Considering Moving MIS

[supportman]

How long would you say it took you to do the migration and go live?

 

From a DM point of view - how long till you reached the same level of competency with it as you had with SIMS?

 

The new 3 year contract is making me want to push this move sooner rather than later.

 

Ours was about 2 weeks.

 

We had test data for 3 weeks to play around with the system and get staff used to it. Then had a cut off date where they did another migration and we went live.

 

Worked very well.

[Andrew_C]

We moved SIMS to iSAMS this term.

 

Much swearing. Some things seem easier; but for a punter to produce a year group list with sets? How can this not be a front page action? Housemasters are cursing printing reports - seems every one has to be printed individually.

 

There may be ways to do these things, but not for us mortals!

[TechMonkey]

With a move from PASS to iSAMS we started in Feb and were done for Sept go live. That wasn't non-stop though and with an initial data import for us to do training on and play with and then a fresh import in August to be ready. Training was a week. Does depend on their availability. Actual import I think took a week of back and forth.

[2ilent8cho]

Housemasters are cursing printing reports - seems every one has to be printed individually.

 

There may be ways to do these things, but not for us mortals!

You just use bulk printing and print by House, Year, Form or Subject?

[TechMonkey]

You can get Set lists by year from the wizard bar. Teaching Manager > View Teaching Sets Lists. Do agree though, the Wizard bar is a bit of a dump ground for everything. Wish we could organise it or pin things to the top.

 

Also sounds like House staff need the Report Printing module. Can bulk whole years from there.

[Andrew_C]

Yep, you get set lists, but all divided up - not as a "year to view". Report Printing module - I'll let a friendly house master know that such a thing exists.

 

I seldom use it - so don't even know what's missing!

[Guest ZFarnworth]

Don’t go to sims whatever you do. It’s a big fat waste of time. If I was in your shoes I would go to Bromcom. Edited November 19, 2021 by ZFarnworth

[junz]

Don’t go to sims whatever you do. It’s a big fat waste of time. If I was in your shoes I would go to Bromcom.

 

Agreed, hopefully I can persuade the higher ups.

[Wubbalubbadub]

I would be so disappointed if a school actually moved back to SIMS..

[junz]

Don’t go to sims whatever you do. It’s a big fat waste of time. If I was in your shoes I would go to Bromcom.

 

Did you consider Arbor and if not are there any reasons you would go to Bromcom

[nicholab]

I don’t know why SLT’s want to consider sims? Everyone knows it rubbish even most teach staff but some SLT seem to be addicted. It should not be considered as it is not cloud technology. Edited November 21, 2021 by nicholab

[Jamman960]

I don’t know why SLT’s want to consider sims? Everyone knows it rubbish even most teach staff but some SLT seem to be addicted.

 

I imagine much of it is like the old saying “no one gets fired for buying HP” - Sims has so much market share that it’s seen as a safe bet rather than a gamble (Can’t wait to be free from Sims!)

[elsiegee40]

SLT will have SIMS in the mix because it’s the devil you know.

 

There is always a cost to changing MIS in terms of staff training. SIMS is so widespread that it’s relatively easy to find staff who know how to work it even if they do hate it.

 

And there are all the the plugins that may or may not work with a new MIS.

 

I too would dump it in a flash for something that hasn’t just evolved over millennia into the clunky monster it is now. And I certainly wouldn’t recommend any school using another MIS converts to it.

[Ditto]

I agree. I guess we ought to remember the market is shifting, as is well documented by @bringmoredata. Next year's results and the one in three years is going to be a fascinating watch.

[FN-GM]

I don’t know why SLT’s want to consider sims? Everyone knows it rubbish even most teach staff but some SLT seem to be addicted. It should not be considered as it is not cloud technology.

 

The fear of change plays a huge part in this.

[Guest ZFarnworth]

To host schools data remotely on 2012R2 in 2021 is a joke! After all these cyber attacks schools have been having lately with rdp open for remote staff.

 

Let’s hope they don’t lose any schools mis data…

Edited November 21, 2021 by ZFarnworth

[Guest ZFarnworth]

Did you consider Arbor and if not are there any reasons you would go to Bromcom

 

I liked bromcom’s interface and google integration [emoji57]

 

Also has an app for teachers to take register etc.

[Guest ZFarnworth]

Agreed, hopefully I can persuade the higher ups.

 

Good luck with that!

[Wubbalubbadub]

Or the fear of being sued! [emoji1787]

[Guest ZFarnworth]

Does the Sims teacher app only work with hosted sims or local run sims?

[vikpaw]

Does the Sims teacher app only work with hosted sims or local run sims?

 

It should work fine with both.

[StevieM]

I'm just about to start our project to move our trust from Sims to Arbor. We looked at Arbor, Bromcom and iSams as part of our tender project and I'd recommend any single one of them over Sims, they would all offer substantial improvements.

@sefton - How did the move from SIMS to Arbor go? It's something that we're also considering.

 

EDIT: Or, perhaps, I should ask how the move is going.

Edited January 27, 2022 by StevieM

[nicholab]

The fear of change plays a huge part in this.

 

Why does do these people that are training new humans fear change so much. If you work for a company often people want the latest and greatest in schools it seems the other way round.

 

It also unfortunately like a Trident missile IT managers are not required to provide a system that does x and y they must use SIMS. So they can’t move the MIS to a better system unless higher management who have use the whole lives let go. It amazing that new teachers are supposed to use a SIMS without prop training!

[DanTheLacky]

Amazes me more how often people complain about Sims, then complain about changing too one if the competitors that fix alot of the issues they complain about [emoji23]

[sefton]

@sefton - How did the move from SIMS to Arbor go? It's something that we're also considering.

 

EDIT: Or, perhaps, I should ask how the move is going.

 

It's going quite well, the only issue I have is that although all of our behaviour incidents are being transferred the staff who added that behaviour aren't, this appears to be an issue with the field that Classcharts writes back into Sims with.