If you’ve been with the same MIS provider for years – or, in some cases, decades – switching to a new MIS might sound like a risky move that takes a lot of time and energy, puts your tight budget under even more strain, and causes unnecessary stress for you and your staff.
But in the last few years thousands of schools have been switching to cloud MIS like Bromcom and reaping the benefits of a cloud-based system including significant time and cost savings and enhanced MIS functionality. With so many established cloud MIS providers to choose from, finding the right one for your school, trust, or local authority and switching has never been easier.
In this blog, I’ll go through some of the worries you might have about switching MIS, and why you don’t need to be concerned about them.
Your new MIS might be harder to use than the previous one
Given how heavily schools and trusts rely on their MIS for critical responsibilities like safeguarding and attendance, having a system that users are familiar with is essential so they can accurately and efficiently carry out important processes. Even if you currently hate your legacy MIS, the fact is you still know how to use it.
Having a system you’re comfortable with is particularly important to the users who might struggle with modern technology and may think a new system could be tricky for them to understand, navigate, and use.
Here at Bromcom, we pride ourselves on having a highly intuitive, easy-to-use MIS. While new users will of course have to learn how to use it, we offer diverse training resources including quick online courses, group training sessions, and on-site training to bring your team up to speed. We also offer plenty of support you can quickly access whenever you need it, whether you give one of the experts on our support desk a ring or post a question on BromCommunity for our team and other Bromcom users to answer.
You’re worried about migrating MIS data from SIMS
For schools with SIMS, migrating data has been a particularly big concern due to ESS’ recent claims that schools that migrate with SQL backups of their database are breaching their contract and therefore may be at risk of legal action.
However, this shouldn’t be a concern for SIMS schools anymore: we recently launched Migration-X, our new migration solution for schools with SIMS. Migration-X is a portal that uses ESS’ Report Generator and APIs to automate the extraction of data from SIMS. The portal only uses ESS’ suggested methods for extracting data from SIMS, enabling schools to switch with the confidence that they are not in breach of their contract. A SQL backup migration remains the gold standard, but Migration-X overcomes the key challenge schools face when they do not have SIMS SQL backups in their possession. You can learn more about Migration-X here.
You don’t have the resources required for switching
Switching MIS is a significant change that does require some time and effort to both find a new MIS and then implement it. But our switching process makes moving to Bromcom simple. We closely support our customers through each step of the switching process from helping them prepare their data for migration to the date their system goes live.
Some schools have also shared with us that they’re concerned about potential ‘rebellion’ from already burnt-out staff that will need to undergo training on their new MIS on top of their heavy workloads. While training is required and new habits will have to be learned, when you actually start using our system it will .
“As someone in finance, using MCAS for payments has been a game-changer. It saved me a day each week in handling and banking funds. No more dealing with cash and paying extra fees. It’s efficient and cost-effective!” – School Business Manager and Exams & Data Officer, Melton Vale Sixth Form College
So, doing a short online course on our training website will be far outweighed by the huge time savings our MIS can unlock for them later down the line.
Your current MIS is cost-effective and you don’t want to pay more for a new system
If you take your third-party apps out of the picture, your current MIS might look pretty cheap compared to the other cloud-based systems available. But the latter tend to contain far more functionality, meaning you don’t need all your expensive add-ons.
Take our One-Stop Shop MIS: it provides you with all the capabilities you need in one system so it will probably work out as cheaper than your current system and third-party apps collectively. That being said, you don’t need to ditch your third-party apps if you switch to Bromcom. Our MIS integrates with a number of systems, enabling you to have all the capabilities you want.
Switching MIS is not a risk – it’s an opportunity
Over 4000 schools have already chosen Bromcom, so you can be confident you’re in safe hands. To learn more about switching to Bromcom and how it could benefit your school, book a discovery call with our team.
