SIMS > SIMS Next Gen - How's Life?

[JRA]

Afternoon all.

 

Functionality is creeping along and we're probably among the latest of late adopters, but very slowly getting to grips with things. Census is the first "big op" with it, though don't anticipate any issues as it goes, all seems quite do-able.

 

How has everyone else found things? Learning curves/horror stories/staff in outright rebellion or all been plain sailing?

[SL_Thing]

Still got to get staff onboarded, i dont know why they dont just SSO based on email address rather than having to invite.

 

A couple of local schools have moved to Arbor as Next Gen is not great, im trying to push it especially as the number of SIMS schools is less than 8000, plus support has been shocking of late.

[JRA]

11 minutes ago, SL_Thing said:

Still got to get staff onboarded, i dont know why they dont just SSO based on email address rather than having to invite.

 

A couple of local schools have moved to Arbor as Next Gen is not great, im trying to push it especially as the number of SIMS schools is less than 8000, plus support has been shocking of late.

 

Yes frankly I've found ParentPay to be, er, let's call it "somewhat lacking" in about every single direction and interaction I've had with them. Our support provider however have been lovely and extremely patient with my generalised "wtf" around the whole thing, and I think thanks to them I'm getting onto the right track now.

 

Did you get the link from ParentPay regarding the SSO setup and the cryptic/silly deadline of 8th October? I'm hoping I can throw the switch there and achieve the seamless SSO experience I'm sure we're all wanting, but I'm not ready to let student accounts in yet or indeed anyone who isn't staff. I think if not this is best managed from the "users" tile in the id.sims.co.uk portal by padlocking those, but I'd rather have just a bit more control over it. I haven't thrown the switch though, still querying a few bits with (the frankly very lovely people at) SIPS.

With census looming though I've got the patches scheduled, gotten the business manager (I hope lol) set up with the right permissions now - which should transfer over seamlessly but something wasn't right in the to-and-fro there for us. That should keep the wolf from the door whilst I keep staff abreast of the changes bearing down on us.

Edited September 29 by JRA

[SL_Thing]

Yes, however that SSO link isnt anything magic, it just enforces the SSO rather than the staff member having the option to pick it once they action there SIMS ID invite. I was hopeful it was going to cure the ball ache of the invite process, but nope.

 

Well if census goes like it did last time, it'll be delayed again and done in SIMS7 rather than nextgen.

 

Just doing my best to get them to move to Arbor, it is so much better in every way!!

 

[JRA]

19 minutes ago, SL_Thing said:

Yes, however that SSO link isnt anything magic, it just enforces the SSO rather than the staff member having the option to pick it once they action there SIMS ID invite. I was hopeful it was going to cure the ball ache of the invite process, but nope.

 

 

UUUuuuuuuurrrgghhhhhhhh. I see. Oh well.

 

Good luck over there btw. We're taking the plunge and NG-ing the census here. Think we'll be ok.

[BKGarry]

Never really used next gen SIMS before jumping ship, as had enough issues with Options Online there and never held out for much else.

 

What I can say is, as being the person that has to run the Census stuff etc, Census, especially the Post-16 parts, seem to be so much easier in Arbor than they are within SIMS .net

[JRA]

Just now, BKGarry said:

Never really used next gen SIMS before jumping ship, as had enough issues with Options Online there and never held out for much else.

 

What I can say is, as being the person that has to run the Census stuff etc, Census, especially the Post-16 parts, seem to be so much easier in Arbor than they are within SIMS .net

 

Yeah deeply wishing we weren't in the situation of being forced into a dying company's incomplete pet-project web portal, but here we are.

 

But who knows? Maybe NG will be the very bestest of the best online MIS-es and everything will be rosy. And if we find ourselves looking at greener grass on the other side of the proverbial fence, a scrupulously fair tender process will begin where everybody will have an equal chance to bid for the project.

[robslack]

We will not move to NG until all features are there, what is the point if it is not fully featured

[JRA]

2 minutes ago, robslack said:

We will not move to NG until all features are there, what is the point if it is not fully featured

 

They're hobbling SIMS and forcing us.

[robslack]

1 minute ago, JRA said:

 

They're hobbling SIMS and forcing us.

What can't you do on SIMS 7, I have not found anything that NG does better, last time I tried census found 100s of error that did not exist in 7

[JRA]

11 minutes ago, robslack said:

What can't you do on SIMS 7, I have not found anything that NG does better, last time I tried census found 100s of error that did not exist in 7

 

Unless you've done the opt-outs in the NG redirects page you'll start to see lots of things migrate to SIMS NG now. However these are only temporary measures and will be forced eventually. Our account manager at ParentPay informed me "weeks" when I asked about timelines and extensions. I understand this to be a graduated move though (as in, not all schools at once) so might be different for yours if you're opening the redirects page and see them all pending (or if you've been in there and already put them off.)

