Alma

Vorteile: Alma's ease of use for all stakeholder is top notch. Teachers, parents, students and office personnel can easily navigate through this platform with minimal clicks, all the tools and information you need as a user are right there in front of you. You no longer have to click 4 layers deep to find what you are looking for. Alma also provides an easy way to communicate with all stakeholders. While in the gradebook you can email students and parents, eliminating the need to use a secondary software program. Along with a traditional grading program, Alma provides a true standards/competency based platform. This SIS has grown alongside the change in educational trends, meeting the needs of schools, transitioning their assessment/evaluation practices. Support services for Alma are outstanding. The customer support team is available in the matter of minutes, assisting and answering all questions one might have. The team is extremely knowledgeable, friendly and willing to take an idea you might suggest and make it happen! This support team makes transition/roll over periods stress free!

Nachteile: Alma's reporting section for state reports and other school information reports still needs to develop. As time goes on I believe Alma will continue to make improvements in this area. Reports are currently available in a a basic excel or csv files. These files work for what we need, but I feel this area could develop more in the future.

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.

Kommentare: Our overall experience has been satisfactory. We rarely have the "drama" we dealt with when using our previous software. Keeping up to date more quickly and making changes to make the teacher use more efficient and faster would be of big help.

Vorteile: Our school was first drawn to Alma because it combined a good software to meet student, parent, and teacher needs with great value. Customer service is fantastic. If any of us ask an online question, help is quick.

Nachteile: Alma takes a long time to keep up with the times. For example, we have used it several years, but they just added the ability to enter a score on one student's grade book for a given assignment, and then hit enter, and then an automatic opening to the next student's grade to enter. In effect, it now performs well with a number key pad. Entry was singularly entered one a time which was so slow. In addition, there should be a quicker way to approve report cards. Finally, because we want students to monitory their grades, it would be helpful for them to have their own password access for limited viewing, keeping the parent password private for fuller access.

Vorteile: Alma has been a tremendous upgrade from our previous software. As a faculty and parent, I appreciate the ease of use which Alma brings to our staff and as a parent.

Nachteile: I am sure there are limitations to this software and at this time, it has been small things which our previous system did and our current system does not do. I am sure they will provide a way to get this updated.

Vorteile: I LOVE the customer service. They are always willing to work with us and help us adapt the program to what we need. I love the many different reporting features and how they each have a unique description that helps me find exactly what I need. I also like that I can star the reports I frequently use. I like that I am able to easily fill in grades in the "gradebook" tab, as well as having the opportunity to quickly report final grades at the end of the term. I am also happy with the ease in resetting a password for a user who has forgotten theirs as well as the quick ability to change a username. I appreciate that many users can have access to the same information (meaning a student and both of their parents can have their own accounts but access the same information on their child). I think overall I am mostly impressed with Alma's support team, how quickly and professionally they respond, how they will not let me leave the conversation until they are satisfied that all of my questions have been answered and my concerns resolved, and I love that they are constantly updating, making the website better, and then sending out an email with all of the updates and detailed instructions on how to utilize them.

Nachteile: I feel the website could be slightly more user friendly. There are often times it takes longer than I would like to access the information that I need (a lot of clicking through redundant tabs and not a lot of short cuts). I also wish it was easier for parents to understand the website. I don't like that there is no easy way for a parent to access a student's missing work, instead having to look through each class and assignment to see what has and has not been turned in. I also wish there was a way for us, as administrators and teachers, to see exactly what the parents see. It is hard to give advice and support to a parent when their screen looks different from mine; and I often don't know if they can see everything that I can, like all of the notes and assignment descriptions and what not. Otherwise, I am mostly happy with Alma.