Which (of the top dogs) MIS do you use, and are you thinking of migrating to another in the future?

[Jaan]

Please feel free to add a comment with constructive feedback/criticisms if you wish.  

 

We attended BETT this year to discuss our ongoing issues with Bromcom and to evaluate Arbor as a potential alternative. While the Bromcom team was sympathetic and reassuring, our current situation is unsustainable. Consequently, we have decided to move forward with exploring other platforms.

Edited May 6 by Jaan

[JazzFlute]

Voted but I believe these decisions moving MIS will be made at trust level and techs/NM etc. won’t have a say.  I remember advising an academy a while back to go with someone and at the last minute it was knocked on the head as the trust’s plan/vision was to go with the same MIS provider for all schools in the trust for various reasons.  I think unless you are a LA school then MIS decisions will be made by someone higher up other than those who support them.

[BKGarry]

Even as a LEA school, the ultimate decision for the MIS should be the Leadership Team at your school, we can advise on the pros and cons of the tech side of any system, but ultimately, we are not the main users of it.

[Bankesy]

Other\Other

 

Still using traditional SIMS 7 on prem here but in the process of moving to SIMS Hosted\Connected as an interim step while we wait for SIMS NextGen to be fully ready in a few years.

[AlistairB1983]

We moved to Arbor a couple of years ago in part due to my (as Data Manager's) repeated insistence on it being better and cheaper than SIMS. When we eventually got a new Deputy Head (and my LM) in post, who also happens to be a Computer Science teacher, the switch happened fairly rapidly.

 

We're unlikely to move away from them any time soon. For all their faults (and there are indeed many), they still seem to be vastly superior to virtually all the competition - either because of MIS design (for SIMS) or for uptime/lack of daily issues (for Bromcom).

[hailst0rm]

We are currently on Bromcom. Nothing official yet but I've been asked to provide a list of incidents to be passed onto the head. I suspect we might look at alternatives when it is due for renewal.

 

I see quite a few have ticked "other" with the alternatives they are considering. Would be interested to know what these are. Been quite a few alternatives launched recently.

Edited May 6 by hailst0rm

[Jaan]

24 minutes ago, hailst0rm said:

I see quite a few have ticked "other" with the alternatives they are considering. Would be interested to know what these are. Been quite a few alternatives launched recently.

 

I can't seem to edit the poll now. as i've also missed out "Compass, NOT thinking of moving" i should of added "Other" please specify"

[davie887]

1 hour ago, Bankesy said:

Other\Other

 

Still using traditional SIMS 7 on prem here but in the process of moving to SIMS Hosted\Connected as an interim step while we wait for SIMS NextGen to be fully ready in a few years.

 

I recall hearing about Nextgen... 2016 was it? 

[ITGuyNW]

We're on SIMS7. It's needs an SQL update apparently but LCC are struggling to sort it. They have quoted a VM migration to an updated version of SIMS but so far they've taken 3 weeks to generate one??

 

If I could, I'd just move to Arbor tomorrow. 

[DavR]

We're on Arbour and won't be moving away any time soon (only moved to Arbor two years ago) BUT we may be considering buying into a third party tool to manage Nursery and Wraparound Care, because the Clubs section of Arbor is woefully inadequate.

[Zedster1974-MGS]

4 hours ago, hailst0rm said:

We are currently on Bromcom. Nothing official yet but I've been asked to provide a list of incidents to be passed onto the head. I suspect we might look at alternatives when it is due for renewal.

 

I see quite a few have ticked "other" with the alternatives they are considering. Would be interested to know what these are. Been quite a few alternatives launched recently.

We are thinking about looking at alternatives, as currently on SIMS7 on prem, with Bromcom being the preferred due to its finance system - but am concerned about the number of comments people are making about incidents - sorry to hijack this, but what sort of issues are people experiencing ? 

[Jaan]

2 minutes ago, Zedster1974-MGS said:

We are thinking about looking at alternatives, as currently on SIMS7 on prem, with Bromcom being the preferred due to its finance system - but am concerned about the number of comments people are making about incidents - sorry to hijack this, but what sort of issues are people experiencing ? 

 

here's their status page

 

https://status.bromcomcloud.com/

[davie887]

53 minutes ago, Zedster1974-MGS said:

We are thinking about looking at alternatives, as currently on SIMS7 on prem, with Bromcom being the preferred due to its finance system - but am concerned about the number of comments people are making about incidents - sorry to hijack this, but what sort of issues are people experiencing ? 

