deshills

Hi there. We (Harris Federation) use Bromcom in 49 schools and Arbor in 2 schools and would be very happy to have a chat about them and offer some advice if needed

Sorry my point about the “primary is Arbor and secondary is Bromcom” is more of a general observation of what I hear, as opposed to you saying it directly. Your comment was “specifically secondary” which triggered my comment. I actually think bromcom is really strong in Primary as well and has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years on primary tracking and assessment. Completely agree on your last point, I’d very much like to see SIMS dominance diminish further and a more healthy and competitive spread among the field. Will be interesting to see how the new players in the market perform, although I fear it might be too crowded at the moment for new entrants

I’m not sure their longevity has anything to do with it, SIMS pre-dates the Internet and hasn’t moved with the times. I don’t agree with this perception that Arbor is only good for Primary and Bromcom Secondary, they are both MIS systems and there is little difference between both phases in terms of their MIS requirements. I think there are subtle difference between the two, when it comes to the systems core offering. Where i think Bromcom has the edge is it has a very sophisticated behaviour system which works very well, and I would say is industry leading (interesting to know others views on that) and the flexibility of the assessment module is the clearest distinction between the two at the minute.

Agree, both are very strong and streets ahead of SIMS. We use both and I’d put Bromcom ahead of them at the moment as a system on the whole, but the benefits of having two good solutions, constantly striving to improve, can only be of benefit to us as consumers.

I have had a play with the new system and done a short review on what things are good and what things are missing if anyone is interested (https://tinyurl.com/wo7rnvu). Would be keen to know what others think? I think it's a good time for customers to have a real say in how this new system turns out to deliver something that works for us all!

Absolutely. Guess it depends firstly on what phase of education you are looking at. I had a really good look around Arbor recently which looked really good, and i have heard really good things about that system, particularly from Primary colleagues. Scholarpack also has a very good reputation in Primary sector. We (Harris Federation) use Bromcom across all 48 schools across all phases and i have been (as you might have seen on here and elsewhere) a big advocate of theirs for a while. Its a really good, modern solution for Primary and Secondaries, but is evolving (feel free to read this - https://lnkd.in/dwyJPC6), so gets better as the demand changes in the market. Also because of integrated bits we and other MATS have pushed for, its not heavily reliant on 3rd parties (something i really dislike, i think money should be spent on T&L not on tech) but i know others disagree on that and thats a good debate to have. Would be very happy to invite you in for a demo of the good (and admittedly some bad!) bits. If you wanted to chat to someone about the others too (as i don't have direct user experience of them) i can put you in touch with some people?

I think you make a really good point here, it was renowned for "doing the job" when i first started this job 10 years ago. I find it interesting more people don't comment on the fact that it only works because it relies on so many other 3rd party solution to make it viable! There are some really good next gen MIS out there that do the job now without the need for the extra faff/risk/cost of the 3rd parties! - - - Updated - - - I think you make a really good point here, it was renowned for "doing the job" when i first started this job 10 years ago. I find it interesting more people don't comment on the fact that it only works because it relies on so many other 3rd party solution to make it viable! There are some really good next gen MIS out there that do the job now without the need for the extra faff/risk/cost of the 3rd parties!

This blog by Joshua Perry is worth a read (as are all of his) - Bring more data: MIS MARKET MOVES 2019: the challengers are slowly but steadily catching up - you can see all the stats here.

Always thought that they should have concentrated on CMIS - it was a fab MIS in my view, but many years ago they mistakenly admitted to us that CMIS was not going to be invested in and run into the ground, so we also decided to move and chose Bromcom. We haven't looked back since and has transformed how we do things here! I think the comment above about people choosing SIMS because they are comfortable with it is so accurate yet so sad, there are so many better and more efficient products out there that are not only better in their core functionality, but from a cost perspective.

haha @elJukes - always happy to help out where we can aren't we. In regards to the comments about resistant to change - you do find that, especially when people are so familiar with using a particular system. I think people equate change to a risk to peoples jobs, but that is simply not the case.I would echo Sam's point that getting a test database and having a play with it is a great idea. In my last job, we involved DMs in the procurement process so they felt part of the journey and bought into it alot more. I don't think we (as a community spending public money) can continuing paying for expensive and outdated systems simply because we are fearful of change, its our responsibility to choose a cost effective, efficient and sustainable product.

