How did the migration go for you?

[Seb1780]

Good morning,

 

We're now just weeks away from migration to Bromcom and I feel somewhat unprepared for what will be a big change. We have put in many, many hours of training, reading, playing with the test site and preparing our data for the move, but I just feel underwhelmed by the lack of support we've had from Bromcom themselves.

 

According to the documentation we received we should have had "free of charge, we provide end to end support from the point of sale, to ensure there’s minimal hassle throughout the transition process. This includes Project Management, templates and guides, alongside a Partner support team to advise you on integrations and API management." Thus far I've had two 45 minute calls with two different people and that's it - no project management, no API management, no Partner support team; the only guides and templates we've had are what I've found for myself.

 

Does this sound familiar to those of you who have made this change?

 

Am I just paranoid?

 

Bromcom_Darren is this how things are supposed to be?

[JRA]

I recall an institution I worked at transitioned to Arbor. Support was very good, anything from a technical query to a simple "how do I do it?" query was answered swiftly and the staff settled into it well. They're aware this is UPHEVAL for a large amount of crucial aspects to a school and has to hit the ground running and working.

 

So surely Bromcom would do the same.

 

Keep us updated on how this goes? Uneasy feelings about things like this never good, although being paranoid might not be a bad thing! Best of luck with it all there.

 

Do you have something in a list of concerns so far and do you have a named contact at Bromcom who can go over these with you? If you've already tried to do that and not been successful, what happened?

[Seb1780]

So surely Bromcom would do the same.

 

You'd think!

 

Do you have something in a list of concerns so far and do you have a named contact at Bromcom who can go over these with you? If you've already tried to do that and not been successful, what happened?

 

I e-mailed a list of 50+ questions and concerns to our designated point of contact before Christmas; I finally spoke with them this week and they had "no knowledge" of the document. I've subsequently re-sent that list, along with some new questions and have yet to receive a response three days later.

[5tu]

Good morning,

 

We're now just weeks away from migration to Bromcom and I feel somewhat unprepared for what will be a big change. We have put in many, many hours of training, reading, playing with the test site and preparing our data for the move, but I just feel underwhelmed by the lack of support we've had from Bromcom themselves.

 

According to the documentation we received we should have had "free of charge, we provide end to end support from the point of sale, to ensure there’s minimal hassle throughout the transition process. This includes Project Management, templates and guides, alongside a Partner support team to advise you on integrations and API management." Thus far I've had two 45 minute calls with two different people and that's it - no project management, no API management, no Partner support team; the only guides and templates we've had are what I've found for myself.

 

Does this sound familiar to those of you who have made this change?

 

Am I just paranoid?

 

Bromcom_Darren is this how things are supposed to be?

 

@Seb1780 we're in exactly the same boat as you and the lack of support from Bromcom is very worrying. Migration scheduled for early March and I'm dreading it. Our single named contact person was useless and we only found out he quit the company when no-one turned up to a prearranged Teams meeting. The replacement person just ignores emails. Feels like we're totally on our own to works things out. I really wish we'd selected Arbor!

[Aftab_Ahmed]

Strange as I know of loads of schools who moved and have done it successfully with clear set project deliverables. I know that with the move, there has to be a big push to ensure all staff undertake the training but it does pay off.

A project schedule is normally provided which clearly sets implementation and deliverables to be met with a transition period for API's to be moved.

[Bromcom_Darren]

Good morning,

 

We're now just weeks away from migration to Bromcom and I feel somewhat unprepared for what will be a big change. We have put in many, many hours of training, reading, playing with the test site and preparing our data for the move, but I just feel underwhelmed by the lack of support we've had from Bromcom themselves.

 

According to the documentation we received we should have had "free of charge, we provide end to end support from the point of sale, to ensure there’s minimal hassle throughout the transition process. This includes Project Management, templates and guides, alongside a Partner support team to advise you on integrations and API management." Thus far I've had two 45 minute calls with two different people and that's it - no project management, no API management, no Partner support team; the only guides and templates we've had are what I've found for myself.

 

Does this sound familiar to those of you who have made this change?

 

Am I just paranoid?

 

Bromcom_Darren is this how things are supposed to be?

Hi Seb,

 

Please drop me an email on [email protected] and I am more than happy to arrange a Teams call to iron out any issues you are facing.

 

Thanks

Darren Moody

Community Manager

[Bromcom_Darren]

@Seb1780 we're in exactly the same boat as you and the lack of support from Bromcom is very worrying. Migration scheduled for early March and I'm dreading it. Our single named contact person was useless and we only found out he quit the company when no-one turned up to a prearranged Teams meeting. The replacement person just ignores emails. Feels like we're totally on our own to works things out. I really wish we'd selected Arbor!

