Bromcom vs SIMs Costs

[discoveranother]

Hi all,

 

I'm looking to maybe speak with schools and get them to move away from SIMS \ FMS. I've read good reports about Bromcom , but just wondered what costs are compared to SIMS \ FMS. Also, any thoughts on other MIS Systems and costs. I've heard Scholar Pack is more expensive to SIMS. But from what I gather, Bromcom allows full finance i.e. SIMS \ FMS type of system to be web-based.

 

Admin staff tend to not want change as they are always busy and hate learning new systems. But they have to move on.

 

Thanks all for any replies.

[steveg]

We are moving to another cloud MIS system shortly. In direct comparison, the licence for SIMS is considerably cheaper than all of the cloud providers we looked at.

 

What you need to take into account of though is the other costs, they aren't always as big as some of the providers try to suggest, but certainly when we looked at all the costs it made sense for us.

 

Think of all the extra add-ons that you buy to be able to make SIMS do all you want, parents evenings, payments, communications etc, all often included in a cloud MIS.

 

Then costs of running and maintaining a server, sql licencing etc.

 

Staff time, backups, maintenance etc.

 

Then we looked at time savings for the admin team, all the things that we've found work arounds for in sims that we will be able to do quickly and easily.

 

Overall it worked out cost neutral for us when all was factored in, but would provide a better overall experience for everyone using it.

[Ditto]

We are moving to another cloud MIS system shortly. In direct comparison, the licence for SIMS is considerably cheaper than all of the cloud providers we looked at.

 

What you need to take into account of though is the other costs, they aren't always as big as some of the providers try to suggest, but certainly when we looked at all the costs it made sense for us.

 

Think of all the extra add-ons that you buy to be able to make SIMS do all you want, parents evenings, payments, communications etc, all often included in a cloud MIS.

 

Then costs of running and maintaining a server, sql licencing etc.

 

Staff time, backups, maintenance etc.

 

Then we looked at time savings for the admin team, all the things that we've found work arounds for in sims that we will be able to do quickly and easily.

 

Overall it worked out cost neutral for us when all was factored in, but would provide a better overall experience for everyone using it.

The total cost is the important figure. Even allowing for that, I'm surprised that none showed a saving. It is a couple of years ago since I did this for real, so maybe the newer cloud prices have crept up? I worked with Progresso, (now School Cloud) and it was considerably cheaper per pupil than the nearest competitors. It seems to be the ugly duckling in the list nowadays, if not the dying one apart from one big MAT.

[theo_logical]

I am very surprised that SteveG has found neutral savings between SIMS over cloud provider - unless he's in a Primary?

 

We are in the middle of a similar feasibility study as discoveranother, so far massive savings are to be had by abandoning SIMS. And that's without factoring in the time wasted fighting with Solus 3.

[steveg]

I am very surprised that SteveG has found neutral savings between SIMS over cloud provider - unless he's in a Primary?

 

We are in the middle of a similar feasibility study as discoveranother, so far massive savings are to be had by abandoning SIMS. And that's without factoring in the time wasted fighting with Solus 3.

 

We are a primary. In terms of actual costs cloud is more expensive for us, but when time factored in it is around neutral, may work out to be cheaper if it saves more time than we are expecting.

[nicholab]

This is Saas so the cloud provider is managing the finished product for you it user ready.

 

When I looked a couple years ago iSAMS was more expensive everything else was about the same if we had 480 pupils in an all through school. Cost wise Sims cost us £10k and a support contact with someone local was £4.5k.

 

You will find some staff can not think outside the SIMS box. Also migrated all you data I worked in a school that did not and it was a pain the old system had to be used for old records. Go for at least 7 years.

[Edu-IT]

https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud/services/453520164670750

[nicholab]

The school I worked at went for onsite so lost some of the benefits. Including remote access and full managed stack. They did not even have a vm environment so they were mad going onsite. Sandwell Lea internet that we had at the time was poor.

[nicholab]

In this document from 2016 Bromcom/Harris have some costs https://www.bromcom.com/Resources/CaseStudies/Transitioning-to-the-Cloud–Harris-Federation’s-Journey-to-a-Cloud-MIS.pdf.

[discoveranother]

Thanks for all these replies guys.