“We’ve moved to Bromcom from Arbor and we’re loving it”

[Bromcom_mark]

Corinium Education Trust is a growing and forward-looking multi-academy trust based in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Having had to make the difficult decision to switch MIS twice in the space of 18 months, Trust CEO Chiquita Henson said: ‘Our schools are happy that Bromcom has met their needs and they are excited by the positive impact that the rollout of further features will have upon learning, teacher workload and parental engagement.’

 

Headteacher of Cirencester Deer Park School, Richard Clutterbuck said: ‘Moving to Bromcom has been a breath of fresh air’.

 

Read the full case study here: Corinium Education Trust moves to Cloud MIS | Bromcom

[Theblacksheep]

A post on the Invest in overall performance ideas thread reads:

 

"As a new customer, we thought initially it was teething problems, but it has become apparent there are times when the whole system is just slow. Certain areas, such as reports/ groups/ changing filters on staff/ student lists could do with better optimising in terms of when they refresh, as it makes them slow all the time. For example 15 seconds to load the list (e.g.students) 15 seconds to have the filters be operational, and another 15 seconds if you want to select a leaver.

 

Back to today. I cannot create a new report/ quick report. I have selected the Attendance letter dataset as this is what i need to create. Add a column, any column, and the report just hangs, for ever.

 

Received multiple complaints by 8.05 am. Other badly hit areas are manage cover and attendance. Loading times within attendance when only selecting a day and one year group are painfully slow Assigning teachers to cover lessons wasn't always confirming the changes and had to quit/ refresh the page more than once today as it becomes static.

 

I (data manager) am working from home today and experiencing the same issues as my colleagues onsite (Attendance and cover officers, Admin, reception etc), so it is not a school network issue. It feels like the servers are overloaded.

 

We are a part of a large MAT than came on board in June, and since September it has been noticeably worse IMO, so i begin to wonder how many more customers came on board and is this an issue with scalability?"

[David44]

@Theblacksheep Was the post you quoted made by someone from Corinium Education Trust and/or Cirencester Deer Park School?

[gszech]

Corinium Education Trust is a growing and forward-looking multi-academy trust based in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Having had to make the difficult decision to switch MIS twice in the space of 18 months.

 

Judging on the amount of post on this forum about Bromcom poor performance, the multi-academy trust just made another bad choice.

[Theblacksheep]

@Theblacksheep Was the post you quoted made by someone from Corinium Education Trust and/or Cirencester Deer Park School?

 

No idea which school it was from, only the name of the individual which I wont post.

[Bromcom_Darren]

A post on the Invest in overall performance ideas thread reads:

 

"As a new customer, we thought initially it was teething problems, but it has become apparent there are times when the whole system is just slow. Certain areas, such as reports/ groups/ changing filters on staff/ student lists could do with better optimising in terms of when they refresh, as it makes them slow all the time. For example 15 seconds to load the list (e.g.students) 15 seconds to have the filters be operational, and another 15 seconds if you want to select a leaver.

 

Back to today. I cannot create a new report/ quick report. I have selected the Attendance letter dataset as this is what i need to create. Add a column, any column, and the report just hangs, for ever.

 

Received multiple complaints by 8.05 am. Other badly hit areas are manage cover and attendance. Loading times within attendance when only selecting a day and one year group are painfully slow Assigning teachers to cover lessons wasn't always confirming the changes and had to quit/ refresh the page more than once today as it becomes static.

 

I (data manager) am working from home today and experiencing the same issues as my colleagues onsite (Attendance and cover officers, Admin, reception etc), so it is not a school network issue. It feels like the servers are overloaded.

 

We are a part of a large MAT than came on board in June, and since September it has been noticeably worse IMO, so i begin to wonder how many more customers came on board and is this an issue with scalability?"

Good afternoon, I have sent you a direct message as I would like to look into your queries further with you.

 

Darren Moody

Bromcom

[synaesthesia]

4 below average size primary schools doesn't really give a wide range of information when compared to another offering; there are larger primary MAT's running on spreadsheet. Not the best choice for a case study! (/tuppence)

[localzuk]

4 below average size primary schools doesn't really give a wide range of information when compared to another offering; there are larger primary MAT's running on spreadsheet. Not the best choice for a case study! (/tuppence)

We're a small MAT of 6 schools - most of those small (150 or fewer children). The size of the school doesn't overly change the needs of an MIS, so a case study based on this Trust is pretty useful for other similarly small Trusts.

