MIS movers and shakers

[mavhc]

Considering Arbor is larger than Bromcom I hear almost nothing about it on this site, does it just work perfectly and no one needs help?

[Aftab_Ahmed]

By Secondary Schools only - really interesting analysis

[Primus]

Considering Arbor is larger than Bromcom I hear almost nothing about it on this site, does it just work perfectly and no one needs help?

 

Nothing's perfect but it is really good and their self service site with videos etc is really good too.

[Chris_Cook]

Nothing's perfect but it is really good and their self service site with videos etc is really good too.

 

I'd echo that. I understood the sims exams process much better after reading the Arbor guide for 10 mins than 10 years of supporting Sims.

 

Our previous office manager had a bit of a lightbulb moment a couple of years back when we first went through the end/start of year process document on arbor. It was refreshing to just be able to follow a basic obvious step-by-step wizard rather than the inch thick manual from sims.

 

Arbor seems to spend more time explaining what you are doing in a process and how it should be done, rather than what to click on. Once you have found the area you need, I personally find it more obvious as to how to do a task.

 

Change requests are still separate I think, but there is possibly more requests in the pipeline maybe.

 

I don't get much grumbling any more about how sims was better.

 

Not to put Bromcom down too much - the choice was a difficult one, and there were bits in each we preferred as a school. I'd still recommend finding the best fit for your school, rather than the prettiest or most popular one, or the 'Arbor is for primary, Bromcom for secondary' argument. Its not a move you want to do twice, and not all schools are going to work the same. There is a big benefit in having competition in this field.

 

Arbors also moved on quite a bit from when we switched.

[sigma]

Suffolk County Council maintained schools are moving from SIMs to Arbor. Not sure how far they are with the migration.

[snagrat]

Devon is going to go to Bromcom from what I hear.

The council team will only support the Bromcom finance package, so although the choice is the schools to go to either Bromcom, Arbor or another, ultimately everyone is going Bromcom.

Bit disappointed in that, as many of the schools I have spoke to actually wanted to go to Arbor

[Rob_D]

Devon is going to go to Bromcom from what I hear.

The council team will only support the Bromcom finance package, so although the choice is the schools to go to either Bromcom, Arbor or another, ultimately everyone is going Bromcom.

Bit disappointed in that, as many of the schools I have spoke to actually wanted to go to Arbor

Was the same when West Sussex went to Bromcom a couple of years back. Schools could do their own thing, but it would be down to you make sure you had a way to get all necessary finance reports to county (Not entirely unfair IMO). So most went along with Bromcom.

 

It puts me in mind of the time when we first moved away from the county WAN/internet and they said we needed to maintain a direct WAN link (at our own expense) so finance/HR reporting could be sent "securely". The SBM at the time worked out it would be cheaper to burn the reports to CD and hire a Securicore type currier to ship it across town.

[Ditto]

Latest bringmoredata blog post is out: https://bringmoredata.blogspot.com/2024/12/mis-market-moves-winter-2024-change-is.html

 

Excellent! I think I said in the third post or thereabout I'd wait for Josh's update from @bringmoredata - thanks Josh, another excellent article. Interesting times once again. And so reassuring to see my quick analysis was just about on the button!

[Ditto]

Considering Arbor is larger than Bromcom I hear almost nothing about it on this site, does it just work perfectly and no one needs help?

 

I have had exactly those thoughts for a while. Can you bring this in to a procurement process? Maybe, but be very, very careful... -TBF, perfectly - I doubt it, but....

[Cat_Jam148]

Considering Arbor is larger than Bromcom I hear almost nothing about it on this site, does it just work perfectly and no one needs help?

While it does have its quirks, Arbor is easily one of the most pain free systems I support. The UI is fairly intuitive, the support guides are brilliant and the overall site wide performance is pretty good. It's been over a year since I last had to get in-touch with their tech support.

 

Our office staff are even venturing onto the support site to solve their own issues! I thought i'd never see the day...it brings a tear to my eye.

Edited December 12, 2024 by Cat_Jam148

[AlistairB1983]

Latest bringmoredata blog post is out: https://bringmoredata.blogspot.com/2024/12/mis-market-moves-winter-2024-change-is.html

Interesting line I spotted:

 

"One other interesting nugget about Bromcom is that they do best in England with large MATs. For groups with 25+ schools, Bromcom has a 30% market share, vs 39% for Arbor and 21% for SIMS. This reinforces the perception that they're most likely to win when the procurement exercise is bigger and more complex."

I wonder if fear of being sued has anything to plan in those decisions? /sarcasm (well ... half sarcasm)

[AlistairB1983]

Considering Arbor is larger than Bromcom I hear almost nothing about it on this site, does it just work perfectly and no one needs help?

As several others have already suggested, the 'user-friendliness' of Arbor means that most of the time you can find the answer you're looking for in their help sections (if it isn't immediately obvious within the system itself in the first place).

