Bromcom BETT Newsletter

W h a t ’s N e w January 2020 Ark, Harris, Oasis, DRET, Leigh, Hamwic, Nova Education and many other small MATs, schools and LAs have chosen Bromcom Cloud MIS.

What benefits do they get from Bromcom Cloud MIS? One-Stop Shop is The Most Comprehensive

It's all about student outcomes Overarching purpose of schools, MATs and LA’s is to maximise potential of their students and provide all they can for their best outcomes. MIS is the heart of these organisations and efficiency, effectiveness and lower costs all helps for this end. Below are highlights of the benefits of Bromcom’s MIS as perceived with a wide range of MATs, LA’s and schools across UK

Scalable MAT-wide Live Reporting

Secondary School

Bromcom is the only MIS with an integrated Power BI avoiding the use of insecure data feed where other MIS’s cannot. This means MAT-wide and within school visualisation of data and analytics is easy, extensive and ‘live’ without delays.

Bromcom’s MIS is feature rich and the most sophisticated to meet even the most demanding secondary school requirements. Hence this is why Bromcom is by far lead secondary school league for cloud MIS.

Bromcom’s One-Stop-Shop is the most comprehensive MIS. An all integrated MIS means less hassle and lower cost. Harris MAT have reported £2.8m savings over the last 3 years from their move the Bromcom.

Outcomes

The above is only a small subset of benefits. Bromcom MIS Users are benefiting from a modern Cloud based MIS. More and more details are enclosed within this letter.

O Why Bromcom is No.1

Choice for Cloud MIS & F The one and only MIS with Power BI Integration

Combine data from all areas of the MIS and produce complex and graphically rich reports using commercial business intelligence software (Power BI) and host these securely within the MIS.

App’s Full Range  Parents  Teacher  Student

The Bromcom system provides purpose built mobile apps for the core users of your MIS. Teachers – Attendance, Assessment, Behaviour and more, in the most convenient and mobile form.

Parents – Communicate directly via push notifications. Empower parents with access to the data so they can review student performance and behaviour. Students – Keep your learners engaged. Review their own activity, keep track of events and work load.

Built in Finance Totally Integrated with Common UI

Bromcom Finance lets you manage your finances with ease. It simplifies usually complex accounts processes, leaving you with more time for your everyday activities and is fully compliant with Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR).

No matter your phase, Bromcom has the MIS for you!

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John Condon - South Region New Business / Agile Coach One Stop Shop, it’s a bit of a cliched term these days but it comes with a lot of benefits and clichés get overused for a reason. The Bromcom Cloud MIS strives to be what we feel all modern MIS should be. Gone is the era when your MIS was just a tool for recording attendance and student data. The market leaders (that are

One-Stop Shop

Finance?

Online Payments

Knocking off the need for yet another 3rd party. Online payment provides a simple system for requesting and accepting credit & debit card payments from parents. Collect payments online for trips, clubs, fees, uniform and more.

Primary Tracker The only MIS with a fully fledged Tracker

Out of the box EYFS, Summative and Formative assessment. Designed for primary schools that are either lacking the time or the expertise to implement a bespoke Assessment model. Quick and easy from collection to reporting.

Multi-Academy/LA Vision The only MIS with a full aggregate database

Multi-Academy Vision is a web based portal, accessible anywhere via a web browser with no need to download or install software. Data flow into Vision is automatic so does not require manual intervention or maintenance. Access levels, however, are fully customisable to ensure specific User Groups only see the data relevant to them.

still developing) are all systems that endeavour to do the best job that they can “all in one place”. It makes sense procedurally, functionally and economically to use as few tools as possible in your day to day operation.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t engage with 3rd parties, we think that if someone else’s tool is perfect for your needs then the MIS shouldn’t stand in the way of that either. It should, if anything, make it easier. You should be given the tools to make your choices easy;

• Save money by using the tools in the MIS • Use simple integration to connect with an existing 3rd party GDPR becomes simpler with a single provider as well, the removal of 3rd party add-ons takes away the additional risk associated with data being shared. Your MIS becomes, as much as possible, the single data processor.

It all boils down to Total Cost of Ownership and you ought to be asking

yourself a few difficult questions.