 

Also, hyperbole regarding using spreadsheet is kinda OTT. The DfE's own stats show you aren't really truthful there - the number of schools not using one of the top 10 MIS's is so small that it rounds to 0%.

[synaesthesia]

We're a small MAT of 6 schools - most of those small (150 or fewer children). The size of the school doesn't overly change the needs of an MIS, so a case study based on this Trust is pretty useful for other similarly small Trusts.

 

Also, hyperbole regarding using spreadsheet is kinda OTT. The DfE's own stats show you aren't really truthful there - the number of schools not using one of the top 10 MIS's is so small that it rounds to 0%.

 

Apologies - I do know people in that situation and it's mostly out of necessity (refused to carry on with SIMS, didn't want to jump into another without taking the time to properly investigate and were apparently able to do it the "old fashioned" way. And I mean even more old fashioned than Sims

[psydii]

. And I mean even more old fashioned than Sims

 

Did you know that SIMS is older than Excel?

[synaesthesia]

Slightly off topic but not sure on that - Excel was mid 80s, SIMS late 80s?

[supportman]

4 below average size primary schools doesn't really give a wide range of information when compared to another offering; there are larger primary MAT's running on spreadsheet. Not the best choice for a case study! (/tuppence)

 

There are 20,000 primary schools in the UK. I would think showing off that the MIS can work in both primary as well as secondary is well worth promoting.

 

We're a secondary and use Bromcom and it's been great.

[supportman]

Judging on the amount of post on this forum about Bromcom poor performance, the multi-academy trust just made another bad choice.

Performance certainly needs improving as more schools join, but I don't think it's a "bad choice". Far from it.

 

We've been very happy with Bromcom and there are always going to be vocal users who feel the worst end of the performance issues such as attendance.

 

We have hundreds of daily users on it and i've only heard a couple of complaints about performance internally. Teachers use it daily to take registers in any lesson with no issue. The smartphone app of course helps a fair few of them as its so quick. Our admin staff also all use it daily with very few reported issues.

Edited November 17, 2023 by supportman

[gszech]

Performance certainly needs improving as more schools join, but I don't think it's a "bad choice". Far from it.

We've been very happy with Bromcom and there are always going to be vocal users who feel the worst end of the performance issues such as attendance.

We have hundreds of daily users on it and i've only heard a couple of complaints about performance internally. Teachers use it daily to take registers in any lesson with no issue. The smartphone app of course helps a fair few of them as its so quick. Our admin staff also all use it daily with very few reported issues.

This is a bit like saying: I've got a Fiat car and Fiat cars are the best. I've done thousands of miles in the car and the car performs very well. The car struggles a bit on a motorway when I go above 60 miles but this is a minor issue and only happens when I drive fast.

 

Both Arbor and Bromcom systems are good and it's up to the school / trust to do their homework in advance before migrating away from SIMS. In this case Corinium Education Trust clearly didn't do their homework and they didn't plan the new integration either as they rushed the new system to meet the 31st August deadline.

 

What's sad is that Bromcom uses this as a marketing material on their website and promotes this on this forum, instead of talking to the schools with the performance issues. I mean they got nothing else better to promote ?

[pete]

Did anyone in the Bromcom PR dept question the wisdom of a case study from a Trust who (clearly) didn't do their research before switching MIS the first time round? Or did marketing sneak it onto the website without asking?

 

That isn't a case study I'd have authorised. With Arbor for years and then switched? Sure. A trust hopping between 3 MIS inside of a couple of years? Someone's making poor decisions and (even if Bromcom is the correct decision for them) their judgement is suspect.

[synaesthesia]

Did anyone in the Bromcom PR dept question the wisdom of a case study from a Trust who (clearly) didn't do their research before switching MIS the first time round? Or did marketing sneak it onto the website without asking?