 

On top of that they have their own 'community' which often has people posting the same/similar questions, so again answers can be fairly easily found.

 

Is it perfect? No, of course not, no MIS ever is - just yesterday we experienced errors with the site for a short period in the morning. But these are all, thus far, generally fairly minor in nature and quickly resolved. They communicate reasonably well about such issues when they know they are occurring and when they're fixed, and their status page is pretty accurate reflecting this.

 

I guess this probably goes some way to explaining why there's not much posted on here about it - most users can probably find the answers themselves or, if they can't, are likely to be using other sources to try and find it.

[Seb1780]

Suffolk County Council maintained schools are moving from SIMs to Arbor. Not sure how far they are with the migration.

Only the Primary Schools and one Secondary - the others have gone separate ways. Roll out to the Primaries has begun.

[Bromcom_Darren]

As several others have already suggested, the 'user-friendliness' of Arbor means that most of the time you can find the answer you're looking for in their help sections (if it isn't immediately obvious within the system itself in the first place).

 

On top of that they have their own 'community' which often has people posting the same/similar questions, so again answers can be fairly easily found.

 

Is it perfect? No, of course not, no MIS ever is - just yesterday we experienced errors with the site for a short period in the morning. But these are all, thus far, generally fairly minor in nature and quickly resolved. They communicate reasonably well about such issues when they know they are occurring and when they're fixed, and their status page is pretty accurate reflecting this.

 

I guess this probably goes some way to explaining why there's not much posted on here about it - most users can probably find the answers themselves or, if they can't, are likely to be using other sources to try and find it.

 

Bromcom's community has 8500 members and is the biggest active online community in the UK MIS space. We have in the past week hit 1m page views for 2024 and are posting record numbers on a weekly basis.

 

Every MIS has complexity that benefits from a variety of Help Desk, Training, Onboarding, Documentation, Customer Success and Online Communities. Obviously we at Bromcom cannot comment on how its competitors operate but we are very proud about how our support offerings work closely with customers to help them optimise their MIS use. We know this is a work in progress but we believe we fulfill this role better than anyone else in the industry.

 

If anyone has any tips of how we could further improve the above i would be happy to arrange a Teams call and listen to any constructive feedback as we continue to strive to improve on all fronts. I can be contacted on [email protected].

 

Thanks

Darren Moody

Community Manager

[supportman]

Bromcom's community has 8500 members and is the biggest active online community in the UK MIS space. We have in the past week hit 1m page views for 2024 and are posting record numbers on a weekly basis.

 

Every MIS has complexity that benefits from a variety of Help Desk, Training, Onboarding, Documentation, Customer Success and Online Communities. Obviously we at Bromcom cannot comment on how its competitors operate but we are very proud about how our support offerings work closely with customers to help them optimise their MIS use. We know this is a work in progress but we believe we fulfill this role better than anyone else in the industry.

 

If anyone has any tips of how we could further improve the above i would be happy to arrange a Teams call and listen to any constructive feedback as we continue to strive to improve on all fronts. I can be contacted on [email protected].

 

Thanks

Darren Moody

Community Manager

Its a great community as well...

 

Bromcom does lack the video tutorial side of things though, that really does help users a lot.

 

I've asked before that you dedicate someone from training to run through the whole system on your YouTube channel, but nothing has been put up yet.

 

I really think it would benefit your support desk if you had those videos like Arbor. If you could pass this comment on to the service manager it would be great.

 

If I was service manager it would be the first thing I would do!

[synaesthesia]

Common feedback from our ongoing migration shows a LOT of poor video guides with little consistency over how to achieve things - often going through several methods of achieving the same goal. From personal experience, I'd say Arbor wins hands down on the guides and community (so far).

[Bromcom_Darren]

Its a great community as well...

 

Bromcom does lack the video tutorial side of things though, that really does help users a lot.

 

I've asked before that you dedicate someone from training to run through the whole system on your YouTube channel, but nothing has been put up yet.

 

I really think it would benefit your support desk if you had those videos like Arbor. If you could pass this comment on to the service manager it would be great.

 

If I was service manager it would be the first thing I would do!

Thank you for your kind words and feedback, I am always looking to improve our service therefore i can confirm that your request for video's has been forwarded to the necessary departments.

 

Thanks

Darren Moody

Community Manager

[BromcomMatt]

Good morning. We provide video recordings of webinars in our training portal. We also post short videos on the community and the Web Wednesday sessions are shorter training events that are recorded to be posted on the community. We used to have a Youtube channel but the algorithm kept blocking videos as dummy data was classified as sharing personal information and that meant we had to approach video sharing differently. We are very open to other ways of using video tutorials moving forward.

[supportman]

Good morning. We provide video recordings of webinars in our training portal. We also post short videos on the community and the Web Wednesday sessions are shorter training events that are recorded to be posted on the community. We used to have a Youtube channel but the algorithm kept blocking videos as dummy data was classified as sharing personal information and that meant we had to approach video sharing differently. We are very open to other ways of using video tutorials moving forward.

