Arbor snap up another large MAT (57 schools)

[Zammo]

 

With this and winning United Learning recently, do we think Arbor might become the next "big boys" of the MIS market.... or at least in the MAT sector?

Edited October 12, 2021 by Zammo

[Ditto]

 

With this and wining United Learning recently, do we think Arbor might become the next "big boys" of the MIS market.... or at least in the MAT sector?

Wow, that's a serious loss for Advanced. It's hard to see Cloud School (formerly Progresso) surviving this. I also hope AET were thorough with procurement process!

[sippo]

It's interesting as Scomis have also become an official support company for Arbor as well. They have been solely SIMs for years and years!

[paulkerton]

I think you'll see SIMS, Arbor/Scholarpack & Bromcom being the MIS of note for the next 5 years or so. There are still other challengers trying to enter the market too, and don't forget Integris is still around.

Be interesting to see what happens if SIMS 8 ever does!

[Edu-IT]

I think you'll see SIMS, Arbor/Scholarpack & Bromcom being the MIS of note for the next 5 years or so. There are still other challengers trying to enter the market too, and don't forget Integris is still around.

Be interesting to see what happens if SIMS 8 ever does!

January 2022 apparently.

[Mr.Ben]

Bear in mind Arbour and ScholarPack are owned by the same parent company, so it's unlikely they will eat into each other.

[sefton]

January 2022 apparently.

 

They are going to bleed modules out slowly, , it'll still be years before it's a fully fledged cloud based MIS probably, meanwhile you are using a hybrid system with all the issues than can entail.

[paulkerton]

January 2022 apparently.

 

I've just seen a pig go past at 20,000 feet!

 

They must have the record for the company who has launched the same product at BETT multiple times at BETT without actually releasing it by now?

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Bear in mind Arbour and ScholarPack are owned by the same parent company, so it's unlikely they will eat into each other.

Yes, The Key seem to be positioning them as Secondary and Primary solutions, rather than having them step on each other's toes.

[localzuk]

I think you'll see SIMS, Arbor/Scholarpack & Bromcom being the MIS of note for the next 5 years or so. There are still other challengers trying to enter the market too, and don't forget Integris is still around.

Be interesting to see what happens if SIMS 8 ever does!

Don't forget the new MIS from IRIS coming out. Built by the teams that made iSAMS, Parentmail and a few other products IRIS bought up. Should be out this year I'd imagine?

[paulkerton]

Don't forget the new MIS from IRIS coming out. Built by the teams that made iSAMS, Parentmail and a few other products IRIS bought up. Should be out this year I'd imagine?

 

True, but it'll be a battle for any brand new MIS to get their foot in. Look how long it's taken Arbor and Bromcom (plus a pandemic to accelerate people's decision to go cloud) to make any real traction.

[sefton]

Don't forget the new MIS from IRIS coming out. Built by the teams that made iSAMS, Parentmail and a few other products IRIS bought up. Should be out this year I'd imagine?

 

We had a look at that earlier this year, along with Arbor and Bromcom, and decided that it wasn't quite ready yet but looked really interesting in the direction they were travelling, I think if we had been looking 18 months later we might have been looking at a far more competitive package.

[vikpaw]

Don't forget the new MIS from IRIS coming out. Built by the teams that made iSAMS, Parentmail and a few other products IRIS bought up. Should be out this year I'd imagine?

 

Is this new or just rebadged iSAMS with tweaks?

@sefton ?

[paulkerton]

Is this new or just rebadged iSAMS with tweaks?

@sefton ?

I'm led to believe it's a rebuild with the state sector in mind - using the basics of iSAMS databases as the foundations, but an entirely new front end interface.

[TechMonkey]

I'm led to believe it's a rebuild with the state sector in mind - using the basics of iSAMS databases as the foundations, but an entirely new front end interface.

Yes, I asked them about it and it is this. Less customisation, more standardisation and aimed solely at the State Sector

[LeMarchand]

With this and winning United Learning recently, do we think Arbor might become the next "big boys" of the MIS market.... or at least in the MAT sector?

