Opinions on which MIS

[stevemac]

I have been asked to look into the various MIS thats available. I have talked to Hebron and was quite impressed. I have a meeting with Pearson today and SIMS tomorrow. We are a prep school with about 200 pupils. Anyone else I should look at. Are there any schools on this forum that are in Surrey or Hampshire that I can come and have a look.

Any advice would be great.

[rush_tech]

Welcome to Edugeek:D

[tmcd35]

I too am interested in thoughts on this! I'm about to take a new post and one of my first jobs is likely to be plan the upgrade to the MIS. They are still using Phoenix Gold.

 

I know Phoenix E1 is recommended by the LEA. My current school nearly went live with E1 3 times, we are now on Bromcom. My next school have said 'they are not comfortable with E1' but it remains an option. Bromcom look good from here, good support, good system, well designed. But may or may not be right for my next school (open minded).

 

One thing I'm particularly keen to hear thoughts on is MIS integrations with the VLE as I think this could impact the choice of MIS. I know my current school are going to use the county recommended 'Fronter' and Bromcom are currently writing hooks between the two. I know my next school is currently planning on using Fronter, but this might change.

 

Finally the next school works closely with their feeder schools, who will more than likely use E1. Would we encounter too many problems if we used something else?

[rhyds]

We run SIMS here (with LA support), the thing is SIMS is great when you have support, but I imagine it would be a pain without a support contract. Our primaties use RM Integris, an apparently that's even worse...

[zag]

The problem with Sims has always been the constant updates and the bugs that they introduce with them. The support is actually pretty good but its very very expensive to maintain when all we use it for is a simple database of students.

[rhyds]

Bromcom is good, we use the electronic registration, emarkbook and ebehaviour aspects here. The "folders" (PDA units for registration) are pretty robust and solid, it can integrate with SIMS, but it isn't 100%.

[snowmonkey]

I used to work in a school that used Pearson e1. Having just started a new Data Manager job in a new school that uses SIMS I can now compare the two and if it were up to me I would choose SIMS. Its just far better and far quicker to acheive simple tasks. With e1 we had to have lots of Access Databases for functions that e1 simply couldnt perform, we also had to keep running an old copy of Phoenix Gold just so that we could perform the staff absence and cover because the way it works in e1 is too labour intensive. In fact I would say that is the main problem with e1, its far too labour intensive in every way. You feel like you are going 'around the houses' so to speak to perform very simple tasks, such as changing teaching sets, timetables etc, it all takes a lot more time than it should. Also the support staff, whilst very freindly come across as not having a clue about how to solve any of the problems and always have to call you back. From what little time i've spent using SIMS so far it appears to not suffer from these problems, whether there are other problems I havent faced yet only time will tell, but my advice is steer well clear of e1.

[stevemac]

I used to work in a school that used Pearson e1. Having just started a new Data Manager job in a new school that uses SIMS I can now compare the two and if it were up to me I would choose SIMS. Its just far better and far quicker to acheive simple tasks. With e1 we had to have lots of Access Databases for functions that e1 simply couldnt perform, we also had to keep running an old copy of Phoenix Gold just so that we could perform the staff absence and cover because the way it works in e1 is too labour intensive. In fact I would say that is the main problem with e1, its far too labour intensive in every way. You feel like you are going 'around the houses' so to speak to perform very simple tasks, such as changing teaching sets, timetables etc, it all takes a lot more time than it should. Also the support staff, whilst very freindly come across as not having a clue about how to solve any of the problems and always have to call you back. From what little time i've spent using SIMS so far it appears to not suffer from these problems, whether there are other problems I havent faced yet only time will tell, but my advice is steer well clear of e1.

 

That's interesting, because the salesman seemed to know very little about the system and spent a lot of time just clicking lots of links to achieve simple things. I was interested in it because of the online method which seems the way of all things now. I will look at SIMS tomorrow and will ask for a demo of Bromcom. I liked the idea of the "Teacher portal" in Hebron as it is a lot less confusing for the users, ie teachers;) Schoolbase is also on my list.

