SIMS to Arbor - Any regrets?

[LucieP]

We are looking to make the move from SIMS to Arbor. Does anyone out there that has made the same move have any advice about things to watch out for?

 

 

L

[foofighterjim]

I think one of the obvious ones is being aware of what you are going to do regarding Timetabling, you can tweak a timetable in Arbor but you can't create one from scratch.

 

But really this has to be driven by your own schools needs and success criteria, as everyone uses SIMS slightly differently. Arbor is a very different beast to SIMS and it requires different people understanding their own area of responsibility within it, especially when it comes to pastoral setup and year end. Ensuring that staff get out of the mentality of "but this is how it worked in SIMS" and into the mentality of "these are the ways it can work in Arbor", for certain users it is a big shift and does fundamentally change how they go about their job.

[steveg]

We're a primary School, we moved almost 3 years ago and haven't looked back. Had some issues with the clubs booking side of it in the first year, but all resolved now. I would say the weakest part of it now is the parent app, it's largely functional but isn't the most user friendly.

 

It's been reliable and fast pretty much the whole time, has dropped our admin teams workload quite considerably as staff just access the info they need themselves because it's much easier. Take time to plan and design assessments exactly how you want them and to understand how it works on Arbor. we didn't design ours quite right and have had to re-do them, but this was only about a days work to get it sorted how we want it.

 

All the way through it's important to manage expectations and take a step back. Rather than trying to re-create exactly what they had in SIMS we ask the question of what they are trying to achieve, as often the SIMS way wasn't the best way and there is a different or better way of doing it in Arbor.

[supportman]

Some good advice above, definitely agree with sorting your timetable app out before moving. Staff will have no problem adjusting though.

 

I don't think I've ever read on here any regrets about moving from Sims to one of the newer modern cloud MIS's. Sims is very outdated now.

[LeMarchand]

KS1/2 schools so YMMV and Midge Ure said it best:

 

I know you're leaving, but it's too long overdue

For far too long I've had nothing new to show to you

 

[Cat_Jam148]

We moved in February and wouldn't go back.

 

It did take our office team a while to properly settle in with Arbor, but if given a choice, I don't think they'd go back. Performance is leagues ahead of SIMS, UI is well designed, and day-to-day operations just seem to flow smoother. Most users require very little training, and often can navigate their own way through the system. There are still the odd mutterings 'oh this was easier in SIMS' but as mentioned above, its about changing that SIMS mindset and method of doing things. Just because SIMS did it one way, doesn't mean it was the best way. Overall it's a pretty reliable system, very little downtime and issues tend to be dealt with fairly quickly.

 

Teachers and SLT love it and definitely wouldn't go back to SIMS. There were a few doubters among them but they have gone silent.

 

The onboarding process is nice and easy, providing an easy to follow step-by-step guide.

[FragglePete]

Currently going through the migration process at the moment. Ask me in January.

 

However, it seems like a very slick process so far - they have obviously danced this tango many a times. Key thing is getting your Key Data Movers onboard and engaged who will then drive things forward for you. You need a Data Manager who really understands all aspects of how data is used within SIMS and your school and how that will move over. Your teacher in the classroom will only be interested in taking Registers and looking up student details, etc. Your need somebody from your SLT driving the message from the top down that it's happening and when people start doing the training and seeing what it can do the momentum which gain more traction.

 

Tricky things is, when is a good time to do a migration? In terms of assessments, census, examination entries, Year 7 onboard, Options, etc, etc - for us, happening over the Christmas break is the best time so we take our first live register in Arbor on the first day back in January - thankfully we have a couple of inset days at the start to sort out a lot of issues. Biggest nightmare about doing this over Christmas is the 3rd Party integrations - as quite rightly they all shutdown on 22nd December and getting stuffed swapped over in time needs planning and booking in of these companies to handle the migration. Some charge to do the migration, so far for us, it's only Cunninghams that want some dosh to do this. I've heard also Inventory want paying as well, but all others will happily do it.

