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

[supportman]

1 hour ago, nicholab said:

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

 

We're just moving away from sage finally after waiting for what seems like ever for their cloud platform. Its still woefully inadequate and our Finance manager has finally lost patience with them. I've been advocating a move for 5+ years. Luckily we are finally on our way.

 

I don't understand anyone keeping Sims, other systems are so much better.

[sefton]

Have moved our 11 schools to Arbor over the last three years from a variety of suppliers. It would take something monumental to get me to move, as Sims NextGen is still a long way from a modern fully functional MIS,  and the regular downtime I've seen on here from Bromcom over the last couple of years would just be unacceptable to our Board of Directors.

[Gongalong]

16 hours ago, nicholab said:

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

 

Well, they looked at the functionality, or more so what they wanted to achieve with an MIS, and SIMS 7 fit the bill better than Arbor and Bromcom. I agree with one of the other comments here that most of us probably aren't the end user of an MIS, or at least as not as frequent a user as some staff, so it's for them to decide what they need.

[LeMarchand]

1 hour ago, Gongalong said:

 

Well, they looked at the functionality, or more so what they wanted to achieve with an MIS, and SIMS 7 fit the bill better than Arbor and Bromcom. I agree with one of the other comments here that most of us probably aren't the end user of an MIS, or at least as not as frequent a user as some staff, so it's for them to decide what they need.

 

My suspicion is that it's less to do with the functionality than the somewhat ironic, for people in an educational establishment, to learn new things. Never had any complaints about Arbor from the staff but I'm KS1/2.

 

My only complaint is that my permissions at some sites have been so cut back that I can't do some basic functions.

[Gongalong]

30 minutes ago, LeMarchand said:

My suspicion is that it's less to do with the functionality than the somewhat ironic

 

The amount of training required to switchover is a factor to be considered, and I can't speak for other schools, but here we definitely had a pragmatic look at what we were trying to achieve with an MIS and SIMS was still the best option.

 

I've often seen the opposite issue in schools, that there's often a vogue to take on some new product because everyone else is using it, without much consideration as to whether we need it.

[LeMarchand]

2 minutes ago, Gongalong said:

I've often seen the opposite issue in schools, that there's often a vogue to take on some new product because everyone else is using it, without much consideration as to whether we need it.

 

I see that too, but that's not normally not something that is replacing an existing system. It's normally some amazing, cool (and expensive) system that will get forgotten about in a couple of years.

[browolf]

We looked into moving once but it's an incredibly complicated endeavor with a big school. In the end they decided to get Synergy which reads and writes to sims but the Ui is a million times better. 

 

https://www.schoolsynergy.co.uk/

Edited May 19 by browolf

[supportman]

1 hour ago, Gongalong said:

 

The amount of training required to switchover is a factor to be considered, and I can't speak for other schools, but here we definitely had a pragmatic look at what we were trying to achieve with an MIS and SIMS was still the best option.

 

I've often seen the opposite issue in schools, that there's often a vogue to take on some new product because everyone else is using it, without much consideration as to whether we need it.

Training was a non issue for us, we just rolled it out at the start of a term with a simple "How to do registers" guide and that was it. The rest was very self explanitory.

 

One thing we did find was things like Census, Admissions, reporting just worked with Bromcom. It needed no training and the user just clicked the button to do it. I remember spending hours on Sims trying to fix census issues or CTF imports. It really was quite a revelation. I think cleaning the data before migration also helped a lot as well though.

Edited May 19 by supportman

[nicholab]

2 hours ago, Gongalong said:

I've often seen the opposite issue in schools, that there's often a vogue to take on some new product because everyone else is using it, without much consideration as to whether we need it.

This does not seem to happen with MIS, but with other products, yes!  The biggest thing is they don't let the key staff do the training.  This is not the SLT is the Exams office, the timetabling office.  

[Gongalong]

2 hours ago, browolf said:

We looked into moving once but it's an incredibly complicated endeavor with a big school. In the end they decided to get Synergy which reads and writes to sims but the Ui is a million times better. 

 

https://www.schoolsynergy.co.uk/

 

Interesting!

 

1 hour ago, supportman said:

Training was a non issue for us, we just rolled it out at the start of a term with a simple "How to do registers" guide and that was it. The rest was very self explanitory.

 

One thing we did find was things like Census, Admissions, reporting just worked with Bromcom. It needed no training and the user just clicked the button to do it. I remember spending hours on Sims trying to fix census issues or CTF imports. It really was quite a revelation. I think cleaning the data before migration also helped a lot as well though.

 

We're KS3/4, and have seating plans and a bunch more things we currently use 3rd party products for. I agree that training should not wholly block moving to a better product.

 

Bromcom does seem to have its share of other issues though.

 

1 hour ago, nicholab said:

This does not seem to happen with MIS, but with other products, yes!  The biggest thing is they don't let the key staff do the training.  This is not the SLT is the Exams office, the timetabling office.  

