[sims] SIMS Next Gen - Is It Any Good?

[duesouth]

Has anyone had experience with SIMS Next Gen yet? If so, any feedback would be appreciated. We're a secondary school - looking to keep our locally hosted SIMS for now. Is the setup quick and easy - and how easy and useful have teaching staff found it to use? We would be reluctant to have to roll it out and train staff, only for it to be of little/any additional benefit to keep using SIMS main.

 

Thanks in advance.

[jthompson]

I'm not sure that it's even a minimum viable product yet. When I try it, it doesn't appear to 'do' anything more than just present staff and student names, contact details, etc. in a webpage with no option to edit (it either doesn't inherit privileges from SIMS .net or is in some kind of read-only mode for us). Other features on it's homepage generally click through to a 'Coming soon. Register your interest' type page.

 

We're on SIMS Connected and can launch SIMS NextGen from the home screen in SIMS .net.

 

You might find this article helpful in terms of knowing what features are available in it now. https://customer.support-ess.com/csm?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0051793&sys_kb_id=a4989f951ba9b550408d8557d34bcbfa&spa=1

[ASA-Simon]

I've just got access to it in the last week. It's really basic at the moment. No nice homescreen dashboard, just a few tiles that take you to basic things such as looking up a student or teacher. I think they have got years of development to go at the current pace.

 

I just want to move away from SIMS. I've been impressed with demos of Bromcom and Compass. Curious to see how Satchel's MIS is looking when they launch. Sadly little appetite for change from people at the top.

[duesouth]

Thanks for the reply. I've heard good things about Bromcom as well - but it's the same here, no appetite for change unfortunately...

[supportman]

no appetite for change unfortunately...

I would advise taking the people at the top for a demo of different cloud MIS's.

Its both cheaper and better product. Get finance involved, show them the cost savings of getting rid of all those 3rd party products that sync with sims.

That's what we did, and the ball quickly starts rolling.

Edited October 13, 2023 by supportman

[ASA-Simon]

It would advise taking the people at the top for a demo of different cloud MIS's.

Its both cheaper and better product. Get finance involved, show them the cost savings of getting rid of all those 3rd party products that sync with sims.

That's what we did, and the ball quickly starts rolling.

 

You would think. Even after showing a £10k a year saving and a demo of Bromcom, our head is still in the camp of sticking with SIMS.

 

Plenty of supporters for changing at other levels in the school.

[Jawloms]

We're watching a webinar on Nextgen tomorrow afternoon. Anyone got any new opinions since this thread?

[Tefters]

We're watching a webinar on Nextgen tomorrow afternoon. Anyone got any new opinions since this thread?

My school has been on it from day 1 as a guinea pig while also trying to use it as a full system to solve Sims on the new iPad solution they made me bring in the year before. [emoji849]

 

It's got better over time but is still very bare bones and I would class it as Alpha stage at present with the modules it does have built while still having lots of other modules not even built yet.

 

It's basically a web app on an SQL database sitting in Azure being developed by an outsourced third party company in India.

 

You can just about take a register and look up basic student information on it but there are times where the sync is off and registers don't flow through to on-prem properly.

 

I've seen their roadmap for development and it's laughable, this thing is years away from being a fully fledged product capable of replacing Sims and Fms completely on-prem, I've got a few bets running for 2030 at best.

 

Another big concern I have at present which I have highlighted to my SLT is that this is an online web system that can be accessed from anywhere with student data and there is no MFA. It's literally Sims as a web app... With no MFA... [emoji2962]

 

Anyways, you will then need third party integrators ready to jump from on-prem to appid auth and all sorts and from speaking with some I get on with well they say there is no news anywhere down the pipeline with ESS for this so...

 

Luckily I don't have anything to do with it outside of making sure SSM is working on-prem and the occasional patch, I'm leaving all the frontend stuff to our SLT as they are riding the "flagship" school status.

 

Personally, I would have jumped ship to another MIS years ago or even be looking elsewhere now at a fully fledged solution but it's not my call so meh!

Edited May 14, 2024 by Tefters

[psydii]

this thing is years away from being a fully fledged product capable of replacing Sims

 

So, same as it ever was.

[Tefters]

So, same as it ever was.

Yup!

 

Now I also forgot to mention I have yet to have a teacher say "ow, this is good and really works well" for what little is there at present, quite the opposite.

 

What I will say as merits for it, I was briefly flashed some of the dev team at my office door on a whistle stop UK tour and they are nice, knowledgeable people. They are trying to take Sims and Fms in the right direction, but as mentioned previously I feel it's too little too late.

As we all know ESS are trying to pickup the mess Capita left the systems in through little to no development over the years with new technologies and software, hell both applications still look like and run as if they are on Win98/XP.

ESS did themselves no favours trying to lock schools into 3 or 5 year contracts when they took over for "investment and commitment" purposes and I just think schools are too scared to move/change *insert comfort blanket*.

 

I can't speak for other competitors individually as I haven't looked much into them but through basic followings and grapevine other big names are already fully web based and ahead of the game by years. They probably have issues as well and by no means are perfect but at least they have a fully fledged product online ready for the current / next-gen of online IT (yes, pun intended).

Edited May 14, 2024 by Tefters

[Edu-IT]

My school has been on it from day 1 as a guinea pig while also trying to use it as a full system to solve Sims on the new iPad solution they made me bring in the year before. [emoji849]

 

It's got better over time but is still very bare bones and I would class it as Alpha stage at present with the modules it does have built while still having lots of other modules not even built yet.

 

It's basically a web app on an SQL database sitting in Azure being developed by an outsourced third party company in India.

