed way to launch something that otherwise I've spent years dreading as a task due to the scope.

 

This is the only Bromcom migration I've ever been through so I don't know what it would have been like under normal circumstances, but I've never had a "I'm on furlough" autoreply, I've never struggled to get hold of anyone or been stuck waiting for a reply, and it's all felt pretty much business as usual from their end. Migrating now is absolutely viable, maybe even preferable.

I would agree with all of this. We had the system handed over on Friday just gone and went live on Monday and although there was a considerable amount of setup needed and I worked a lot of the weekend, the fact we're not doing lessons or serving lunches has taken all of the pressure off. I've not had issues getting in touch with Bromcom, there's been no suggestion whatsoever that people were not available to help and all the tickets I've raised have been dealt with so far. I do have an issue with the timetable model that I'm waiting to be picked up but with no lessons happening I'm not too stressed about it. The only big issue I've been having is that our Third parties all appear to have fallen asleep and despite all the invoices paid, calls booked and forms filled in, not one of them got in touch on handover and I've had to chase them to do the work. In fact only three out of our six have set up a live Bromcom connection so far and we're four days in.

 

However that hiccup aside (and I am hoping it is an artefact of furloughed employees and not BAU), the Bromcom side has been very smooth and trouble free. We had booked in person training for go live on Monday as it was a planned CPD day, but in the event Bromcom explained they weren't sending trainers out to schools and they set up webinars instead. Given the circumstances that was the best option and everyone I spoke to afterwards thought the training went well. It has been a lot of work and I've done all of it myself - with support from the principal as well, but it has been a lot, we're a small school so other than some help with the QA for the test migration, I have done everything. We're the first school to go over from the Trust so there's a bit of pressure to get it right. So far so good. I am relieved in some ways that these are not normal times - I've had very few queries from staff as a result so I can just get on with the things needing my attention without emails pinging and people hanging round my desk saying "I know you're busy, but..."!

[Timetable]

We have transferred from SIMS to BROMCOM during these testing times and i have to admit i am not sure if its actually been BETTER. We were due to go live on the first week of lockdown and were contacted by Bromcom and offered the chance to delay, which we declined, and i am pleased we did.

 

The main bonus and one of the reasons we changed is the easy access to it from any location, and that has been brilliant for us. Saved us the hard job of talking staff through setting up VPN's or exporting great chunks of data to spreadsheets.

 

The second benefit is staff have been able to explore the live system and get familiar with it at their own pace. The office staff have had time to learn their basic tasks without the extra pressures of the school day. Its helped myself as the IT manager get familiar and take time to iron out issues (not that there have been many) with the support team.

 

All staff have been trained with videos for basics and live teams calls to less computer literate staff. Training in person might have been better, but it wasn't too much of a hindrance doing the videos for them, and now they have them for reference.

 

The support has been brilliant too. I have to admit not being able to call up on the phone has been a miss (or is that just my laziness not wanting to type up a support request), but the online support has been quick and effective and if its been needed a teams call has been arranged quickly and the issues fixed. I think you can now log a call straight from the phone, but don't quote me on that, i have got used to starting the requests on the support website, and possibly have to admit its the bet way to do it.....

 

So, we are now live and planning on the year end and ready to go into the new school year with a lot of confidence in the system. we've managed to tweak out behavior system in this time and think, shouldn't say that, but think we are where we want to be.

[CMP]

We went live with Bromcom on 1 April, so in the early stages of the lockdown. In all honestly I was worried as the thought of changing systems at such a difficult time filled me with dread. However, we had already completed our training in February and given notice to our previous provider (SIMS) so felt we should carry on with our schedule.

 

Bromcom kept in touch with us during this time, making sure we were still happy to migrate our data and keeping us up to date with how it was all going. The migration went smoothly and because normal operations in school had ceased during this time, it gave us breathing space to get our configuration settings set up and allow the administration teams in our schools to get used to the system. Like the poster above, not having teachers to train on the new MIS for registers/dinners has allowed those admin teams time to build up their confidence in navigating the system. The cloud based nature of the system actually made things much easier for us during this time. With so many staff working from home, the ability to access the system (albeit we do restrict location based IP logins) has made things much easier than would have been the case.

 

We are a small MAT, and what we found worked for us was to create a project team of users from each school who attend the training webinars and are responsible for the system in their school. From a change management point of view, I took the lead role for the MAT (CFO) to oversee the project and coordinate the process. Whilst I will use the school level MIS the least in my role I have completed all parts of the training alongside the team. This way the schools know that there is someone in the central team who they can escalate any issues to who understands the system.

 

Looking back, I needn't have worried as on the whole the process has gone very smoothly. Have we had teething issues? Of course we have, I wouldn't expect to change such a major system and not have any issues. As has already been mentioned above the support team is very good at resolving issues as quickly as possible and we had as much transition support as we needed straight after migration.

 

What I would suggest is speaking to the providers about what is concerning you most about completing your procurement during the current situation. They will be able to address your reservations and hopefully set your mind at ease.

 

Good luck!

Edited July 2, 2020 by CMP

[sonofsanta]

The only big issue I've been having is that our Third parties all appear to have fallen asleep and despite all the invoices paid, calls booked and forms filled in, not one of them got in touch on handover and I've had to chase them to do the work. In fact only three out of our six have set up a live Bromcom connection so far and we're four days in.

 

 

Oh god yeah, I had this. Booked Civica in for an appointment to change over back in April or something, and about two weeks after June's launch I realised I hadn't heard anything from them. They'd just not bothered to tell me everyone was on furlough and the work wouldn't be done. Great stuff.

 

And then it transpired they can't switch MIS source without also switching payment source, which we weren't ready for yet as we hadn't launched MCAS, so yeah, bit of a mess from Civica's end. You need to keep an eye on those third parties.

[sodslaur]

Oh god yeah, I had this. Booked Civica in for an appointment to change over back in April or something, and about two weeks after June's launch I realised I hadn't heard anything from them. They'd just not bothered to tell me everyone was on furlough and the work wouldn't be done. Great stuff.

 

And then it transpired they can't switch MIS source without also switching payment source, which we weren't ready for yet as we hadn't launched MCAS, so yeah, bit of a mess from Civica's end. You need to keep an eye on those third parties.

Nightmare.

 

My headache is with Cunninghams who supply all our epos stuff. All my communications just fall into a black hole. I've used every email address that has appeared in the original email chain to set up the change in a vain effort to get a response from anyone at all. I can't get through on the phone. I got one OOO to say they were on furlough, and to email the generic inbox (which I've tried several times). It really is a terrible company for customer service. This might be the final straw for us.

[supportman]

Yep we are going ahead during lockdown. this week in fact.

 

I think its a great time to do stuff that would normally be very difficult to implement.

 

The staff have been constantly requesting access to our MIS from home and remote desktop just isnt good enough any more. A cloud solution solves a lot of user issues right now.