The future of SIMS

[matt40k]

I have seen a few comments about Bromcom MIS which we have been using here for some months now. We chose it over Serco or Sims due to it being a new product, from a relatively small company, that was willing to develop it further in partnership with us

 

I wouldn't say Bromcom was small!! Alot of schools got Bromcom with the grey pads to mark the registers which links into SIMS. I've see a bit of the "new" web based system, we moved away when it was just starting with the web based bits. We move from the grey pads to the windows application, which you had to manually upgrade all the clients. Still at least you wasn't forced to apply the upgrades other then by the staff who wants the new shinny bits.

 

We had a server which Bromcom maintain, support was alright, you phoned them up, they dialed-in (yes, over a 56k modem), if they couldn't fix it (hardware) they visited. Only problem we had was it was all too new, you expected to see the "under construction" page, but that hadn't even been created lol!

 

Overall it was alright, I believe it's leveled out alot now, so support better, and the products alot more mature. Still no where as complete as SIMS tho.

[Pumaedition]

manually upgrade?! no no no! Speak nicely and they can provide an MSI for such occasions.

 

We recently did it with the latest version of eMarkbook (the reporting software) and it worked a treat over GPO.

[matt40k]

manually upgrade?! no no no! Speak nicely and they can provide an MSI for such occasions.

 

We recently did it with the latest version of eMarkbook (the reporting software) and it worked a treat over GPO.

 

This was a wee bit before they started doing that, this was pre-sims .net era

[misquote]

I wouldn't say Bromcom was small!! Alot of schools got Bromcom with the grey pads to mark the registers which links into SIMS. I've see a bit of the "new" web based system, we moved away when it was just starting with the web based bits. We move from the grey pads to the windows application, which you had to manually upgrade all the clients. Still at least you wasn't forced to apply the upgrades other then by the staff who wants the new shinny bits.

 

We had a server which Bromcom maintain, support was alright, you phoned them up, they dialed-in (yes, over a 56k modem), if they couldn't fix it (hardware) they visited. Only problem we had was it was all too new, you expected to see the "under construction" page, but that hadn't even been created lol!

 

Overall it was alright, I believe it's leveled out alot now, so support better, and the products alot more mature. Still no where as complete as SIMS tho.

 

When I said relatively small I was referring to the overall corporate structures of Serco and Capita that have interests in lots of outsourcing projects from TV licensing to rubbish collection.

 

Having had a demo of SIMS we fail to see where we are missing out; quite the contrary!

[matt40k]

Having had a demo of SIMS we fail to see where we are missing out; quite the contrary!

 

The problem with SIMS is some stuff is hidden away or is in the pre .net. If you make a list of all the things SIMS can do etc, all the options it copes with, then you do the same for Bromcom (or such), your SIMS list will be a far bit bigger.

 

I believe Claire Ashton been promoting SIMS, might be worth asking for a demo. This is the lady who sold DigitalBrain, so you know she must be good Still you're prob "locked" into Bromcom, so it's prob not best to start looking at other MIS.

 

If you think that SIMS runs on 22,000 schools, which are primarys, secondarys, middles, post16, nursays, special, independ, blah blah blah, 1-2 week timetables, public\private and all that lovely stuff. Then the killing blow is ONE (formally EMS), which allows the LA access to all that lovely data in SIMS, of course for a "small" fee.

[Tonyoung]

however rather like the Junior Librarian .Net atrocity I'm also having to deal with, I don't like the idea of having a reliance on a wide area networking technology so intermittent by it's very nature.

can you tell me more about the problems with Junior Librarian as it's a product we were considering purchasing next term ?

[synaesthesia]

can you tell me more about the problems with Junior Librarian as it's a product we were considering purchasing next term ?

 

Just started a thread with some of the issues over at the Educational Software forum. On top of the posted issues, the fact it runs on Silverlight, is slower than Lewis Hamilton's current car and of course should you lose internet connection, you've got no hope. I very much dislike it, which is a shame as MLS's support for JL3 was rather very good indeed.