 

Webinars are ok, but generally someone wants to search and find a 5min intro to a feature from a skilled trainer. This should also be updated and posted every time there is a UI change or feature release.

 

You can blur student data on YouTube very easily these days. Just like the Harris academy have done here

 

Our timetabler came to me a couple of months back asking me for a link to the new "Timetable feature" video. Eventually he found this with google: Cloud wTimeTable demonstration | Bromcom MIS but its mixed in with loads of marketing videos that are no use to anyone who already has the system He came away frustrated and kept using his current 3rd party solution.

 

One place on your website for short form video tutorials that does not require a login would save thousands of support calls I think. Doesn't have to be YouTube, but a single area I can link to when people ask me questions would be great.

[Primus]

Bromcom's community has 8500 members and is the biggest active online community in the UK MIS space. We have in the past week hit 1m page views for 2024 and are posting record numbers on a weekly basis.

 

Every MIS has complexity that benefits from a variety of Help Desk, Training, Onboarding, Documentation, Customer Success and Online Communities. Obviously we at Bromcom cannot comment on how its competitors operate but we are very proud about how our support offerings work closely with customers to help them optimise their MIS use. We know this is a work in progress but we believe we fulfill this role better than anyone else in the industry.

 

If anyone has any tips of how we could further improve the above i would be happy to arrange a Teams call and listen to any constructive feedback as we continue to strive to improve on all fronts. I can be contacted on [email protected].

 

Thanks

Darren Moody

Community Manager

 

It's posts like this that make me roll my eyes.

 

We were talking positively about your competitor - you don't need to jump in with the childish "we're just as good" posts - I've been supportive of Bromcom in the past when others haven't on here but stuff like this is an own goal.

[CHiLL]

Bromcom's community has 8500 members and is the biggest active online community in the UK MIS space. We have in the past week hit 1m page views for 2024 and are posting record numbers on a weekly basis.

How much of that is driven by either people having issues and need assistance/confirmation or requesting features because you don't have them yet?

[BromcomMatt]

Bromcom's community is a place where people go to ask and answer questions about their MIS use. It is curated and lightly moderated so customers are also welcome to use the community to provide feedback and make product requests, but is intended to be a positive place to go and develop their knowledge or solve MIS related problems. We also run user groups where customers can talk to software about developing and improving the MIS. The community would not have grown to a vibrant platform of 8500 people with one million annual views unless there was a positive reason to keep coming back. All complex software benefits from online communities where new users can go to learn more about to how it all works. I am sure other MIS providers have forums that meet their customers in various ways and Bromcom is very proud of its own community's record over the last few years.

[Primus]

Bromcom's community is a place where people go to ask and answer questions about their MIS use. It is curated and lightly moderated so customers are also welcome to use the community to provide feedback and make product requests, but is intended to be a positive place to go and develop their knowledge or solve MIS related problems. We also run user groups where customers can talk to software about developing and improving the MIS. The community would not have grown to a vibrant platform of 8500 people with one million annual views unless there was a positive reason to keep coming back. All complex software benefits from online communities where new users can go to learn more about to how it all works. I am sure other MIS providers have forums that meet their customers in various ways and Bromcom is very proud of its own community's record over the last few years.

 

Indeed, we were talking about your competitor's online community before you butted in to make it all about Bromcom again.

[AlistairB1983]

Bromcom's community has 8500 members and is the biggest active online community in the UK MIS space. We have in the past week hit 1m page views for 2024 and are posting record numbers on a weekly basis.

As someone else pointed out, when someone is praising one of your competitors it doesn't make you look particularly professional when you jump in with an 'oh, we do that too - but better!' type of post. Had my post you quoted gone on about how Arbor's community is better than Bromcom's, then absolutely it would have been warranted.

 

But it didn't, it was just trying to explain to someone who raised the question of why Arbor - despite having more schools and more pupils than Bromcom - appears less on these forum pages.

 

So, given it's apparently not because of the community or help pages that Arbor has - since you've pointed out you have them too, but better - perhaps you can make some suggestions as to why there are very few complaint/issue threads regarding Arbor as compared to those that are regarding Bromcom?

[DODICT]

Not sure I see the value in MIS suppliers trying to be active in Edugeek now - now they have their own communities etc I'd just consolidate. Arbor sponsored this forum once but stepped away and sure there are plenty of issues and complaints but they sent directly to Arbor.

 

And definitely know there are lots of idea requests that get submitted but simply aren't public like Bromcom's are - I think the expectation that 'I want it so it should be developed' is a bit naive. Just look at any software companies ideas page and you will have very popular requests sat untouched at the top of the list for years. There are so many considerations for a roadmap and wide ranging priorities to consider but obviously communication of what is being developed and why is a key piece to make users aware why x and y aren't being done. Ask any Arbor user about assessment setup or permissions and they will have a whole list of improvements to offer but its a big piece of work to re-do those elements and minimise impact to current use.