Hi @sluggster66 You would be very welcome to come over to our Head Office in Loughborough, or to one of our schools and we'll give you a run through the system

I think i have stated this a few times on here, and i'm very happy to be honest! Bromcom basic reporting needs improving, it isn't great and definitely isn't intuitive enough. I raised this with them sometime ago and to their credit, they launched ARB (which is a 3rd party report builder) and Power BI - which has been a fantastic addition. Seating plans are a bit clunky and a bit of development needs to go into Homework and Parents evening booking systems. The timetable software is effective but could be a bit 'smarter'. What is good about Bromcom - its just a really well rounded product, that has listened to the feedback from users to constantly improve itself to meet their needs. Its very easy to pick up, teachers can use it with 10 minutes training. Automation is a big plus, so there is potential for so much time/cost saving in admin functions. Communication with parents has always been easy, but it has got better with the MCAS app. Being able to view all your MAT data as one is a game changer for us (MAT Vision). Having used SIMS and CMIS extensively in the past, i think it is an infinitely better product that them both. Last thing i would say is the maintenance, the upgrades for SIMS and CMIS were hard work for our IT teams, and mostly they were riddled with bugs, but having all of the upgrades (high quality) done for you is a definite benefit of the cloud!

Have to echo much of what has been said above, especially Ed's comments. Bromcom's biggest selling point is the migration, it is seamless and no work for the school. I implemented Bromcom at Harris (at the time 40 schools in 6 weeks) and now have Bromcom at my new Trust (DRET) and can honestly say its a game changer - especially with the extra bits that integrate so well - power Bi for example. Best tip you will see on here is Ed's - standarise all of your nomenclature when you are moving MIS - it will change how you work!

Hi @matt40k Licensing isnt my thing, thats the response i got. Happy to exchange emails with our IT guys and yourself, or you could email [email protected] as it was them and our IT that have set this up. My job is to use the end product only (thankfully!)

Hiya, i had to check this as i don't deal with MS side of things!. Do you have an “Office 365 A5 licence”. If you don't, you can purchase a single Office 365 A5 licence and associate this licence with a service account. This can then be configured to use within the MIS. I forgot to ask, but assume you need one pro license for the development of the dashboards. Happy to pass on your details to our IT bods if that helps?

We're in the process of launching Power BI into our schools (we are using this in our MAT already) but because it is integrated into the MIS directly, there is only a requirement to have 1 license per school, so there is a significant saving to be had there! I think using Power BI in conjunction with your MIS, and better still built in to the MIS, is a potential game changer for the way schools access. present and more importantly, use their data!

Hi i have seen on the thread that someone has mentioned that we at Harris use Bromcom and indeed we do, across all 47 schools and have been doing so since 2016. We have found there to be a number of benefits, most around cost saving (most of your typical 3rd party apps are integrated) and physical costs (licenses, servers etc). Despite the saving, we have not seen any drop in output, infact, Bromcom has a number of efficiencies built into it that allow our admin teams in particular to automate much of the menial tasks they were stuck with in SIMS/CMIS. Now they can just concentrate on the core purpose of their job. For example, attendance reports are automated, so attendance officers can concentrate on supporting students and families with poor attendance rather than running reports all day. Maybe a minor example but it makes a big difference. The game changer for us now as a central data team is having all of the schools data collectively in one place - MAT Vision. We can access data faster and smarter than ever before and can identify individual students with a few clicks. All MIS's have their issues, and Bromcom is no exception, but pound for pound i think that it is the best on the market at the moment (for Primary/Secondary schools). Heard some good things about ScholarPack at Primary, but i dont have any practical experience of this other than hearsay. Hope thats of some use.

Me and @RootsSchImp working on this at the minute, once we have perfected, happy to share with you?