 

You can just about take a register and look up basic student information on it but there are times where the sync is off and registers don't flow through to on-prem properly.

 

I've seen their roadmap for development and it's laughable, this thing is years away from being a fully fledged product capable of replacing Sims and Fms completely on-prem, I've got a few bets running for 2030 at best.

 

Another big concern I have at present which I have highlighted to my SLT is that this is an online web system that can be accessed from anywhere with student data and there is no MFA. It's literally Sims as a web app... With no MFA... [emoji2962]

 

Anyways, you will then need third party integrators ready to jump from on-prem to appid auth and all sorts and from speaking with some I get on with well they say there is no news anywhere down the pipeline with ESS for this so...

 

Luckily I don't have anything to do with it outside of making sure SSM is working on-prem and the occasional patch, I'm leaving all the frontend stuff to our SLT as they are riding the "flagship" school status.

 

Personally, I would have jumped ship to another MIS years ago or even be looking elsewhere now at a fully fledged solution but it's not my call so meh!

It’s via SIMS ID so there is 2FA as an option.

 

https://id.sims.co.uk/support/wiki/52/enabling-two-factor-authentication-for-your-site

[supportman]

It's basically a web app on an SQL database sitting in Azure being developed by an outsourced third party company in India.[/Quote]

Oh dear....

I just can't see how the hybrid hosted/onsite approach is ever going to work.

[PotNoodleTech]

If you want next gen you want arbor or bromcom.

 

SIMS is incapable of being next gen as it's based on 20 year old tech.

[psydii]

Hmm. While it is clear that SIMS has not successfully made the transition, it is not the fault of its architecture or the tech used, which fundamentally is the the same as Bromcom and StackExchange (i.e. dotnet + SQLServer).

 

SIMS has in no large part the problem of all dominant companies/products of any era... inertia of the majority of its customer base and its leadership and management focus on balancing flat revenue against expected profits while maintaining the legacy of a product that meets esoteric needs of a very wide customer base. Crucially, it can't launch a "minimum viable product" because it wont meet many requirements of 99.9% of its customer base, whereas the competition only needed to start by getting just 0.1% of the dominant providers customers and building up from there.

Edited May 15, 2024 by psydii

[3s-gtech]

If you want next gen you want arbor or bromcom.

 

SIMS is incapable of being next gen as it's based on 20 year old tech.

 

 

Arguably, 40 year old tech!

[supportman]

Hmm. While it is clear that SIMS has not successfully made the transition, it is not the fault of its architecture or the tech used, which fundamentally is the the same as Bromcom and StackExchange (i.e. dotnet + SQLServer).

 

SIMS has in no large part the problem of all dominant companies/products of any era... inertia of the majority of its customer base and its leadership and management focus on balancing flat revenue against expected profits while maintaining the legacy of a product that meets esoteric needs of a very wide customer base. Crucially, it can't launch a "minimum viable product" because it wont meet many requirements of 99.9% of its customer base, whereas the competition only needed to start by getting just 0.1% of the dominant providers customers and building up from there.

 

Last I heard Sims was using some outdated Microsoft SQL servers and Delphi databases.

 

I really do think their technical debt is the issue as they simply did not upgrade it over 20 years.

 

If they had kept up with modern technology the transition would have been simple.

 

Instead they outsourced to India and milked the legacy system for all its worth. Using every trick in the book to tie in customers and stop people migrating away.

[OLPTech]

We had SIMS next gen deployed to us 2 weeks ago as it was added to our existing package but still can't get it to work fully. Everytime we 'create' a new user from on premise SIMS to the cloud version which is a pain in itself, we currently haven't had anyone be able to access it without first contacting support and getting them to fix something in the backend for every user we create.

[PotNoodleTech]

Arguably, 40 year old tech!

 

I was trying to be kind!

[Planehazza]

So, same as it ever was.

 

Thanks. Now this is stuck in my head...

[psydii]

I really do think their technical debt is the issue as they simply did not upgrade it over 20 years.

 

If they had kept up with modern technology the transition would have been simple.

Yes. Not the fault of the technology per-se, but a leadership / management failing.

 

Its probably worth noting that they did make several bad bets on the future early on: Sharepoint web parts being the first dead-end, shortly followed by silverlight and the Metro/UWP. Back in the mid '00s their leadership should have understood that computers get faster, cheaper and easier to maintain, so running a second server to host an on-prem basic web app would be viable for many/most schools within a few years (just as Bromcom did). As you allude once you are on the right path, you just need to keep iterating to improve, and at some point you iterate from on-prem servers to cloud based ones with minimal disruption to the customers/users.

Edited May 15, 2024 by psydii

[Tefters]

It’s via SIMS ID so there is 2FA as an option.

 

https://id.sims.co.uk/support/wiki/52/enabling-two-factor-authentication-for-your-site

 

Does that actually work now with SIMS next-gen? Last I heard 2 months back it didn't.

While next-gen does use SIMS ID for its access its in such a round about broken way that MFA didn't work with next-gen although did with other products that use SIMS ID even though next-gen uses SIMS ID while at the same time being different.

 

Essentially I got bored trying to understand and work it all out and gave up when I found the time to try and play around.

Whenever I logged in with my SIMS ID I could get to areas of next-gen that were in development and shouldn't have and then ended up in portals that I couldn't get to next-gen but were labelled as SIMS ID.

[pablo007]

we have started using this only these last two weeks although not really in anger, my test users have all said if we could import our own marksheets we would have everything we need and not need to use the client version anymore, they seem impressed with it.