• Does the quality provided by a 3rd party warrant the additional cost?

• How many of the 30 or so features provided are used, and are those present within the MIS already?

• Is the data security consistent across all of your add-ons?

The one stop shop model minimizes cost, minimizes risk and maximises return on investment.

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MAT

Matt Bramley - Business Development Manager Bromcom built on its MAT success in 2018 by having another strong year in 2019. Our most notable achievement for the year was the introduction of Hamwic Education Trust, consisting of 29 primary schools and one secondary school, thus dispelling the myth that Bromcom is primarily a secondary school product.

One of the main reasons why so many MATs are choosing Bromcom is the ease of centralised reporting. We are the only MIS provider to have fully mastered the security and scalability requirements of MAT-wide reporting. With the rising popularity of Power BI we have been at the forefront of this development, making sure that our MAT Vision system delivers on your needs without having to go through the timely process of manually collecting data from many different sources. Instead the data flows from each school’s MIS into one central data warehouse at intervals set by you.

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Multi Aca

More top performing and la

The Power BI dashboards are embedded into MAT Vision, ensuring there are no public URLs, thus providing MAT leaders with a secure view of your data.

There have been many posts recently on public forums regarding the security and scalability issues that schools and MATs have identified with other MIS systems.

Here at Bromcom, you can be assured that your data is secure and will reach you in a timely manner. Data Managers in multi-academy trusts can spend up to 30% of their time cleansing data that comes separately from schools. By the time that data has been put into a reportable format, the information they are presenting can be up to 6 weeks old!

In Bromcom, if you wish to add another field for reporting purposes you only have to do the job once, elsewhere you can multiply that task by the number of schools in your MAT! Not only are we trailblazers in MATwide reporting, but also we are making great strides in our other One-Stop Shop offerings. In 2019 we launched a brand new version of our primary assessment tracker with many early

adopters commenting on how easy it has been to set up and use. Elsewhere in this newsletter you can read about the many different modules available to you in Bromcom that can replace third party software products, but the primary tracker is our latest and most exciting.

Already we have seen MATs decide to switch away from their legacy tracking systems, saving tens of thousands of pounds in the process, more money that of course can be put to good use in the schools to improve outcomes for young people.

Bromcom is on Crown Services G-Cloud framework and of this feedback any largest MATs procurement process quality and at a low cost.

Any queries on ITTs, please contact me on matt.bramley@bromcom.com or call 020 8290 7171.

On the next page you can read our case study on Oasis Community Learning, a 52 school MAT who have taken full advantage of the synergies available when switching to a unified, cloud-based MIS.

ademy Trusts

argest MATs choose Bromcom MIS than any other.

Case Study

How Bromcom has helped improve learning outcomes at Oasis Community Learning?

Why did you choose Bromcom for your MAT? Before Bromcom we had found it difficult to deal with our previous supplier and had poor support from them. It was too expensive for us and we had different configurations everywhere, there was no standardisation. The trust had lots of third party solutions to plug the gaps in functionality (resulting in an extra cost to schools) and there was variable levels of expertise across academies. The centralised data management was weak and we knew this could be improved by switching to Bromcom.

Oasis Community Learning are one of the largest Multi-Academy Trusts in England.

The trust was established in 2004 with a vision to create “Exceptional Education at the Heart of the Community” and have since grown into a family of 52 academies. Oasis switched to Bromcom in September 2018.

works on range of devices inside and outside of academies. There is no need to use ‘Remote Desktop’ for access and all the updates applied uniformly and centrally.

Bromcom’s broad functionality including: • • • • •

Text messaging service from the system Payment gateway service Homework Parental app Parental dashboard

Bromcom has provided the MAT with a single MIS accessed by all with some delegated control for academies making information easier to access. Previously each academy had an MIS separately administered & users were accessing a local MIS system.

All of these features have created synergy throughout the trust – developing a consistent practice (e.g. Assessment, Behaviour, SEND, MCAS). There has been a central impact on the MIS - driving standards and change and we now have the opportunity to really understand our data. We have streamlined our workload at a local level and can now support Principals in managing compliance risk (with GDPR and consents) Bromcom has enabled collaboration and sharing best practices amongst the trust.