 

What it has highlighted with our data is that we weren't necessarily doing things the 'correct' way in SIMS - (maybe you could argue SIMS is more flexible like that), but it's highlighted how we should be doing certain things and it'll bring us a bit more in-line.

 

Also, as new teachers come on board, it used to be that they knew nothing but SIMS, but now we're finding new teachers that come in either laugh at us for still using SIMS or don't know what it is.

 

I can see it certainly being a short term pain but in the mid term the benefits will really show and as we switched off some third party systems will save some money.

 

 

Pete

Edited November 21, 2023 by FragglePete

[RichP]

We've been with Arbor for nearly 3 years as a 11-18 secondary with 1550 students.

 

Migration was pretty good when we did it, and I think it's only got better. Take some time to look at the things that integrate with SIMS - not all work the same despite claiming to integrate. We use Firefly, for example, and three years on they still haven't sorted the integration out properly.

 

Make sure you take advantage of all of the training regardless of the MIS you move to - don't underestimate this as part of the change process.

 

If you need another reason to consider moving, look at https://bringmoredata.blogspot.com/2023/08/ to see the dwindling market share that SIMS has.

 

Arbor is super quick compared to SIMS without a doubt. We still struggle with some large data sets, but the page filters are powerful enough to get around those limitations.

 

Keep an eye on the Roadmap https://portal.productboard.com/arbor-education/1-arbor-development-roadmap/tabs/6-working-on-now to see what, and how much, they develop plus the change log https://support.arbor-education.com/hc/en-us/articles/6790058820253-Arbor-Change-Log. Forget the infrequent SIMS updates that break as much they fix, Arbor is constantly innovating and improving.

 

We have direct support with them but you can get support from plenty of 3rd party companies too.

 

Functionality wise we've dropped quite a few apps - seating planner, payments, comms for example. Worthwhile considering those potential savings.

 

Data export via Livefeeds or the Power BI addon is a bit of game changer if you value the analysis of the data in the MIS.

 

They've pulled in some new AI features now to draft letters and reports.

 

It's not perfect, but at least it has ambitions to be!

 

Rich

[sefton]

Part of my role at our Trust, mixed secondary and primary of 5000 students, is managing Arbor and project the migration as schools join us. I moved us over around two years ago and I wouldn't go back. Timetabling is quite different but as I write the timetables for our 4 secondary schools it hasn't been a huge issue and once it is in Arbor it is straightforward for schools to manage any changes short of a change in the model. Attendance has been the area that I have found has caused the most issues as, unlike Sims, Arbor does not have discreet session marks that can be divorced from lesson attendance, at least at secondary level, so this is where I spend a lot of time with schools looking at their processes during the onboarding phase and ensuring attendance officers complete their training and are in our MAT network to get support from schools that have more experience.

 

After 15 years of using Sims what has surprised me the most is the rate of development, I had requested a link with NFER, a short time later I'm testing the synchronisation for NFER and Arbor over the HT and then it's quickly launched.

[Ditto]

Currently going through the migration process at the moment. Ask me in January.

 

However, it seems like a very slick process so far - they have obviously danced this tango many a times. Key thing is getting your Key Data Movers onboard and engaged who will then drive things forward for you. You need a Data Manager who really understands all aspects of how data is used within SIMS and your school and how that will move over. Your teacher in the classroom will only be interested in taking Registers and looking up student details, etc. Your need somebody from your SLT driving the message from the top down that it's happening and when people start doing the training and seeing what it can do the momentum which gain more traction.

 

Tricky things is, when is a good time to do a migration? In terms of assessments, census, examination entries, Year 7 onboard, Options, etc, etc - for us, happening over the Christmas break is the best time so we take our first live register in Arbor on the first day back in January - thankfully we have a couple of inset days at the start to sort out a lot of issues. Biggest nightmare about doing this over Christmas is the 3rd Party integrations - as quite rightly they all shutdown on 22nd December and getting stuffed swapped over in time needs planning and booking in of these companies to handle the migration. Some charge to do the migration, so far for us, it's only Cunninghams that want some dosh to do this. I've heard also Inventory want paying as well, but all others will happily do it.

