Bromcom, Arbor, SIMS NextGen

[Squelch]

They literally said 6 years, 6 years ago lol

 

I wonder if this can be made into the basis of an infinity drive that will finally allow us to visit other solar systems?

[Bromcom-PR]

Here is an account of an experienced MAT user that has been on a full journey SIMS, Arbor and Bromcom …

 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ali-guryel-18892715_were-thrilled-to-introduce-our-latest-feature-activity-7206764625571262464-SXSe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

[TheCookieMonster]

We moved to Bromcom and haven't looked back - In all honesty it was a choice of Bromcom or Arbor which was won by Bromcom as it catered for our needs better.

 

Both are miles clear of the rest.

[supportman]

Here is an account of an experienced MAT user that has been on a full journey SIMS, Arbor and Bromcom …

 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ali-guryel-18892715_were-thrilled-to-introduce-our-latest-feature-activity-7206764625571262464-SXSe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

 

Nice to finally see a public video of the new timetabling features.

 

I just sent to our timetabler and he said it looked good, but didn't show much about scheduling.

 

Would be great to get a more in depth look uploaded.

 

You should upload demos to YouTube, it would really help being able to share to people and new customers. As well as being good for training.

Edited June 19, 2024 by supportman

[k-strider]

We didn't move from SIMS we used Cloudschool / Progresso when they pulled out the market we had to do a full tender and ran a CCS contract we looked at cloud only solutions which ruled out SIMS (i dont think they were on the list anyway as its not cloud based)

In the end we looked in more detail at Arbour Bromcom and EdGen (iSAMS for state schools) - we felt from the demos Arbour looked better for a teachers day to day persective, but from reporting exams and assessment Bromcom all felt more flexible. I personally actually really liked Edgen the interface in parts looked like it was from the early 2000's though- as a group it became clear it was more of a 2 hourse race Arbour/Bromcom that in the end Bromcom won for us (and it was really close)

 

So the actually transition was not bad.... I know our deputy head spent a lot of time setting up BC behaviour and Assessment models to work. but when we went live it was fine. there have been some bumps in the road the the student portal apps were particualry buggy at the begining and we were redirecting students to the web based log in. there have been performance issues but of late they seem to have largley been resolved... Assessment works realy well and this is where i was most worried coming from progresso which used SSRS i was worried i would get a very ridgid solution that we werent used to... and from our procurment i did think this was much more the case with Arbour (but we didn't choose them so i don't know for sure) but Bromcoms reporting around Assessment is actuallly prety good.

 

For my part of the migration i did most of the exports from progresso to csv and import into BC and data cleansing which was fine took time but we knew that...

 

We have got rid of epraise for BCs behaviour model and will be probably looking to get rid of parent pay (to replace the BC coms and payment system) at some point in the future - so less extra bolt on products we have to pay for becase the MIS can't do it.

 

That was my experiance

Edited June 19, 2024 by k-strider

[Bromcom_Darren]

Nice to finally see a public video of the new timetabling features.

 

I just sent to our timetabler and he said it looked good, but didn't show much about scheduling.

 

Would be great to get a more in depth look uploaded.

 

You should upload demos to YouTube, it would really help being able to share to people and new customers. As well as being good for training.

 

Drop an email to [email protected] and I will see what i can do for you.

 

Darren

[UnsureQueen]

On 12/06/2024 at 10:54, SpreadsheetJockey said:

I have experienced SIMS, Bromcom and Arbor. In my opinion, Bromcom is still the superior product for secondary schools as Arbor is quite basic and/or rigid in key areas (like assessment, behaviour, timetabling, exams). However, I still support Arbor as the momentum for change seems to be strong, the support tickets are picked up quickly, and the transitional support as you switch to their database is better (at least from our experience). I sometimes find it a frustrating database to use, but I am a power user - for day to day admin and teachers I think it is fine. So essentially, depending on your priorities, both are reasonable products.

 

I have no experience with SIMS NextGen, but I have been a data manager some 15 years and it has been "in development" that entire time. I do hope I see a product fully launched in my lifetime, just as a bucket list item at this point.

Do you know how I can see comment history in sims? We are not on next gen yet. I want to see a full comment edit history on register comments is there a way anyone can get that 

[Ditto]

I hesitate to ask, but is there any update on SIMS Nextgen - it seems to have been quiet for quite some time now.

[Ditto]

Is anyone even using Nextgen?

[DWilson1997]

@Ditto Pretty much all our teaching staff are using next gen. There are however still some things teachers need to go into SIMS7 for, such as invigilation cover and some pupil reports for attendance. 

[psydii]

Judging by how our "forced"* migration to NG went, they have some slippage on their summer road map.  They've got about 12 months to get it together - if they can get to where Bromcom MIS was in 2013, they are in with a shot of retaining our business.

 

Unrelated: I've been poking around a commandreporter crash, and while doing so, I've noticed that its phoning home. The cynic in me wonders if its grassing up 3rd part integrations that might be  trying to improve on the migration experience.

 

*I could have opted us out, but we're a resilient lot and like to try new things, so I left the migration dates in place. Not one element went well. Thankfully we're resilient and everybody just either failed over as per  our standard Business Continuity Plan, or smiled, nodded and went off on the trip/sports day/went home because the school was closed anyway (hot weather).  But it wasn't great and a bit of a shame as a couple of SLT had carved out time to have a little play with it ahead of a potential "harder" launch in September.  (to be clear we didn't chat with our Account team about this, but the migration dates were set by SIMS themselves  - not something we chose.. so... you'd have thought the modules they set for the migration  would actually be at least an MVP ::shrug::)  

Edited July 21 by psydii