[bromcom] Moving Forward

[garethEds]

Afternoon,

 

So Swansea will have decided to move forward with Bromcom. I have a Working Group meeting for this after half term, but wanted to ask on here how has the change made other pieces of software redundant (and can it be done)....

 

We use:

 

ClassCharts : Attendance, behaviour, seating plans and comms to parents and pupils (through their app). I think we spend around £6k a year on this.

 

EdulinkONe : We bought into this during covid as a way of sending out digital pupil reports. We don't use it for anything else. (Around £2k a year)

 

MyConcern : Used for safeguarding and collating report etc (No idea on cost)

 

NovaT : Timetabling

 

FMS : Finance

 

Inventry : Signing in and out

 

I think that's it - all of the above link into/get their data from - SIMS. Where is everyone at running (or not running) these side by side with Bromcom.

 

Happy to speak via DM or email if you ask for my address.

 

Thanks all,

 

Gareth

[3s-gtech]

For integration, if any of your services can work with a provider like Wonde, that can help - it becomes the middle man for data so the integration becomes their problem. For example, we also use Class Charts - if we moved to Bromcom and carried on with CC for some reason, we shouldn't need to change much.

[TheCookieMonster]

Classcharts- YES: Attendance, Behaviour, seating plans, and comms (MCAS) - Bromcom replaces all of these. Can from day-dot as well.

EdulinkONe - YES: Bromcom covers this fully with MCAS and can do from day-dot.

MyConcern YES (eventually): Bromcom has a safeguarding module which does it all, but requires a bit more set up an familiarity.

NovaT - YES (eventually)Bromcom'swTimetable is very good, but takes training and getting used to. This is one to phase in eventually.

FMS - YES (I think)Bromcom Finance. Not got this, but from what I've seen, it's fully integrated. Just have to be careful around migration and setup as you should for financial data in general.

Inventry - NO (but)Can be integrated. Bromcom doesn't replace the need for a physical visitor management system.

 

My advice would be to talk to the sales teams where possible to get an overview of what most customers do and when they do it.

A lot of the people working at Bromcom (the ones I dealt with) were all ex school and MAT people so know their stuff.

 

Also maybe get onto community.bromcom.com to ask about people's experiences there.

 

Best of luck!

Edited February 21, 2025 by TheCookieMonster

[mthomas08]

I'll add some tweaks but this was a few years ago.

 

EduLinkOne - there are differences in this. The parent evening system on Bromcom isn't as fluid or simple to use so we pay School Cloud for theirs and currently signing up to a different one which might do most things we want. EduLink would automatically roll on the next person for virtual parents evenings. One of the best and easiest systems I've ever used. Once in - that is it.

I'll also add, sending invites to parents for the system is easy - customise the templte with everything you need and highlight the inactive parents with an email address - press a button and send.

 

Bromcom is nothing but simple, they've made improvements but it's still miles away from what we want.

 

Likewise for getting students on the system. EduLinkOne was so easy and I miss it.

 

NovaT - Last I checked it required another package to pull the NovaT timetable and import in to Bromcom. This was a while ago.

[Bromcom_John]

NovaT - Last I checked it required another package to pull the NovaT timetable and import in to Bromcom. This was a while ago.

 

Hi all, there is no need to continue with NOVA T at all, as we include our own Timetable package, wTimetable (1st true cloud & AI powered timetable solution) as part of the core system and there are other 3rd party options to choose from as well.

Edited February 21, 2025 by Bromcom_John

[Bromcom_John]

On the subject of other 3rd parties, we are always happy to speak with any 3rd party who wants to communicate with the MIS. We don't charge a penny for the 3rd party accreditation.

The list of current 3rd party partners can be accessed from http://www.bromcom.com/partners.

it is about being as flexible as possible as we are aware of a number of reasons why schools want to keep any particular partner on board.

I have to agree that Edulinks Oscars style auto cutoff is a really nice feature for busy parents evenings (we are working on something similar).

Should you need to retain a 3rd party then we do our utmost to ensure that the data transfer from our solution to theirs is as easy as it can be without compromising any security. @TheCookieMonster hit the nail on the head. Let us know which 3rd parties you use and we can evaluate which ones you can easily keep, which ones may no longer be needed and also, if you have a partner who "isn't" yet an accredited technical partner then we can talk to them and help them get to a place where they can continue providing you with their preferred service, be that with a new direct link or using Wonde/Groupcall or similair..

Edited February 21, 2025 by Bromcom_John

[DanSears]

Bromcom will be running events with Swansea to help them understand the scope, breath and depth of the Bromcom product. Below is the LinkedIn post show us doing just that for the schools in Rhondda just this week.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7297991231257628672/

[Aftab_Ahmed]

Like you we are in the very early stages of the switch and getting familiar with processes. I can clarify that we will be phasing out the following applications as they simply will not be needed:

 

Satchel - which is used for detentions and seating plans.

ParentMail - which is used for parental communications

RoomBooking System (from TES) as BromCom has its own booking facility

SAMPeople - Performance & Absence Management

NovaT is going to be replaced with W-Timetabler

 

Im sticking with FMS as the LA for some strange reason still want their schools to use it - but I will phase that out soon.

 

I actually ran SIMS and BromCo side by side - and honestly from an integration perspective - works great while staff are getting familiar. However you must stress to them that any changes will not be transferred when SIMS is switched off.

I also used the Salamander toolset to download any uploaded documents to pupils files which can then be imported into BromCom

 

Also - I created my own guides - which a few schools have asked for and they found them great as they are visual and simple to follow

 

Any other issues - dont hestitate to shout out.

[timbo343]

2019, one of our secondaries switched from Facitlity to Bromcom.

2020, we switched from SIMS to Bromcom.