 

What it has highlighted with our data is that we weren't necessarily doing things the 'correct' way in SIMS - (maybe you could argue SIMS is more flexible like that), but it's highlighted how we should be doing certain things and it'll bring us a bit more in-line.

 

Also, as new teachers come on board, it used to be that they knew nothing but SIMS, but now we're finding new teachers that come in either laugh at us for still using SIMS or don't know what it is.

 

I can see it certainly being a short term pain but in the mid term the benefits will really show and as we switched off some third party systems will save some money.

 

 

Pete

Taking you up on your offer to ask again in January. In particular, have you concluded upgrading over the Christmas break was a good idea?

[FragglePete]

Taking you up on your offer to ask again in January. In particular, have you concluded upgrading over the Christmas break was a good idea?

The migration over Christmas went well, but only because Arbor managed to release the site earlier than expected.

 

It was down to timing, and it had me twitching a bit.

 

We uploaded our SIMS database to Arbor at 1pm on the Friday 15th December. The site got released to us by mid afternoon on the Monday 18th. This enabled me to book an migration appointment request with Wonde - this then was completed by the Thursday, which I could then in turn start the Schoolcomms migration as they needed Wonde to be in place beforehand. This took a few hours to get setup and start the importing of data. In the New Year, this opened up the door for both Edulink One to setup a new instance for us, followed by Cunninghams could do their migration (chargeable). Locker Connect also remoted in to get everything done from their point of view - so by the afternoon of Jan 3rd we could allow online payments again for the cashless catering and issue new logins for Edulink One for parents.

 

We were also using Groupcall onsite - this was being used for CPOMs and The Careers Service - CPOMS use Wonde with Arbor installs - so that was a simple case of getting that approved and away they went to get everything sync'd and checked. As for Groupcall - they obviously don't then need an onsite system to pull data from the MIS, so they setup their connection API with Arbor, notified The Careers Service and that was all squared away also and migrated. Another service removed from On-Prem.

 

Was it the best time? I think so - slotted in with other things going on in the schools 'data' calender.

 

The only thing that caught me out was the Edulink Migration - even though they created a new instance with the same name, and re-named the old one, parents saved credentials where still connecting to the old instance which was causing issues and confusion. Had to 'break' the connection of that instance with our SIMS server and LDAP connections so parents were getting errors - we had to deal with a lot of e-mails from parents and use giving instructions on how to clear the connection and then re-connect to the new. This was the only thing that caught us out and had no warning this would happen.

 

It's not been plain sailing - we've had issues, but generally gone very well. More wins than loses, and it will get better over time. We still having issues with Edulink, but they are engaging to get them resolved but appear to have been caught on a timetabling issue. Some things we couldn't test until we went live.

 

Pete

[TwistedHelixis]

Now that Arbor has a finance package, its almost perfect for the primary schools I work with.

 

Migration was not as bad as I expected it was going to be.

[j224]

Now that Arbor has a finance package, its almost perfect for the primary schools I work with.

 

How is the finance package? Were you using FMS before? How does it compare?

[TwistedHelixis]

How is the finance package? Were you using FMS before? How does it compare?

 

I had 4 schools using FMS before. 3 of the schools love it, the other is having minor issues, mainly around the difference in where items are located, the differences in naming, for example in FMS you had Suppliers but in Arbor Finance they are called something else. Also, she was having difficulties with the way funding is displayed. I don't actually use these systems, so I am wondering if that one school hasn't got it setup correctly, or she just doesn't cope well with change, especially as the other 3 schools don't seem to have any issues and the feedback has been very positive.

 

When I am next with one of the bursars, I'll ask how they both compare.