[ahuxham]

We use Facility, and ePortal, same thing really but different backends, provided by Serco.

 

We use it all, lesson registration, behaviour management, auto-mated timetabling, auto-mated covering, reporting. The whole lot and it runs effortlessly

[ESXi_2008]

SIMs think twice or million times b4 going to SIMs. My current school we are using SIMs and its pain from updating to upgrating. If you want i am more than happy to show you SIMs.

[tmcd35]

My NM here looked at Serco and complained that there'll be too much to do in house in terms of writing SQL queries to get at the data. @ahuxham - have you found this to be a problem?

 

Also, I don't know about the OP, but I'd be interested to hear people thoughts on VLE integration and how that may effect the decision of which MIS to use. Cheers.

[snowmonkey]

That's interesting, because the salesman seemed to know very little about the system and spent a lot of time just clicking lots of links to achieve simple things. I was interested in it because of the online method which seems the way of all things now. I will look at SIMS tomorrow and will ask for a demo of Bromcom. I liked the idea of the "Teacher portal" in Hebron as it is a lot less confusing for the users, ie teachers;) Schoolbase is also on my list.

 

To be honest in the 3 years we used e1 the online aspect made absolutely no difference. In fact it probably had a negative impact, for example, importing and exporting CTF files, you have to upload and download them and they do it in cycles so when you upload a CTF into e1 you have to wait til the next 'cycle' for the file to be imported, the usual cycle time is about 5 mins but on occasion was (a lot) longer and sometimes you can have imported the CTF only for the pupil(s) to not appear in any year group despite the file having imported successfully!?! Also when your internet connection goes down thats it, you cant do anything!

 

They sell you the online aspect with tales of teachers being able to register students away on trips etc but some teachers couldnt register classes in the school building so they arent likely to do it on a mountainside either!

[stevemac]

We use Facility, and ePortal, same thing really but different backends, provided by Serco.

 

We use it all, lesson registration, behaviour management, auto-mated timetabling, auto-mated covering, reporting. The whole lot and it runs effortlessly

 

Cheers, I have just contacted Serco for a demo!

[stevemac]

Also, I don't know about the OP, but I'd be interested to hear people thoughts on VLE integration and how that may effect the decision of which MIS to use. Cheers.

 

My HM is very keen on intergrating the VLE with the MIS. But we may just drop a basic one into our website.

[stevemac]

but some teachers couldnt register classes in the school building so they arent likely to do it on a mountainside either!

 

Ahhh you've met some of our teachers:D

[Michael]

I use and manage networks running both SIMS and CMIS. They both have their pros and cons and it's difficult to say which is the better out the two. SIMS without a doubt is brighter and more colourful, but is a lot heavier on system resources.

 

The future for MIS is definitely online. It's beginning to be used across classrooms and not just administrative staff for various purposes, so central management becomes more important. It also means anything from a 486 66MHz upwards could be used as the bulk of the processing is done server side.

[Psymon]

We currently use iSAMS. Installed last year but didnt go live due to an issue with the Agents module, Then went live this year and its a pretty good system.

 

iSAMS i think.

 

Si

[stevemac]

We currently use iSAMS. Installed last year but didnt go live due to an issue with the Agents module, Then went live this year and its a pretty good system.

 

iSAMS i think.

 

Si

 

I thought that was a catfood! I will take a look, cheers

[michael2k6]

Hi all,

 

Mic here from Serco. I'm biased because i've only ever used Facility and ePortal in a school environment and now i work for Serco! But i can testify that i didn't come across anything i needed that wasn't available. I now work in the technical team at Serco, doing installations, server management and consultancies, etc. I also know the software well from working as Data Manager at a large secondary school and working in second line support at Serco. You shouldn't need to write any sql to access any data, in fact, we greatly discourage it. There is a report module, as you'd expect. The system comes with a set of default reports, we share reports on out forums and you can also build your own. If you're looking for the really complicated stuff we offer training courses on this.