By being a cloud based MIS, Bromcom offers anywhere anytime access and

For more details contact matt.bramley@ bromcom.com or call 020 8290 7171.

In what ways has Bromcom helped Oasis Community Learning and your schools?

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Schools & Academies Bromcom is by far lead secondary school league for cloud MIS.

Autumn 2019 DfE Census stats on Cloud MIS types are as follows: Cloud MIS Suppliers - - - - - -

Bromcom Advanced Learning* Arbor iSAMS RM SMS G2 Others

Number of Schools

179 140 31 18 14 12

*Advanced Learning includes non-cloud MIS.

*

*Advanced Learning includes non-cloud MIS.

Sara Marsh - Head of Customer Relations Bromcom is proud of its reputation for being the name that does it all, having created a fully adaptable product range suitable for primary, secondary or all-through sites alike whether

Case Study One year on with Bromcom Sharing the experience of a group of Fenland and Anglia schools.

6 / S chools & A cademies

they be schools or academies.

Of course, don’t just take our word for it – see what our Users have to say and then come and take a close look under the bonnet to see how Bromcom’s systems could work for you too.

A number of schools in the Fenland area of East Anglia have come together to form a Bromcom cluster group, having all gone live with Cloud MIS One-Stop Shop and Finance early in 2019.

As they approach their first anniversary with Bromcom, we caught up with them to discuss their experiences and reflections.

“People should be more questioning of the processes they follow and the systems they use and whether they make financial sense – if they were then they would see that a move to Bromcom makes so much sense.”

With the introduction of a new MIS, you’re relying on it being used by the full spectrum of staff in school. How did you manage to bring them all on board?

We’d agree that the key to success was the intuitive nature of the software which from the outset felt more accessible than our previous solution. It no longer required lengthy step by step process guides to support its use.

We were surprised at the reaction from the teachers. We did of course drip feed them a little bit in the beginning as they don’t always have time to focus on new things like this, but they got straight into it with no problems at all which is a testimony in itself. They’ve taken to it with dinners, registers and logging behaviour events really well.

Were there any teething problems?

There were some, but surprisingly few considering that a change of MIS and the introduction of a new finance package is such a big change, especially if you do what we all did and go live at the start of a new financial year. I think we’d perhaps all underestimated the scale of change – but that’s not specific to a move to Bromcom, that would have been true of us moving to any new system.

We were also aware that the finance package was a pretty new offering at the time and we would be amongst the first users so inevitably we knew there would be tweaks and changes. Bromcom have really listened and we’ve already seen a number of our suggestions make it into the product. It’s interesting to see how much the software has already moved on from what we first used.

Would you go back to your old system?

Definitely not! Of course when we first changed, a few people moaned in the beginning that it wasn’t exactly the same as the old system – but that’s just a fact of life and people don’t always embrace change! It’s amazing how quickly people forget though. Recently we’ve had to go back into the old system to check something from the last financial year and then it hits you how clunky the old software was. The process was so slow with a series of unnecessary clicks to drill down to what you needed. On Bromcom finance the same process was really easy.

Of course ditching our old system, server costs and expensive support means that

from the smallest school of 90 pupils in our group to 400 pupil primaries and the secondaries, we’re all financially better off too. No, we would definitely not go back – not even the people who moaned in the beginning!

What would you say to a school who had not yet made the move to Bromcom?

Well, through a move to Bromcom we’ve been able to ditch separate logins to a range of individual systems – for example Communications, Online Payments and Behaviour management.

Having a single sign on means ease of use and fully integrated systems, but most importantly considering our current budgets it means substantial financial savings as these separate systems are all part of the Bromcom One Stop Shop solution.

Of course there’s always a group of people who don’t ever question their own processes or the systems they’ve inherited or whether a contract they currently have makes financial sense.

Instead they just continue along with what they have or with what’s always been done. For them, the thoughts of doing something different doesn’t cross their mind and of course ‘change’ is a scary thing. To those people I’d say “Be brave – you can live without your old systems and you can save money”.

With special thanks in particular to: Wendy Whistler – Swavesey Primary Helen Birdsall – Pendragon Community Primary School Janine Prosser – Fen Drayton Primary

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UI/UX

Refreshed Damon Hatcher - Product Owner for Analytics and UI/UX

The modern MIS is a far cry from the basic administration system it originated from.