 

That isn't a case study I'd have authorised. With Arbor for years and then switched? Sure. A trust hopping between 3 MIS inside of a couple of years? Someone's making poor decisions and (even if Bromcom is the correct decision for them) their judgement is suspect.

 

This is what I was trying to say, but put somewhat better!

[supportman]

This is a bit like saying: I've got a Fiat car and Fiat cars are the best. I've done thousands of miles in the car and the car performs very well. The car struggles a bit on a motorway when I go above 60 miles but this is a minor issue and only happens when I drive fast.

 

Both Arbor and Bromcom systems are good and it's up to the school / trust to do their homework in advance before migrating away from SIMS. In this case Corinium Education Trust clearly didn't do their homework and they didn't plan the new integration either as they rushed the new system to meet the 31st August deadline.

 

What's sad is that Bromcom uses this as a marketing material on their website and promotes this on this forum, instead of talking to the schools with the performance issues. I mean they got nothing else better to promote ?

 

I think I've said it a few times here, but I had a specific issue with the performance on the MCAS parent portal user account page and they re-did the entire page in the last couple of weekly updates. Its now fast and much more usable with instant filters and large quick list loads (we had 3,000 parent accounts). I actually had a phone call from one of the top developers at Bromcom about it a few months before it was fixed.

 

I just feel its growing pains really, they are taking on a lot of new customers and have struggled to scale at peak times like the start of term. The actual beauty of the cloud is you can scale resources dynamically as well as improving code, so there are 2 vectors for improvement. Although saying that, day-to-day, at least for me there has been no problem with speed in my daily usage.

 

I certainly wouldn't call it a major issue though, 98% of the system is fine. I'm also sure Arbor is fine as well but has its pinch points, they are both excellent MIS's although we found Bromcom had many more comprehensive feature set at the time we compared.

[psydii]

Slightly off topic but not sure on that - Excel was mid 80s, SIMS late 80s?

Wikipedia puts the earliest versions as 83/84. (and really SIMS 7 is a completely new product and code base when compared to the 1990's version). The mind-bending piece really is that SIMS evolved alongside the development of mainstream spreadsheets, so running a school on a spreadsheet is not 'old fashioned', it almost entirely never happened in the first place!

[gszech]

Wikipedia puts the earliest versions as 83/84. (and really SIMS 7 is a completely new product and code base when compared to the 1990's version). The mind-bending piece really is that SIMS evolved alongside the development of mainstream spreadsheets, so running a school on a spreadsheet is not 'old fashioned', it almost entirely never happened in the first place!

 

In 3 months time we will see this headline on the Microsoft Office website

Corinium Education Trust moves from Bromcom to Office 365 Excel.

The headteachers says "I am very grateful to the Office 365 support team. I really appreciate the high level of support they have provided for our schools, particularly given the yet another ambitious migration timeline.

‘With Bromcom we are on our knees’ and ‘It is like death by a thousand cuts’ "Moving to Excell has been a breath of fresh air."

[Koldov]

Tough crowd... but then I'm not sure what response was expected.

 

Especially as this 'advertisement' (even though it fell flat) post does not belong in the Technical forum (MIS Systems Thread), I'd hoped a mod would move it somewhere more appropriate.... answers on a postcard please...

[Cat_Jam148]

Especially as this 'advertisement' (even though it fell flat) post does not belong in the Technical forum (MIS Systems Thread), I'd hoped a mod would move it somewhere more appropriate.... answers on a postcard please...

 

I've thought the same thing...an awful lot of advertisement posts in a technical forum. I do understand that the bills need to be paid though and these forum sponsors are a key part of that.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Cat_Jam148

[PotNoodleTech]

Lets face it, SLT will fall for this kind of advertising, but us IT bods are much harder to impress as the comments above show.

[supportman]

Lets face it, SLT will fall for this kind of advertising, but us IT bods are much harder to impress as the comments above show.

 

Yeh exactly

 

The biggest advertisement any company can get is real world experiences of an MIS. That's why I try to post so much about it. Good and bad.

[bescot42]

This is the same Richard Clutterbuck that now works for Bromcom...

[FN-GM]

10 hours ago, bescot42 said:

This is the same Richard Clutterbuck that now works for Bromcom...

 

It appears so!