 

Yep, the teaching bits aren't so bad, but the support staff requirement can be a lot heavier (it certainly is here).

[AlistairB1983]

On 19/05/2026 at 13:44, Gongalong said:

We're KS3/4, and have seating plans and a bunch more things we currently use 3rd party products for. I agree that training should not wholly block moving to a better product.

Bromcom does seem to have its share of other issues though.

 

Yep, the teaching bits aren't so bad, but the support staff requirement can be a lot heavier (it certainly is here).

 

I've refrained so far from adding to this conversation, for not wanting to make it feel like I'm 'piling on' when this is clearly a decision that wasn't taken by yourself.

 

But, as one of said admin users (currently a Data Manager and oversee the Exams Officer), I would just add that almost every admin role is immeasurably quicker and easier with Arbor than it is with SIMS (and I'm sure would be with Bromcom or any other MIS that's not stuck in the dark ages).

 

Yes, there is a learning curve (but it's not particularly steep!), but in reality they'll have made back any time spent training within the first term of use. Just for exams alone, being able to copy/duplicate seating plans saves the EO literal hours as compared to SIMS. The census takes me minutes instead of days. The list goes on.

 

I appreciate this very much isn't your decision, and it's one that's already been made, but honestly it's really frustrating to witness admin staff in schools being so belligerently closed-minded as adopting new approaches that they force the rest of the school's user base to continue to use a sub-par product and, most likely, end up costing the school thousands of pounds in terms of extra fees for a multitude of products that would be entirely unnecessary if they just allowed the school to use software developed in the 21st century.

[Gongalong]

No beliggerent closed-mindedness here. For us it was very much a team decision, looking at what we wanted to achieve from an MIS, involving both teaching and support staff.

[Sonic007]

We are currently in the migration phase from Sims to Arbor.

 

We had been using Sims for the past 15 years or more. It is a big task, but we are ready for the change.

Sims needs a complete re-design and after reviewing Arbor, Compas, and Bromcom, it was Arbor that won us over.

I believe Sims have really messed up with the whole confusion of Sims7, Next Gen, Hosted jumble that it is, and their pricing contracts have been shockingly bad.

 

The decision was made between me (Network Manager), our Operations Manager, and the Finance officer.

It makes sense to have the same MIS system accross all of your schools in MAT, especially if staff move accross the MAT.

Edited May 21 by Sonic007

[nicholab]

2 hours ago, Sonic007 said:

The decision was made between me (Network Manager), our Operations Manager, and the Finance officer.

It makes sense to have the same MIS system accross all of your schools in MAT, especially if staff move accross the MAT.

These are the people that should be making the choice, and often they are not, it the head's mate saying it is the best.

[supportman]

2 hours ago, AlistairB1983 said:

I appreciate this very much isn't your decision, and it's one that's already been made, but honestly it's really frustrating to witness admin staff in schools being so belligerently closed-minded as adopting new approaches that they force the rest of the school's user base to continue to use a sub-par product and, most likely, end up costing the school thousands of pounds in terms of extra fees for a multitude of products that would be entirely unnecessary if they just allowed the school to use software developed in the 21st century.

 

Yeh its the same in my daughters school where I am governor. They think Sims "does the job" but have never looked at another MIS and always talk about training or effort to move as blockers. They spend thousands on 3rd party products just to make up for the missing pieces and also spend extra having Sims "hosted" in some datacenter using the old .net technology. In my opinion its just a closed minded approach where they have not explored what's really out there. Its really strange to see it from the outside, but its still not my job to push it and I guess if it works for them then fine. Frustrating though as I want the best for the school and my daughter.

Edited May 21 by supportman

[AlistairB1983]

21 hours ago, supportman said:

 

Yeh its the same in my daughters school where I am governor. They think Sims "does the job" but have never looked at another MIS and always talk about training or effort to move as blockers. They spend thousands on 3rd party products just to make up for the missing pieces and also spend extra having Sims "hosted" in some datacenter using the old .net technology. In my opinion its just a closed minded approach where they have not explored what's really out there. Its really strange to see it from the outside, but its still not my job to push it and I guess if it works for them then fine. Frustrating though as I want the best for the school and my daughter.

 

Agreed. I cannot fathom how one could draw a conclusion of SIMS being a better product when, by virtually every metric available, it objectively isn't. But not my monkeys and not my circus. If they want to waste thousands on a sub-par product, go ahead.

[Sonic007]

On 21/05/2026 at 12:33, nicholab said:

These are the people that should be making the choice, and often they are not, it the head's mate saying it is the best.

 

If that were the case I'd be handing in my resignation. You pay me for my expertise, not to tell me what you want to get.

I know what you mean though. I've seen places where head teachers have said "oooh this brand seems nice" and they get a load of new hardware and then we have to sort out the headache of telling them it doesnt meet DFE standards, or it has security holes, or it is not compatible with our existing systems.