 

Good afternoon,

 

I want to help with any questions, queries or concerns you may have, please do reach out to me on [email protected] so we can arrange the necessary meetings and information to be shared with you.

 

Thanks

Darren Moody

Community Manager

[mitchell1981]

Migration scheduled for early March and I'm dreading it. Our single named contact person was useless and we only found out he quit the company when no-one turned up to a prearranged Teams meeting. The replacement person just ignores emails. Feels like we're totally on our own to works things out. I really wish we'd selected Arbor!

 

Our situation is identical to yours @gybe78

 

We are scheduled for March, our named contact was replaced, and we've been ignored ever since. Our data manager has sent loads of questions and not had any replies. Really concerned now about the quality of support we are likely to receive once it's up and running. Our last communicaton for them was 13th December! So two months now!

 

Did either of you get anywhere contacting the community email?

 

Thank you.

[Seb1780]

Our situation is identical to yours @gybe78

 

We are scheduled for March, our named contact was replaced, and we've been ignored ever since. Our data manager has sent loads of questions and not had any replies. Really concerned now about the quality of support we are likely to receive once it's up and running. Our last communicaton for them was 13th December! So two months now!

 

Did either of you get anywhere contacting the community email?

 

Thank you.

 

I've been down the community route, all you get is "use the community, it's great". Truth is, the community pages are no better than a Facebook group with users answering other users questions, and it's very difficult to find questions similar to yours because people use different terminology and there's no categorisation of the questions. I've asked a few questions there myself and had one usable response.

 

I'm not defending Bromcom, but I think they are currently inundated with migrations as it's three years since ESS introduced their 3-year contract term; people who signed up for SIMS then have used the intervening years to source an alternative and they are now all moving. I had a teams meeting with a few people from Bromcom yesterday and it was clear from the way they presented and the looks on their faces that they are under a lot of stress. Again, not defending them, this was always a likely outcome and they could have been better prepared.

 

Our migration starts tomorrow, wish me luck!

[mitchell1981]

Thanks @Seb1780

 

Please do let us know how you get on once the dust has settled! Good luck!

[Rob_D]

We were part of the West Sussex move a few years back, and while we had similar issues with our named contact being somewhat hard to get ahold of, our actual move and staff training seemed to go pretty smoothly. There were some definite teething problems [cough] cover [/cough] that seemed to really drag out of but overall we got a decent level of post move support.

 

Looking back on it, I wouldn't say it was a sterling experience, but everything worked out fine in the end.

[Aftab_Ahmed]

Our move from SIMS to BromCom went fairly smooth, there were some areas that I had to quickly do research on after which worked out OK. Teaching staff were glad that we moved as they can see the benefits and the app has been a hit. Back-end administration processes need a bit more TLC as it is a big change in process - but overall the implementation was OK and the whole school can see the added benefits of moving from SIMS.

 

Planning is the key - I also created my own set of teacher guides which proved a hit for staff, as doing the videos was good but not everyone had the time - even though planning was for months.

 

Hope it all goes well - reach out if you need any help with this.

[mikes]

Our LEA is moving every school in our county from SIMS to Arbor, they are doing a dummy migration over next week (half term) where we will have time to see what worked and what didn't. Then the main issue will be the main migration - it will happen over Friday 28th April to Mon March 31st - but apparently we will be without an MIS for 2 days - that will be the main test.

 

We have had access to a training portal but it's basically like dummy youtube tutorials "To add a new staff member, click staff, then click add..."

 

I hope that all of our staff will use their time to use the dummy system after half term and get familiar with it, so that the live migration won't be so much of a shock.

Anyway, we had a day "off" yesterday to go through Abor's training materials, only I had to come in to sort out external speakers and CCTV installs instead so I didn't do it. So I am using that as my excuse - anyone comes to me with arbor help, sorry, I didn't have the training day, go see someone else.

 

Thing is I don't really need the training as an MIS is a MIS, it's all in English, but of course most staff seem to learn things by rote rather than actually thinking, so if a menu is different they panic. That is my main worry, instead of reading training manuals they find it easier to bother me instead.

 

The main issue will be for exams/data staff as a lot of the things they do (exams, timetabling) won't autosync over. I must confess I worry about security too - with SIMS you need a domain joined laptop and an additional U/P to get in. With web based arbor, what is the security like, is there 2FA/IP restrictions?

 

I will update after half term how our dummy migration goes!

 

Also we have a meeting with Wonde about sorting out third party software that goes through SIMS. That should be interesting but a lot of it is done by the LEA so I'm not carrying the can fortunately!

[sefton]

I have all of our Arbor sites set for 2FA when not on their external facing ip.

