Over the COVID lockdown Bromcom released a new service that will be of interest to local support units (LSUs) and MATs everywhere.
Vision-X is a service that unifies the data held in pupil databases across your MAT. As such, it’s not the first product that claims to simplify the aggregation of data from school to MAT level – but Vision-X unifies not just Bromcom data but SIMS, Arbor, iSAMS, RM Integris and Scholarpack too.
Bromcom uses Vision-X to supply data for their MAT Vision product. In turn, MAT Vision uses Power BI. But the same technology also allows MATs and LSUs to create their own Power BI analysis across multiple schools running different pupil MIS systems. Security is built-in and can be used to configure access by location and role.
The key selling point for this service is price: it’s free, at least until 2023. After that it’s notionally £3kpa with an extra 50 pence per pupil to add.
I haven’t used it as of Autumn 2020, but implementation sounds straightforward with a software agent handling all the data aggregation on each school MIS server and an OData feed provided for the Power BI integration.
The service then presents a unified interface to Power BI, which you can use to build your own reports, knowing that those reports will work across all your schools and with any mix of pupil databases – RM Integris, Bromcom, SIMS, Arbor and iSAMS are all supported.
Attendance, behaviour, statutory assessments, pupil demographics and staff absence are all available to Power BI for analysis.
A final important point to note is that the bespoke reports you create using Power BI can be incorporated into the MAT Vision Power BI viewer. The advantage here is that users can access your Power BI reports without needing to pay for a Power BI Pro license.
Bromcom are clearly keen to lead the market with interoperability like this, and with other MIS suppliers only offering proprietary Power BI feeds (e.g. Arbor) Bromcom are the first company to market this kind of service.
For more information about Bromcom X-Vision email enquiries@bromcom.com. If you would like my advice on building your own Power BI reports email me directly david@schoolanalytics.co.uk.
Bromcom have also released this video about Vision-X:
