It’s often believed that changing MIS is a long, arduous process that requires mountains of time and effort. The idea of switching is touted apologetically or whispered just in case it might be taken seriously. How did our common assumptions get so far from reality?
In truth, changing MIS is actually very straightforward. Let’s breakdown the key elements and debunk a few myths along the way.
Migrating Data
Your school is likely to have several years of data in your existing MIS and no doubt you’ll want to keep a significant amount of that in your new system. Migrating years of data is a cinch and can even be performed automatically through our portal. Five years’ worth? Seven years’ worth? Take your pick and migrate whatever is appropriate for your school.
We recommend having a test migration early in the process so staff can train on your own data, ensuring everything is familiar and relevant. There’s no ‘Joe Bloggs’ here! Furthermore, it means we can identify any problems with your existing data, giving you a chance to fix them prior to the final migration.
Training
The nature of Bromcom’s One-Stop-Shop approach means that you’re likely to be bringing a lot of functionality back into the MIS rather than having umpteen different tools that need to be kept up to date. Staff will need to have some training on this but it’s probably far less than you think. We start off with some general training to get people up to speed and then provide some more specialised training to those that need it. All this can be done in online live sessions or simply watched catchup style, at their own convenience.
The vast majority of schools will have a significant number of ‘light touch users’ such as Teachers and support staff, who have everything they need on their class dashboard. In some schools, admin staff have merely handed teachers training logins and let them have a quick play with the system. When they’ve followed up with basic training, teachers had already gotten to grips with things and it was just a case of demonstrating some handy tips and tricks.
When it comes to the handful of power users, they are the ones that will feel the change the most. Yes, it may be daunting to take on a new system but they also stand to reap the most benefits. This could be reducing admin burden through the fully fledged parent portal, wraparound care and payment system. There’s the advanced dashboards offering insights that would take hours to piece together previously, or the automated alerts that bring information to your attention rather than having to waste time hunting for it.
The training programme will be tailored to each school, ensuring that everyone is accounted for. It doesn’t have to be a huge burden; dare I say it can even be fun on occasion!
Go Live
It’s time to switch! Once everyone has gotten to grips with the training system you can gear up for the Go Live day. This is when you make the final switch from your old system, and we do one more migration on your behalf to ensure everything is up to date.
Support throughout
Through every step of the journey, you’ll have someone at Bromcom managing the process for you. Our support team are in place to ensure a smooth transition and continued guidance throughout your time with our MIS. Both the online chat functionality and calls can be set up to ensure you maximise the capabilities of the system and are not left feeling abandoned or lost with new dashboards. As part of the Bromcommunity, we’ve got your back.
For you visual learners out there, we have put together a couple of short videos for Primary and Secondary transition respectively. Find out just how straightforward the migration process can be and consolidate all of those existing disparate systems into one centralised hub.
Primary Onboarding
Secondary Onboarding
