Alma SIS

Glad we're using Alma

Vorteile:

Unlike other SIS's, Alma actually looks and feels like it was made in the 2010's. The system is solid, and has essentially every feature a smaller school like ours would want (and many more that we don't need to use). The gradebook is excellent, and it's easy to transfer classes and students from year-to-year. Their customer service has been great (we accidentally deleted multiple report cards in different places the other day and they quickly and helpfully solved our issue by restoring to a backup), and they are continually adding features and improving the platform. And the cost has been at least 50% less than quotes we were getting from major competitors. Many reasons to switch to Alma.

Nachteile:

The latest transcripts update was helpful - there are still a couple of features we'd like on the transcripts front, but that's mostly because our school has a unique curriculum. This is totally just a personal preference, but I'd also like to be able to search for classes in the search feature in addition to contacts.

Alma has been transformational

Kommentare: Incredible. I was astounded by the amount of support I have received from Alma in setting up, using, and expanding our use of the programs. They meet the needs of our school and help us learn how we can use Alma to its full potential. The customer service team is dedicated to making sure that we are getting the most out of our investment. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with Alma.

Vorteile:

We switched to Alma from PowerSchool and it has made a major difference. Alma was able to be set up to match the needs of our school, as opposed to other SIS that we had to work to match their set up. The support from the Alma implementation and customer service teams is unmatched.

Nachteile:

There is little to say in the negative about Alma. Whenever there has been an issue, the customer service team makes a note of it and tracks it as a feedback ticket. I have seen these get passed to their developers and new features have grown out of those. Alma takes their customers' needs seriously and works to create a great product.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen: MySchool und Infinite Campus SIS

Warum Alma SIS gewählt wurde: PowerSchool customer service was terrible. It was a poorly designed product. It did not meet the needs of our school.

Zuvor genutzte Software: PowerSchool SIS und Schoology

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Alma SIS: One of the major reasons we chose Alma was the Alma Start feature, along with the pricing. Once we got into using it, it was clear we had made the right choice.

Not for High Schools

Vorteile:

Honestly tough to answer. It’s nice as a club sponsor to be able to email whole groups of students (not just those in my classes).

Nachteile:

Basically every single function/aspect is worse than Infinite Campus. Entering grades, making/changing seating charts, printing roster spreadsheets are all more difficult and time consuming than IC. This program is not suited for secondary schools.

Best SIS I have used

Vorteile:

Alma is so easy to build out and use. They get more and more features every year.....For example, we can now import new student information, and easily run all of our NYS reports. It's really amazing how comprehensive yet seemingly simple Alma is at each user level. I think that because it's on the newer end of student information systems, the interface is just simpler...they don't need to account for decades' worth of data that was entered in a certain way years and years ago.

Nachteile:

The recently changed their customer support to a tiered system, making it more difficult to get answers quickly. That said, the system is simple enough that questions don't come up all that often. Also, they are building out their SFTP capacity, but I wish it could communicate directly with our lottery/enrollment system.

Alma Software Review (SBG school)

Kommentare: Support has been very helpful, typically it seems we have questions that either haven't been asked before or are not implemented yet. Faculty/staff is able to access the reports tab which helps them track students and contacts quickly and has access to student records and class schedules.

Vorteile:

Alma is easier than our former software and allows us to use our Standards Based Grading which is our priority. Parents were able to quickly learn how to use the system and the attendance feature is great. Students were also able to learn the system and although it doesn't have a comprehensive calendar with their schedules and our school activities, they were able to use the daily tab to track their classes.

Nachteile:

The calendar is static and unable to be exported to phones/other calendars so we had to create an app for that. The reports are not as in-depth as needed and we aren't able to save our filters/criteria that we use often. They are still working on SBG reporting so many items we aren't able to track as we typically do through reports. The report card set up is limited for what we need in our report cards; we had to use every work-around to get a report card as we needed, but they do work now.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen: PraxiSchool und Schoology

Warum Alma SIS gewählt wurde: K-12 was trying to start Standards Based Grading but didn't meet our deadline.

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Alma SIS: It has what we needed for Standard Based Grading both in assignments and report cards for tracking.