 

They have had a few outages and performance issues in a short period of time. It's generally fine, massively better than SIMS IMO

[itskdog]

Had to pick "Other" for the 2nd question as we're not thinking of moving and it wasn't optional.

 

Just moved to Arbor at the end of last year with Integris shutting down. Feedback has been mixed, but teachers like being able to see students' photos in the register, as well as not having to remember to click "Save" once you've entered the marks. Also the ability to long-term move ParentMail, ParentPay, and Juniper Websites (parents' evening booking) into Arbor has SLT interested as a cost-cutting measure.

Edited May 6 by itskdog

[TwistedHelixis]

All my schools are Primary and use Arbor. I moved a few over years ago and the rest slowly followed. They all seem to like it 👍

[FloraDora]

Funnily enough Bromcom contacted me a while ago as apparently they are being contacted by independent schools looking for an alternative MIS (I work for an independent school).

 

They don't currently have the functionality to deal with independent school requirements e.g. fees, but it's interesting reading & these comments and those on other platforms about the problems users are facing with Bromcom, in particular there seems to be quite a few down time incidents...

[supportman]

With Bromcom 7 years now, happy with Bromcom (when it works 🤣).

Heard this morning that they are finally updating their hosting to fix the recent incidents.

[LeMarchand]

On 06/05/2026 at 10:35, hailst0rm said:

I see quite a few have ticked "other" with the alternatives they are considering. Would be interested to know what these are. Been quite a few alternatives launched recently.

 

3x Arbor, all Primaries, all moved a few years ago.

 

Not planning on moving but can't vote without responding to the second question so, like many I suspect, filled in "other".

Edited May 7 by LeMarchand

[JazzFlute]

18 hours ago, LeMarchand said:

 

3x Arbor, all Primaries, all moved a few years ago.

 

Not planning on moving but can't vote without responding to the second question so, like many I suspect, filled in "other".

same not looking at others but had to tick something to submit the vote.

[bobsmith]

On 06/05/2026 at 11:04, davie887 said:

 

I recall hearing about Nextgen... 2016 was it? 

I could swear we had a meeting about SIMS 8 back before 2010!

 

Next Gen is actually a much more recent product - I think SIMs 8 was finally killed off in 2021 and NextGen was launched as it's replacement. 

[nicholab]

Why do people high up in trust always make daft decisions that sound like whitewashing to those who have to support it on a daily basis?  They also never seem to value the day-to-day staff input on choosing the system.

[JazzFlute]

28 minutes ago, nicholab said:

Why do people high up in trust always make daft decisions that sound like whitewashing to those who have to support it on a daily basis?  They also never seem to value the day-to-day staff input on choosing the system.

They have an overall strategy and will have already costed decisions out. In many cases, this leads to what they believe is better value for money, along with—rightly or wrongly—a preferred/better way of working or set of systems. Even if an individual school is running perfectly with zero downtime, they may still implement changes, even where those changes don’t necessarily improve the way that school operates

 

At the end of the day, whether you agree with it or not, the main driver is likely to be cost and affordability for the Trust as a whole, rather than the needs of an individual school. Top slicing also plays a role, and this isn’t always equal across all schools for various reasons so they may need to underfund one school for a period of time to help another school/s. Ultimately, in my opinion, trusts are run as businesses—rightly or wrongly—and that reflects the academy model.

 

They obviously 100% want to do well in all their schools but i doubt every decision made does that for all schools as i know for a fact it doesn't and they probably make some decisions on what is positive for the trust and majority of schools.

 

I'm not sure how many trusts let their schools run "independently" even if identified as a well run school IT wise and there's bound to be changes implemented from the top where you scratch your head and think "why"?

 

 

[nicholab]

This is where a leader at trust leave need to come to each school and take the heat.  We chose this system that was best for us not for you.

[Gongalong]

On 06/05/2026 at 10:35, hailst0rm said:

I see quite a few have ticked "other" with the alternatives they are considering. Would be interested to know what these are. Been quite a few alternatives launched recently.

 

We're SIMS 7/NG. When our county dropped support for it, and more so the license, we looked at Arbor and Bromcom. I emphasised to the relevant staff that they chose based on functionality, rather than following the vogue, and we stuck with SIMS. We'll see how things are when we're next up for renewal.

[nicholab]

2 hours ago, Gongalong said:

 

We're SIMS 7/NG. When our county dropped support for it, and more so the license, we looked at Arbor and Bromcom. I emphasised to the relevant staff that they chose based on functionality, rather than following the vogue, and we stuck with SIMS. We'll see how things are when we're next up for renewal.

Why does this always happen?  The same happens with SAGE.  They don't want new systems that are better cloud products.