MIS Migration timing, Timetabling / Exams

[psydii]

Just  interested to hear from those who have done it:  how did you  have schedule  migrating the timetabling and exams entry/results processes when switching MIS?

 

Also did you bring across history results into the new MIS, and if not what did you do to preserve this data?

[AlistairB1983]

We moved from SIMS to Arbor last Easter. The Timetable was migrated automatically, however for future timetabling we needed to use an entirely new piece of software (Timetabler) as NOVA can't export into Arbor.

 

With regards to entries we didn't need to do anything as these had already been made in SIMS prior to the migration and we didn't have any amendments to make subsequently. However we had agreed beforehand that the exams for that year would continue to be run on SIMS due to the proximity between the migration and the start of the exam season (for us that begins as soon as we return from Easter with Year 10 internal exams, MFL speaking, Art/Photography practical exams, leading straight into GCSEs/A Levels etc.). So all changes to seating plans etc were still done in SIMS for that last season before this year switching everything over to Arbor 'properly'.

 

With regards to Results, these were imported into Arbor as, although it flags them up as errors on import as there are results with no entry (our entries all migrated over as 'pending'), it didn't stop the result being imported or viewable within the system - as we'd been told before hand would be the case.

 

The results history for individual students etc. came across as part of the migration. Whole school results are probably in there too, I've just never needed to look for them as we use SISRA for data analysis, so they're already in there.