Functionality has grown organically over time and with it, complexity. Although many users spend their time hopping between a few areas, they are merely dancing at the tip of an iceberg. This presents new challenges, how do we create a user experience that’s intuitive and inspires confidence, yet retains the depth of functionality that one

The most powerful and Comprehensive One-Stop Shop MIS Now has the most elegant UI/UX.

would expect from a modern MIS? Imagine combining the entire Microsoft Office Suite into one application, trying to keep an element of usability and interoperability. This is a major challenge, and not one that can be undertaken lightly.

Bromcom has long been a fully featured product that is highly flexible. However, we decided it was time to step back and see if there was a better way of interacting with the ever-increasing functionality. This year, we’re launching our new user interface along with a whole host of associated functionality that will

make your life easier. Let’s take a look at some of the key changes that will launch our users into the new decade.

To ensure our users have a chance to explore at their own pace, we’ll be providing an option to switch between the current and new interface. This can be done per user so there’s no need to rush the transition. All in all, there’s a lot to be excited about for 2020! As always, we welcome your feedback and queries so feel free to get in touch if you’d like to know more.

Easy to search top menu!

Customisable colour skin with brand colours!

All icons updated!

Personalized detailed display!

Clever grouping on navigation menus that allows you to find information easily!

8 / UI/UX

A card system where everything is listed on a regular basis!

The majority of users will not need to use menus A wide variety of tasks will be extremely easy to access via the global search tool or their main dashboard. In many cases, a user can do all of their work without even touching the menu system. They can search for their class, pupils, staff and even rooms or equipment using the same tool. It’s fast and easy to view the results. Not only does this increase accessibility to the required features, it reduces training overheads.

Powerful dashboards and analytics Demographics and pupil KPIs such as attendance, behaviour and attainment will be available at every level. It’s easy to drill down into the tables, see the individual students and export lists if necessary. Rather than being limited to static figures, the dashboards demonstrate trends and ensure you’re aware of dips in behaviour or increases in persistent absentees.

Fully integrated calendar system The system generates editable calendars for pupils, staff, rooms, equipment and so on. Bromcom already has a diary system for the School, Staff and pupils but we are taking this a step further to fully embed this concept across the board.

Custom events can be assigned to contacts, rooms and equipment. It’s easy to send a meeting request to a parent or book out a laptop trolley for your next lesson.

Drill Down functionality throughout Bromcom has been incorporating drill downs for some time, but now we’re taking it to the next level. For example, every time a behaviour total is displayed, you will be able to click on it to drill down to the students/staff. To analyse in more detail, click on the individual pupil to jump to their individual behaviour dashboard and events. This multi layered approach is embedded throughout the MIS and is aligned with the experience our users have come to expect from a modern cloud based application.

Standardised approach to actions: All tables have been standardised to allow drill downs, and data exports along with an action dropdown. This common language ensures that each area is straightforward to use. If there’s an action available for that list, it will be within the action dropdown, so there’s no ambiguity as to the functionality on offer. The new menu interface is intuitive, acting as a navigation and workflow tool. It provides a gateway to the depth of functionality our users have come to expect from Bromcom and is satisfying to click through, with a modern look and feel.

Aesthetic refresh Lastly, we have carried out a complete overhaul of the interface design, taking influence from Google Material Design and some key players in the Tech industry. It stands out as a modern interface, devoid of clutter but feature rich.

UI/UX / 9

Local Authorities

Martin Baker - Business Development Manager – LAs After taking a few years break from the MIS market I re-joined it with Bromcom in June last year, while many names and faces remained familiar, the market they operated had changed significantly.

What I knew as Sims Support Units were in the process of rebranding themselves as MIS support units. They were actively becoming agnostic of the MIS systems they offer support for, and looking towards the cloud suppliers, who have taken a significant market share in the last three years. This trend shows every sign of accelerating.

in their migration to Bromcom was that with their support unit and those close relationships they had built up over several years.

Bromcom set out to rectify this with its new Partner Programme. Offering a complete pathway through accreditation, adoption of first and second line support, training and onboarding, then finally resale and hosting if desired.