Really interesting post with some great points. I personally see BI as being more of an overview tool for senior leaders, but would also potentially be used as a tool for class teachers to use as part of their assessment analysis. How this will work out, i guess only time will tell but we're working on it! With GDPR, we've become a lot more conscious about having lots of sensitive data being moved around un-monitored in Excel. I think BI (be that Power BI/Tableau) could be a possible 'solution' to this. I also like the fact that it takes alot of the difficulty out of the calculations, so you can be a little bit more reassured that the data and the filters work (depending on your Power BI skills i guess!) Your point on time lag is spot on, and this is something we have to be conscious, because BI data isn't typically live, ours is on a 60 minute refresh, so if you are using for assessments, i dont think that is an issue, if you are using for daily monitoring of attendance/behaviour, then there is potential for this to be an issue, and you're absolutely right, MIS providers need to make sure that access to this data (actionable data and not sheets of static numbers!) needs to contained within the MIS itself. So in my opinion, for assessment analysis, KPI/contextual data for senior teams and looking at aggregated data for MATs its potentially a winner, for day to day monitoring of students, i agree with you this is for the MIS!

Hi themightymrp We've (Harris Federation) have just started getting into developing this now and happy to share with you some of the stuff we are doing, and are looking to do over the next few weeks and months. (Which will include integrations into Finance, HR, online National stats etc) I think bromcom would agree that the demand for this, and much of the requirements (the oData feed e.g.) came from us, as we felt having a tool like Power BI (or it could have been Tableau i guess) integrated with our MIS was the next step for us in how we analyse data across the MAT. (and not linked to a limited reporting system as previously) I see this tool being very useful for MATs as it gives quick access to multiple schools and the dashboards you can create in BI are very good. At school level, i think it will have value, but we need to be careful to make sure that we are using data effectively, and not just for the sake of it. I read somewhere on here about content packs, if that is something that people want to look at collectively, i am happy to help with that where possible.

I'd also be interested to hear how AET got on, that must have been a massive job! We (2 of us) migrated 40 schools in 8 weeks, and that was tough. Thanksfully the migration process to Bromcom is a doddle, and without doubt the best aspect of the migration process. Training was ok, but could have been better (we found we had to redo this) but the follow up support was very good to be fair. I worked with them about 3 years ago, think i spent 3 or 4 days up on Derby. Was a fascinating insight and one that was really useful to me. I've heard really good things about Scholarpack (at Primary) but haven't had the chance to look in any great detail. You should have a look at Bromcom (i am not on commission - although i should be!) as you will be surprised how good it is. Their reporting isn't as good as CMIS (which i still say was the best of the non cloud MIS) but they are getting there with some help for us and their other big customers. Their biggest strength is their willingness to adapt the system for changes that will benefit all.

Obviously just my opinion! but I had a number of issues with it. Bearing in mind we were looking to migrate 40 odd schools, the migration process was poor, (i believe i was told at the time it was easier to migrate from SIMS to Progresso than from CMIS to Progresso??) and the thought of having to rebuild each instance of Progresso manually (as opposed to one master version) with full assessment set up, reports etc would have been a nightmare (human error etc). For me though, the worst aspect was their unwillingness to embrace feedback/suggestions aimed at helping them a better service provider. They (in my opinion) genuinely thought they understood what schools wanted better than the schools themselves. I also found that their core group of customers we got to know, were never really happy with the product, and the things they were pleased with, seemed very basic (and that's being polite!) I spent some time working in their offices to get to know the system better, and they were genuinely great people, so i hope that it is a success for them, but at the time they seemed miles off a finished product that was fit for the demands that we (and all schools) have.

I did the numbers on this and because we self host the cloud, and have made lots of other savings elsewhere (licensing costs (our costs were astronomical), 3rd parties, text messaging, self managing 1st line support etc) those are the group savings divided by the number of schools we have. Happy to share in greater detail if you want to discuss directly. We used to use a combination of Facility CMIS and SIMS. We looked extensively at Progresso which in my opinion was a dead duck, and Bromcom tendered (i had never heard of them) and it has been a really positive change for us - irrespective of the cost savings we have made.

Would be interested to see how Progresso quotes compare to Bromcom. SIMS appears to be incredibly expensive by comparison. We have our own cloud so self host Bromcom, which has brought significant savings.

We (Harris Federation) have developed a solution with Bromcom where we have a virtual 6th Form MIS system that draws and aggregates data from 10 sixth form academies. The solution has been a labour of love (on both sides!!) but now we have a really really great solution that has removed all double entry from our MIS solution. I am not sure that this product is being sold in the market at present, but i know that it is in a position to be marketed as we have demonstrated this solution to a number of schools. If you want more details, please contact either myself or Bromcom themselves.