 

ClassCharts : Both secondaries are now using this because apparently MCAS isn't as good and ClassCharts can do behaviour monitoring a lot better. Also the seating planner on CC is better as Bromcom's is very much out of date and very clunky. Even though ClassCharts have a write back option, lesson registers dont "live" write back.

 

EdulinkONe : We used to send out repors via MCAS / Bromcom. I think we now use classcharts or still use Bromcom.

 

MyConcern : We use CPOMS as a trust.

 

NovaT : We still use NT6 for timetabling and import the xml into.

 

FMS : Finance (cannot comment).

 

Inventry : All schools in the trust still use this.

 

Parents evening appointments are done via SchoolCloud.

 

Roombooking for my school is done via SchoolBooking.com which pulls all rooms and timetabled lessons into SchoolBooking. Again, Bromcom's offering is OK but lacks some of the basic features.

 

You'll probbaly have to buy into Bromcom's SMTP mail service unless you run your own onpremis SMTP server as both MS and Google have low limits on message storms.

 

You'll soon find that once you explore some of the additional modules / features that Bromcom offer, you'll start needing to pay for third party systems. Bromcom's "one stop shop" is okay as a starter package if you haven't already got something in place. We soon outgrew some of their inbuilt tools hence we have 3rd party software.

[Aftab_Ahmed]

It would also be really interesting to see what financial savings are made since moving across to BromCom for example we have made the following reductions

 

Satchel - which is used for detentions and seating plans. (£5.8K)

ParentMail - which is used for parental communications(2.6K inc messaging)

RoomBooking System (from TES) as BromCom has its own booking facility (1.1k)

SAMPeople - Performance & Absence Management (£4.5k)

NovaT is going to be replaced with W-Timetabler

SIMS (19.5K) reduced annually with £5K reductions

 

Total savings at this top level is approx £19K which is huge within the sector and will reduce even further

 

Is this similar to what others are seeing ?

 

 

 

[Theblacksheep]

Nova-T - The old bromcom timetable app is terrible and the new one cannot do everything you can in nova yet

Edulink - Better than mychild at school

Classcharts - School buying back into this because the seating in Bromcom isnt great.

 

On the face of it you can save money by not using 3rd parties, but Bromcom is a jack of all trades.

[pete]

We stuck with MyConcern for the time being because it can directly ingest alerts from Smoothwall Monitor, allows easy data transfer between schools (that use MyConcern) if students change schools and has a built-in redaction tool for subject access requests.

[Bromcom_John]

Just want to say thanks to everyone engaging with @garethedmonson on here. Its all good.

 

But I would say that we are always striving to improve each and every one of our products and, if you are from a school that has been dissatisfied with something in the past then please do reach out.

 

Whether it is so that the product teams can take your experience on board and fold it into future improvements or, as is regularly the case when the MIS has been around for a while, features have moved on "since" any decisions to use alternates were made.

 

A school wouldn't need to pay any extra if the product remains in the tier of product that they subscribe to.

Use it or don't use it, it is still part of your service provision and can be implemented quickly and easily.

[Bromcom_Alastair]

Hi all - We naturally want as few people as possible to feel Bromcom doesn't offer what they need. We're working on a way to capture some more of this information from everyone on the thread and anyone else that wants to contribute. I will come back to this thread with some more info as this progresses.

[PotNoodleTech]

Well I am not in either of those LAs but I would have moved to Bromcom years ago if they had catered for Wales back then. I am glad that things are moving forward (at quite a pace!!)

 

I believe an MIS should cater for everything that all schools need. There are some systems not traditionally associated with the MIS that should be, as every single school in the country needs them or wants them:

 

IT and SITE Helpdesk system - all built in - every member of staff is already in the MIS all day so why not use it to report any problems too.

Visitor entry and possibly door/gate access. Why not? Every school has it. Every school needs it. Every school has to go off and buy multiple other packages and then find some way of linking them back to the MIS. Please just do it in the MIS.

Lockdown software - this is a big one. Theres a big gap in the market for an outsanding lockdown system - why not build it in the MIS? Again this is something that every school needs and every school has to again go off and cobble together multiple systems. It would be so much easier to tick the safety boxes if it was built in.

 

I can probably think of 5 more but I am in a rush

Edited February 27, 2025 by PotNoodleTech

[pete]

 

IT and SITE Helpdesk system - all built in - every member of staff is already in the MIS all day so why not use it to report any problems too.

and possibly door/gate access. Why not? Every school has it. Every school needs it. Every school has to go off and buy multiple other packages and then find some way of linking them back to the MIS. Please just do it in the MIS.

 

Nope, nope, nope. That functionality will be the least maintained and most overlooked section of a system that's already torn in multiple direction by competing demands, government whim and limited development time.

 

It'll be worse than the abandonware that is SIMS' Exams Organiser.

[PotNoodleTech]

Nope, nope, nope. That functionality will be the least maintained and most overlooked section of a system that's already torn in multiple direction by competing demands, government whim and limited development time.

 

It'll be worse than the abandonware that is SIMS' Exams Organiser.

 

Hmm. Well suggesting "don't do anything new" is not really a way of improving these systems? I am just coming up with the things all schools need, literally every school in the country that maybe whould become part of the school management information system.

[Bromcom_Alastair]

For anyone that's commented here on 3rd party systems in place of Bromcom, or if you have a view on what's stopping you from taking Bromcom on fully, we'd love to hear from you in this survey.

 

https://forms.office.com/e/CaLKLdrk7u

[pete]

Hmm. Well suggesting "don't do anything new" is not really a way of improving these systems? I am just coming up with the things all schools need, literally every school in the country that maybe whould become part of the school management information system.

 

My point wasn't "don't try anything new", but "don't accept a half-baked substandard tool just because someone decided to throw one into the MIS package on a whim".