Whatever the preference, Bromcom has a partnership level to match for your local authority or independent regional units.

Bromcom is seen as a key partner for the following reasons and a growing number of support units who are now looking to diversify their portfolio;

Migrating to Bromcom has bought many benefits to schools, the OneStop Shop philosophy has significantly reduced the total cost of ownership of the MIS ecosystem that schools demand in 2020, going way beyond typical statutory requirements offered by many LAs to include online payments, communication packages, safeguarding and room booking to name but a few.

1. Reliability and heritage - when looking to migrate from legacy technologies schools want stability. A support units’ credibility is on the line from day one if a chosen MIS is unreliable, slow or lacking functionality. Bromcom has been operating efficiently in the cloud for the last ten years and faced down the many challenges of the cloud over a decade ago.

However, one of the services schools had to leave behind with a heavy heart

2. Breadth and Depth - Bromcom has evolved into the most comprehensive

10 / L ocal A uthorities

cloud based MIS offering for UK schools.

With separate development teams working on Primary and Secondary systems, it’s more than an equal for what was once perceived feature rich domain of locally hosted systems. Bromcom is also the only cloud MIS provider that has integrated Finance, providing a straightforward swap out for the SIMS/ FMS combination.

3. Sustainability - there is little reward for a support unit in recommending a move to a cloud supplier if it reduces the financial viability of the support unit itself. Bromcom have implemented sustainable support models based upon rebates that fit into the current operational arrangements of your unit. If you have and existing infrastructure that hosts SIMS, Bromcom is again, unique as the only cloud MIS provider that will allow you to benefit from that investment and host its MIS. 4. Aggregate procurement - Bromcom has many years’ experience of large scale procurement activities and currently runs a Local Authority Aggregate procurement scheme on G Cloud 11, the Governments Digital Marketplace.

Speak to us about making your switch to the cloud as streamlined as possible.

If you’re a MIS support unit that would like to find out more about becoming a Bromcom partner please email martin. baker@bromcom.com or call 020 8290 7171 to find out more.

LA’s Case Study In a marketplace characterised by inflexibility, Bromcoms approach to licencing and support has been seen as a breath of fresh air among many support units over the last twelve months, working in a genuine spirit of partnership without the pressure of quotas for retaining or onboarding new schools.

Cambridgeshire The fast pace of change in education often throws up circumstances where organisations need to adapt quickly if they are going to meet those challenges.

In late 2018 Cambridgeshire decided to step away from central provision of both MIS and Finance systems inviting its school community to re-evaluate their current provision.

Choice was facilitated via a series of supplier presentations and by the end of the year schools had declared their preferences, 93% of those who decided to move to a cloud MIS chose Bromcom, the only supplier who could offer an integrated MIS and Finance solution.

Twelve months on and these schools are enjoying life in the cloud, five schools are now Gold Reference sites, taking advantage of One-Stop Shop Bromcom approach to integration, saving money on third party software that they can reinvest in teaching and learning.

3BM Education Some changes can be seen a little further afield, as illustrated by 3BM, a support unit that emerged from three Central London Boroughs as an employee owned business, growing on strength of reputation rather than actively marketing services to schools in neighbouring authorities.

MIS support forms a key part of the portfolio, while in the past years remaining with the incumbent supplier

presented the least risk option for all, 2019 saw all that change. With austerity continuing to drive agendas to save money through integration, schools were pushing to move to the cloud and the expected upgrade of their main supplier was delayed.

This presented a challenge familiar to most support units, in that when schools leave to alternative MIS system it’s user base decreases, 3BM realised that it could no longer rely on supporting a single system to maintain the staffing and support levels they currently enjoyed, an alternative had to be found.

This had not come as a surprise, an ongoing appraisal of the market had taken place over many years, it had become clear at the start of 2019 that there were many robust alternatives to SIMS and vendors such as Bromcom were actively engaging with support units, keen to work with them and no longer be seen as a threat.

A new partner was needed, Bromcom, with its new integrated Finance solution, fitted the bill perfectly, for the first time a school with the SIMS/FMS combination could be migrated to a single MIS cloud supplier. A pilot group of schools is now established and enjoying all the benefits moving to the cloud brings together with the continuity of partnership with their local team, 3BM, who after all are relied upon for so many different areas of support, MIS and beyond.