 

If they do, I hope it doesn't mean that they put their feet up and think "job done" - let's just collect the £££s. As seems to be the case with one of the other "big boys".

[mthomas08]

Is Arbor really that good? Anyone made the switch from SIMS > Arbor?

 

We are going to tender at some point and look at the available products. SIMs seems to be consistently having one glitch after another and I like the idea of going to an online system so we don't need to run constant updates/patches and performance improvements etc.

[supportman]

Yes... both Arbor and Bromcom are light years ahead of Sims.

 

I thought they were both excellent systems when we tendered for a Sims replacement last year.

[Theblacksheep]

Arbor had alot of work to do from a secondary perspective, so this surprised me.

[LeMarchand]

Is Arbor really that good? Anyone made the switch from SIMS > Arbor?

 

All 3 of mine have gone SIMS to Arbor over the last couple of years. Put it this way: Since the switchover I have yet to get an MIS-related problem.

 

It's not perfect; the "switchover" documentation isn't 100% clear (after School #2 I made notes!) and I would like finer granularity on permissions/filters (though maybe that has been actioned since I last tried). In my case, I would like to be able to see staff start dates but it seems to be "all or nothing" so I can set up reports that basically check for new staff and students and email me if there are any. Best I've managed so far is all Students that start after a date as there isn't a filter for "within the last x days" and all staff as I don't need to be able to see everything that is held on them. Thinking about it, maybe I could set up the latter as someone else and then get it emailed to me - though it would still be "all staff that start after a date".

 

Apart from that, a niggle: 2FA doesn't focus on the code field or accept "Enter" so you have to click in the box and press the appropriate button on screen.

 

Edit: All KS1/2.

Edited October 15, 2021 by LeMarchand

[CAM]

I have moved from a SIMS school to an Arbor school and already the Exams process is light-years ahead of SIMS. No fiddling with basedata in a basic Windows 3.11 era interface for example. The census was far better as well. Already I think back to SIMS and how dated and awful the workflows and interface is on that MIS.

 

Actually looking forwards to Internal exams to see how easier that is. Internal basedata on SIMS is a prime example of a broken, messy and complex system that leaves many EOs giving up and using Excel.

[djm968]

Is Arbor really that good? Anyone made the switch from SIMS > Arbor?

 

We are going to tender at some point and look at the available products. SIMs seems to be consistently having one glitch after another and I like the idea of going to an online system so we don't need to run constant updates/patches and performance improvements etc.

 

The main issues we have found, have been around staff expectations and moving them out of their "comfort zone" with the familiarity of the previous products they were using. With a new MIS you have to accept that you are going to need to adapt, possibly changing some of your processes and do things differently. But the positives far outweigh the negatives especially for MATs. Quality of your existing data is also a key to a successful migration, and as others have said, Arbor isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's leap years ahead of SIMS.

Edited October 15, 2021 by djm968

[mthomas08]

Thanks for the posts guys, it really helps. We are a secondary school and doing things differently won't be the problem, it will be more if things can actually be done.

 

We link to outside systems through EduLink/Wonde so will have to check them. I'll add other MIS systems to our tender but it seems Arbor is the more popular one?

[dsmith8]

We are considering a move to Arbor from SIMS after getting a few demo's. We also have FMS so it would be interesting to know what people moved to for doing finance.

[supportman]

We are considering a move to Arbor from SIMS after getting a few demo's. We also have FMS so it would be interesting to know what people moved to for doing finance.

 

We moved to Sage, but this was a seperate move from our finance department.

[deshills]

Yes... both Arbor and Bromcom are light years ahead of Sims.

 

I thought they were both excellent systems when we tendered for a Sims replacement last year.

 

Agree, both are very strong and streets ahead of SIMS. We use both and I’d put Bromcom ahead of them at the moment as a system on the whole, but the benefits of having two good solutions, constantly striving to improve, can only be of benefit to us as consumers.