One of the most important things to consider when switching MIS is at what point during the school year you should move. While there’s no bad time to move to a new system, some windows are better than others to ensure a stress-free move.
It’s worth noting here that most schools can’t actually choose when they switch MIS. They have to wait until their contract ends, or else they may have to pay the rest of their contract upfront to get out of it early, or they might have to keep paying until the contract ends and get stuck with two systems at once. Luckily, our Buy Back scheme is allowing schools with ESS SIMS to leave their contracts early without having to pay for their old system. You can find out more about the scheme here.
In this blog, we’ll explore how long switching usually takes and when the optimal times to switch MIS are.
How long does switching take?
You should take your time when choosing and moving to a new MIS to ensure you find the right system for you. In total, we advise schools to expect a six-month timeframe for switching MIS – this includes reviewing your options, giving notice to your current MIS provider that you’re switching, and the onboarding process for your new provider. Let’s go through some of these milestones in a bit more detail:
- Find a new MIS: It usually takes around four weeks to explore different providers and their offerings. As well as attending their demos and reviewing their content to see if it’s a good fit for you, we recommend you speak to local schools using it to see what they think – they might even show you what it looks like in action.
- Give in your notice: Lots of MIS providers require 90 days’ notice (this includes ESS, Arbor, ScholarPack, and RM Integris) so make sure that once you have a target go-live date that you give in your notice on time or this could delay switching.
- Onboarding with your new provider: The length of your onboarding process will depend on the provider you’re switching to, the provider you’re switching from, your establishment type, and how large the data migration project will be. The average rollout of our MIS from the first onboarding discovery call is seven to nine weeks. You can learn more about how long it may take your school to switch later in this blog.
How long does it take to switch to Bromcom?
Here are just a few examples (with timescale estimates) of how long it might take your school to switch from different MIS providers.
If you’re a primary school with SIMS, it usually takes four to six weeks to switch, or if you’re a secondary school with SIMS, it takes around six to 12 weeks.
If you’re with Arbor, you can expect switching to take at least eight weeks. This is because migrating from Arbor is a longer process than from other providers and takes approximately two weeks. This includes you requesting a copy of your school’s data which they will provide within five working days. We will then migrate the data to our MIS for you.
If you’re with RM Integris, like Arbor it will probably take a minimum of eight weeks to switch. You will have to run the migration yourself through our migration portal.
When are the optimal times to switch MIS?
To choose a good time to switch, opt for times during the school year which are less busy and when there is plenty of time for staff to do with their training. That being said, although there are ideal times to switch, we can accommodate any go-live date.
Here are some of the best times to switch MIS:
- After October half-term (to go live in February)
- After February half-term (to go live in May)
- After May half-term (to go live in September or October)
Interested in switching to Bromcom?
Primary schools, secondary schools, LAs, MATs, SEND schools, and all-through schools across the UK use and love our MIS. To find out more about our MIS and the switching process, book a discovery call with our team.