[davidstallwood]

Hi, We migrated last week. Been very stressful I'm not going to lie. The 6 P's is the key to it all (perfect preperation prevents piss poor performance) training, training & more training. Timetabling has been a nightmare because we stayed with Nova-T. Absolutely get your timetabler to get trained on Etimetable in Bromcom and threaten violence if they say they only know Nova-T & can't use anuthing else! Good Luck!

[Bromcom_Darren]

Hi, We migrated last week. Been very stressful I'm not going to lie. The 6 P's is the key to it all (perfect preperation prevents piss poor performance) training, training & more training. Timetabling has been a nightmare because we stayed with Nova-T. Absolutely get your timetabler to get trained on Etimetable in Bromcom and threaten violence if they say they only know Nova-T & can't use anuthing else! Good Luck!

 

Hi David,

 

Welcome to Bromcom, please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you require any additional assistance following your migration and I will endeavor to get your responses to you in a timely manner.

 

Thanks

Darren Moody

Bromcom

[AlistairB1983]

The main issue will be for exams/data staff as a lot of the things they do (exams, timetabling) won't autosync over.

We moved from SIMS to Arbor over Easter last year and yes, unfortunately the Exams won't carry across. Personally I would suggest that your EO continue to use SIMS - but just the Exams Organiser module - until the end of June when they can switch to Arbor. The fact that Arbor won't (likely) show any of the students as having been entered for any of their exams doesn't matter, the results can still be imported over the summer with no issues (barring any BTECs which will need the 7B file importing first).

 

Timetabling I wouldn't imagine to be much of an issue as Arbor allows for the timetable to be amended directly within it - rather than having to go through the pain of opening Nova etc, and your timetable should absolutely autosync over. So any small changes can just be made directly and the 2025/26 timetable is (judging by every timetabler I've ever met) unlikely to be being worked on yet - although they will, obviously, be needing to learn a new system when the time comes as Nova doesn't talk to Arbor.

[Quark]

We moved from SIMS to Arbor over Easter last year and yes, unfortunately the Exams won't carry across. Personally I would suggest that your EO continue to use SIMS - but just the Exams Organiser module - until the end of June when they can switch to Arbor. The fact that Arbor won't (likely) show any of the students as having been entered for any of their exams doesn't matter, the results can still be imported over the summer with no issues (barring any BTECs which will need the 7B file importing first).

 

Timetabling I wouldn't imagine to be much of an issue as Arbor allows for the timetable to be amended directly within it - rather than having to go through the pain of opening Nova etc, and your timetable should absolutely autosync over. So any small changes can just be made directly and the 2025/26 timetable is (judging by every timetabler I've ever met) unlikely to be being worked on yet - although they will, obviously, be needing to learn a new system when the time comes as Nova doesn't talk to Arbor.

 

We're thinking of moving in September this year - how did you find the process in general? Any tips or things you'd have dine differently?

[AlistairB1983]

We're thinking of moving in September this year - how did you find the process in general? Any tips or things you'd have dine differently?

Tip #1 - Don't move in September.

Tip #2 - No, really. Don't move in September!

 

(Appreciate it may well be out of your control, but in the event that you do hold some sway over the decision - for the love of [deity] don't move during THE busiest month of the entire academic calendar! Your support staff (& probably teaching staff) will not thank you for it, and any 'benefits' are only short term as, eventually, you'd receive them regardless of when you switch).

 

But, aside from that, make sure you get your support staff in particular to make use of the test site once it goes live. Yes, they should watch the training videos but, as mentioned previously, they're not terribly in-depth. So get them to use the test site for working out how to do that 'in-depth' stuff that's not covered in the videos. As it's a test side they can't 'break' anything, so it's a good time to go nuts with it!

 

Get the message out loud, early and repeatedly that Arbor won't do everything SIMS did. It will do the overwhelming majority - although not always in exactly the same way - but it won't match it 100%. People need to know and understand that so they can be prepared to find new ways of doing things rather than just moaning 'but I've always done ....'. This ranges from the 'lowest' member of Support Staff up to (and definitely including!) SLT.

 

Make quick/simple guides to do most of the basic functions that a teacher needs to use the system for. Sure, they'll receive training but they'll never remember. A short one page document on 'How to take registers' or 'how to enter assessment data' works wonders for being able to signpost them without having to explain things over and over and over again.

 

As far as our transition went, all things told it went incredibly smoothly. However I should caveat that with a couple of points:

1) I used Arbor in a previous school, so was heavily instrumental in not only getting my current school to switch, but also in the actual migration process itself.

2) I was on paternity leave at the actual point we went 'live', so didn't actually have to deal with any of the 'Day 1' fall out (although the SLT member who did it in my place mentioned only a couple of minor quibbles).

 

(With regards to September - in all seriousness, if you can't swap it you will be fine. It'll just be a lot tougher than it needs to be for, in my opinion, no real benefit.)