 

I'd also like to mention we have a Learning Platform called Skillspace. This integrates with ePortal for things like login, timetables, etc. It is hosted away from your school site by us. I'm sure the person delivering your demo will be able to tell you more but if you have any questions, especially technical ones, feel free to fire away.

 

Hope that wasn't too much of a sales pitch for you! I'm just genuinly personally confident in the software and would of recommended it before i worked for Serco, speaking as a Data Manager.

[kxv2020]

My favourite MIS is Sims.net - having using CMIS I know which one I, and admin staff prefer - it is just far easier to achieve things that you one like reports, tracking etc.

[HodgeHi]

I have used a little of both of SIMS.net and CMIS.

 

Now i am nowhere near an advanced user, maybe i can give a novice user POV.

 

The good thing about CMIS is the Eportal. It is web-based and this therefore allows a bit more flexibility i think, but i only used it in IE so not sure if it is compatible with other browsers. But as far as i know SIMS does not have an online option at all. Someone correct me?

 

The downside i found with CMIS is that entering data could be a pain. If you entered data in one way and ran a report to get the data but went in a different method. The report would be right but the data wouldn't be there as you didn't access the correct location for the data, if you get my drift. SIMS on the other hand seems relatively easy to create reports on and extract data. I managed to do it and had never used it before. So can't be too hard. I just wished they introduced more flexibility. I don't need an entire client on each classroom system just to tick a few boxes for a virtual register.

[kxv2020]

I have used a little of both of SIMS.net and CMIS.

 

Now i am nowhere near an advanced user, maybe i can give a novice user POV.

 

The good thing about CMIS is the Eportal. It is web-based and this therefore allows a bit more flexibility i think, but i only used it in IE so not sure if it is compatible with other browsers. But as far as i know SIMS does not have an online option at all. Someone correct me?

 

The downside i found with CMIS is that entering data could be a pain. If you entered data in one way and ran a report to get the data but went in a different method. The report would be right but the data wouldn't be there as you didn't access the correct location for the data, if you get my drift. SIMS on the other hand seems relatively easy to create reports on and extract data. I managed to do it and had never used it before. So can't be too hard. I just wished they introduced more flexibility. I don't need an entire client on each classroom system just to tick a few boxes for a virtual register.

 

Sims does have an online option called the Sims Learning Gateway.

[HodgeHi]

How much is the sims learning gateway?

 

A browser-based connection should be standard really.

 

Is it not just a form that then writes the data into the right tables using an SQL statement when you click send with a page that tells of the success or not?

 

[Tiger]

I know Phoenix E1 is recommended by the LEA. My current school nearly went live with E1 3 times, we are now on Bromcom. My next school have said 'they are not comfortable with E1' but it remains an option. Bromcom look good from here, good support, good system, well designed. But may or may not be right for my next school (open minded).

 

I hear Bromcom core modules are all browser based - is this true? What is the true impact in practical terms for the software being all browser? No regrets going for all browser software? Is the software on school's servers or hosted elsewhere? How is the performance?

 

Why did you ditch E1???

3 times???

[tmcd35]

From what I understand each time we evaluated E1 we found something wrong, something unusable or harder than it was in Gold. Each time we walked away with promises of improvements and each time we went back and either t wasn't fixed or we found something else not right.

 

Unfortunately I was not involved with the evaluation or the set up of the MIS so all the above is second hand info I'm afraid. I'm certainly open to evaluating E1 for my new school who are in a very different position regarding their needs and starting point for a new MIS.

 

As from Bromcom, yes it is all web based. From what I've seen it is very well designed and laid out. Our admin staff positively rave offer it. The class room registration works extremely well. I certainly like the fact it's all browser based. No need to install clients on every terminal. It's hosted in school. The only real performance issue we have seems to stem from the fact that we installed it on a Virtual Machine. There appears to be an incompatibility between MS-SQL and VM-Ware ESX. We are purchasing a new dedicated server and moving it across over half term.