[sims] Independent Schools - Is anyone sticking with Sims.net?

[Jamman960]

We're nearly at the end of our selection and testing process and are looking at going with iSams or Engage, We've just had ESS inform us that we won't be forced into a 3 year contract as apparently the norm for competitors in the State sector is 3 years while the norm in the Independent sector is 1 year (Think someone realised they hadn't bolted the stable door and hoped the horse was still inside!)

 

We don't need to confirm our renewal until the end of June - are other independents in the same boat?

[titch]

Currently on the same journey and have chosen Isams. Out of interest what looks better with engage?

[Simcfc73]

Our school is on its a**e so its fallen by the wayside. I don't mind SIMS but would have liked the iSAMS admissions bit,

[Sydders01]

We are using iSAMS , I was heavily involved in the transition. What a pain!!. Can I say 100% it is better for staffs? No, Can I say 100% it is better for the IT team ? NO. Does it have rich features ? Yes but it cost More. You add a module , you pay for it.

[colly72]

We've looked at iSAMS but felt the reporting was lacking for what we wanted, as well as some other areas such as exams. Currently exploring Bromcom, which seems better, although I suspect after all this we'll continue with SIMS, much to my annoyance!

[Jamman960]

We really like the look of Engage, it has everything built into it and seems to surface relevant pupil data well via a newsfeed. One of the major things for me was reducing the reliance on 3rd party systems that has led to parents being given 4 different systems to use of which a couple of them are rarely used so they always forget the passwords, the parent portal gives parents the vast majority of things they could ever need from fee's to clubs and homework. iSams can do pretty much everything except the clubs/parents evening and trips as well as homework side of things.

 

The admissions system offers a portal for applicants to submit data including supporting documents straight into the MIS along with the option to pay registration/deposit fee's as part of the forms - the registration form can be set to only allow submission once the payment has been made for instance. I was surprised by how much manual work goes into making our admissions processes work smoothly, our registrar said she was "Excited" after seeing what the new system could do for her.

 

The end of year reporting looks great, staff can easily see the previous entries and assign grades as they enter the comments, its easy to jump straight into a tracking screen to see previous grades for that pupil, the output can include graphs and colour coding etc, iSams is equally as good at this I think.

 

Emerge comes in 4/5 packs which contain all the modules, Schools will need at least 3 of the packs as they contain critical modules where as iSams is far more granular once you have the core pack, at the same time Emerge include training in the setup/migration costs which are fairly competitive. Once we've costed in the savings from the systems we'll be getting rid of the cost is very similar to our current Sims outlay.

 

At this stage I'd be happy with iSams or Engage although Engage seems to be taking the lead in some areas, after a car crash of a presentation from ESS on how Sims Next Gen will be released in slices and eventually be as functional as their competitors already are I'd have trouble convincing our head to stick with Sims.

[TechMonkey]

We are using iSAMS , I was heavily involved in the transition. What a pain!!. Can I say 100% it is better for staffs? No, Can I say 100% it is better for the IT team ? NO. Does it have rich features ? Yes but it cost More. You add a module , you pay for it.

 

Interesting as my experience was the direct opposite. I'd be interested in what was worse for the IT team or Staff? It may have just been the position the school was in before we moved to iSAMS but I think I can honestly say that 95-99% of staff were happy with the move and better off because of it. Moving to iSAMS instantly cut off a minimum of a weeks work each term for reports, but a move to any system would have got near to that due to the way we had to do it before.

[KK20]

when we moved to isams we needed to format everything into specific CSVs. This was basically a huge set of report generation and a bit of faffing. We found the academic reporting side to be more cumbersome, we use a different third party for our academic reports (base data grabbed from isams). Everything in isams is modular, make sure you spec out what you want initially as extra report creation, modifications down the line will cost and the costs can easily rack up - even for relatively minor changes. Make sure you get a demo for what you actually want to do, if the sales person cannot show you, get a call scheduled for a demonstration. Take care if you are hosting onsite, you will need to keep up on your SQL and server upgrades as isams only support OS and SQL that are in mainstream support not extended support (certainly not for long). Our main gripe by admin staff is around census time, I cannot say why but apparently isams does not do something in particular. We havent had any issues with exams module. We dont use the parent module - we found the firefly parent module to be much better to work with.

 

We do find isams easy to use overall though and it is pretty reliable. I havent used SIMS for some years now so cannot comment on what it is like now but it certainly works better!

[bobsmith]

SIMS hasn't changed noticeably in the entire time I've been in Education....

 

Is the only real change between state and independent the fees related bits?

[KerryRoddy]

We have been considering Arbor. https://arbor-education.com/ Anybody have an input on that option?

[Jamman960]

I would have seriously considered Arbor if they supported independent schools, notably they don't offer Fee's billing

[jamesrhart]

When we spoke with Arbor at BETT they said that the product wasn't yet geared for independent schools...