[timbo343]

Tip #1 - Don't move in September.

Tip #2 - No, really. Don't move in September!

 

(Appreciate it may well be out of your control, but in the event that you do hold some sway over the decision - for the love of [deity] don't move during THE busiest month of the entire academic calendar! Your support staff (& probably teaching staff) will not thank you for it, and any 'benefits' are only short term as, eventually, you'd receive them regardless of when you switch).

 

But, aside from that, make sure you get your support staff in particular to make use of the test site once it goes live. Yes, they should watch the training videos but, as mentioned previously, they're not terribly in-depth. So get them to use the test site for working out how to do that 'in-depth' stuff that's not covered in the videos. As it's a test side they can't 'break' anything, so it's a good time to go nuts with it!

 

Get the message out loud, early and repeatedly that Arbor won't do everything SIMS did. It will do the overwhelming majority - although not always in exactly the same way - but it won't match it 100%. People need to know and understand that so they can be prepared to find new ways of doing things rather than just moaning 'but I've always done ....'. This ranges from the 'lowest' member of Support Staff up to (and definitely including!) SLT.

 

Make quick/simple guides to do most of the basic functions that a teacher needs to use the system for. Sure, they'll receive training but they'll never remember. A short one page document on 'How to take registers' or 'how to enter assessment data' works wonders for being able to signpost them without having to explain things over and over and over again.

 

As far as our transition went, all things told it went incredibly smoothly. However I should caveat that with a couple of points:

1) I used Arbor in a previous school, so was heavily instrumental in not only getting my current school to switch, but also in the actual migration process itself.

2) I was on paternity leave at the actual point we went 'live', so didn't actually have to deal with any of the 'Day 1' fall out (although the SLT member who did it in my place mentioned only a couple of minor quibbles).

 

(With regards to September - in all seriousness, if you can't swap it you will be fine. It'll just be a lot tougher than it needs to be for, in my opinion, no real benefit.)

We moved in september, 3rd week in, with 1 week cross over in 2019. On a friday staff were using SIMS, on the monday staff were using Bromcom. There was 3 months of getting used to it before hand but it can be done.

[Roberto]

I’m kinda with Alistair for this. Really for key apps and processes most businesses operate a ‘change freeze’ at key times of the year - for example, Amazon operates a change freeze on its retail and logistics platforms around key shopping dates like Christmas. I’d always tried to do the same around exams, enrollment, etc when I was at the college. Didn’t always manage to make it stick, but things went better when we did make it stick.

[Rob_D]

I’m kinda with Alistair for this. Really for key apps and processes most businesses operate a ‘change freeze’ at key times of the year - for example, Amazon operates a change freeze on its retail and logistics platforms around key shopping dates like Christmas. I’d always tried to do the same around exams, enrollment, etc when I was at the college. Didn’t always manage to make it stick, but things went better when we did make it stick.

Makes sense. I've never really thought about it in such strict terms, but we do pretty much do that. Add in exam periods, the start of September generally, and financial end of year (April for us), things start to get a bit complicated.

 

That said, our MIS move wound up being over the summer break, which was definitely a complication, but it all worked out pretty well in the end.

[AlistairB1983]

We moved in september, 3rd week in, with 1 week cross over in 2019. On a friday staff were using SIMS, on the monday staff were using Bromcom. There was 3 months of getting used to it before hand but it can be done.

I'd argue that moving in the 3rd week of September doesn't count as a 'September move' (yes, I'm aware it's still in September ).

 

By 'September move' I'm specifically talking about wanting to 'go live' on the first day back. By doing it in the 3rd week back, you've allowed all the 'new' stuff from the next academic year to be imbedded into one MIS before you move everything over to the new one, thereby avoiding arguably the biggest issue with a 'day 1 go live' which is that in conjunction with wanting to check your existing data, you're about to have a shed load of new stuff added due to the new academic year.

 

Again, it clearly can be done. It just seems unnecessarily complicated if there are alternates available given it provides such very marginal gains for doing so.

[Quark]

I'd argue that moving in the 3rd week of September doesn't count as a 'September move' (yes, I'm aware it's still in September ).

 

By 'September move' I'm specifically talking about wanting to 'go live' on the first day back. By doing it in the 3rd week back, you've allowed all the 'new' stuff from the next academic year to be imbedded into one MIS before you move everything over to the new one, thereby avoiding arguably the biggest issue with a 'day 1 go live' which is that in conjunction with wanting to check your existing data, you're about to have a shed load of new stuff added due to the new academic year.

 

Again, it clearly can be done. It just seems unnecessarily complicated if there are alternates available given it provides such very marginal gains for doing so.

 

Great to know what can be done. We're planning on going live over the summer break, but will start to roll out some of the additional modules (like assessment) from the end of September once things have settled down.