[robslack]

50 minutes ago, JRA said:

 

Unless you've done the opt-outs in the NG redirects page you'll start to see lots of things migrate to SIMS NG now. However these are only temporary measures and will be forced eventually. Our account manager at ParentPay informed me "weeks" when I asked about timelines and extensions. I understand this to be a graduated move though (as in, not all schools at once) so might be different for yours if you're opening the redirects page and see them all pending (or if you've been in there and already put them off.)

We set planned date for redirects to 2030 for now, perhaps they will have finished the product by then.  We are looking at MIS providers this year ready for the start of the next academic year, so it might not be an issue for us

[Beduffshirl]

You can't do October Census in Next Gen. It's been pulled again !

[JRA]

1 hour ago, Beduffshirl said:

You can't do October Census in Next Gen. It's been pulled again !

You're joking me, right? You're absolutely joking me. NO company would be THIS comprehensively useless as to pull a stunt like that.

 

(...are you joking or is that, like, really happening???)

[DDR5]

It's a farce. Forcing schools to use two systems and relying on SSM to act as the sync, where more often than not it breaks. 
Even when NG shows sync active, SSM service running and all services running in the software itself, we still get emails saying that sync isn't working.
Then when it is there is a huge delay in getting data to sync.
I am pushing hard for my schools to get rid and move to Arbor.

[SIMS_Customer_Support]

We identified a potential issue - which may relate to local data or system-specific factors - that could affect census processing at a small number of schools. For those schools who may have been affected we sent a communication at the start of the week asking them to complete their census in SIMS7. If you or your school has not received that communication then you should continue in SIMS Next Gen as planned.

[SPM99]

Yeah, that email went down a storm with the school office when they had spent ages in Next Gen working out issues that weren't showing in SIMS.net. 

SIMS are so far behind their competitors, it's laughable. The name is all that they have got going for them...that and schools afraid of moving away.

[a_masters]

I've got errors in SIMS 7 that I don't have in Next Gen, errors in Next Gen that I don't have in SIMS 7. Bits that can only be updated in SIMS 7, bits that I can fix in Next Gen, but they've made it as hard as possible.

 

Who signed off on the P16 Programmes of Study as being usable? The only way I can find to get a student's name to appear in the Pupil name column is to search for a student and have just their record.

[JRA]

2 hours ago, SIMS_Customer_Support said:

We identified a potential issue - which may relate to local data or system-specific factors - that could affect census processing at a small number of schools. For those schools who may have been affected we sent a communication at the start of the week asking them to complete their census in SIMS7. If you or your school has not received that communication then you should continue in SIMS Next Gen as planned.

 

Well thank you for the clarification. And honestly the technical support teams answering the calls for this have my sympathy.

 

I think things are about to get a bit wild.

 

EDIT - Just an edit here to ask something. For those schools who have issues now in SIMS NG completing the census, and who have had the SIMS NG redirect forced to be permanent from Home > Admin Console > Redirects, have you released them from this?

Edited September 30 by JRA

[JRA]

Have had a very encouraging chat with someone from ParentPay technical support today, in conference with our support provider. Conversation around roadmaps and movement from SIMS > NG and, whilst there is a move to be made, there's an awareness a battle for hearts and minds needs to run concurrently with progress - which needs to look more like a helping hand than a steamroller. I have only vagueness around some things (because to be honest I was happy to have a genuine conversation with a genuine person and was not fishing for deadlines to hold him to) but it is my understanding that:

 

- Comms will improve/increase around shifting functionality from SIMS to SIMS NG.

 

- Their own telemetry within SIMS that reports back to them shows them what elements of SIMS are being used and how frequently, and they're factoring this in to conversations on what gets shut off. As in, if nobody's using SIMS for attendance for example and everyone's using NG then that aspect can be looked at for retiring.

 

- Unhappiness around upheaval will be passed on up the chain, because there is actually an element of that organisation that cares about happy customers rather than enforced and clumsily-handled change. Got a glimpse of that for the first time today.

 

Take from that what you will if it's any use at all, but thought I'd share my thoughts at least.

[Sonic007]

On 29/09/2026 at 11:13, SL_Thing said:

Still got to get staff onboarded, i dont know why they dont just SSO based on email address rather than having to invite.

 

A couple of local schools have moved to Arbor as Next Gen is not great, im trying to push it especially as the number of SIMS schools is less than 8000, plus support has been shocking of late.

 

This is exactly what we did. We were sick of the on prem / in the cloud / next gen multi chaos coming out of Sims and their pressures to sign up to crazy contracts. 

We jumped ship to Arbor and things have been a lot better since.