London Borough of Newham

engagement with Bromcom goes back many years, with the migration of local Multi Academy Trusts to Bromcom in late 2017 an even closer relationship was cemented with the team at The Education Space (TES) taking on 1st and 2nd line support for these academies, they are now a key Bromcom partner and have been leading this relationship.

Both parties were soon keen to take the benefits of working in the Cloud combined with those established local support relationships to the maintained schools in Newham, conversations hit an immediate hurdle that had to be overcome, in that without an integrated Finance package the project was a nonstarter.

Having been impressed by Bromcom’s agile approach to development, in particular the MAT Vision solution, a joint project to develop the UK’s first cloud based finance system that’s integrated with an MIS was agreed. The brief was simple, create a Cloud based finance solution, solely for education, that a school ould move to from FMS with no more than one day training required.

The autumn of 2018 saw the Finance solution demonstrated to Newham nursery schools and a five school pilot begin in the new year. We enter 2020 with reference sites willing to share their experiences and the prospect of an aggregate procurement exercise in the borough that will provide all schools with the opportunity to adopt the UK's most comprehensive cloud based MIS and Finance solution.

Newham Partnership Workings (NPW) L ocal A uthorities / 11

Customer Relations Sara Marsh - Head of Customer Relations At Bromcom we are proud of our reputation for building strong relationships with our customers. As the Bromcom family grows, with an ever increasing number of schools and academy trusts joining us, we are committed to maintaining our close relationships with new users and existing users alike.

In order to provide the personal touch as

we continue to expand, we are pleased to introduce our newly formed Customer Relations Team – Sara Marsh, Darren Moody, Jacqueline Holland and Casey Oram.

With many years of experience working in the education sector, the Team understand the importance of feeling valued as a customer. We aim to ensure all users feel they are not ‘just another customer’, whether that be calling to see how things are going, understanding your requirements for future development or when answering your queries. We aim

to get to know you on first name terms, be your arm around the shoulder and give you an opportunity to put a face to a name whenever possible.

We’re regularly complimented on being a company who listens to its users and we can only continue to improve both the product and our service by continuing to listen, understand and act upon your feedback and suggestions.

Gold Reference Sites Additionally we are keen to foster a strong set of reference sites around the UK – there’s no better advert for prospective customers than other happy users in similar environments.

We already have a number of schools who are keen to work with us and share their story with other schools and academies. Whether you’d like to work with us on open days, attend our best practice events or perhaps document your experience through a case study, we invite you to take part in the Reference Site Programme.

For more information or to apply to be a reference site then please email the team at customerrelations@bromcom. com.

Alternatively come and say Hello to Sara and Darren whilst you’re at BETT 2020.

We look forward to meeting as many of you whether it be in BETT or through personal visits over the coming weeks and months.

12 / C ustomer R elations

Onboarding & Services 01

02 Customer Onboarding

Support Desk Customer Success Support

Elizabeth Morgan Head of Customer Onboarding and Customer Services

the point of Sale, starting with a 1-2-1 discovery through to becoming live. Our team has a particular strength in data migration - the most high risk part of any systems change - and large scale project management, with e.g. 50+ schools.

Our Department is responsible for looking after customers after the point of sale – in practice, our goal is to ensure that customers get the best out of the Bromcom MIS and Finance system and maximise our technology’s value to your schools.

• Training and consultancy – this team focusses on training users to use the Bromcom Finance and MIS, both new users and existing users. They ensure that your school gets the best from the system at the beginning and throughout your journey with Bromcom. We also run free training throughout the year and maintain a comprehensive online

We focus on: • Onboarding – end to end support after

training librarty of videos and guides • Helpdesk support – our friendly and high performing support desk are on hand between 8-5 via a range of contact channels – phone, web and through chat.

• Accreditation for new Support Centres – we provide training and support for new support centres who wish to convert their current support skills to supporting Bromcom users, with a comprehensive training programme and transition support.

Example Rollout Plan Discovery Meeting

Live Migration

Sales Handover

Week

1

2

First Test Migration*

3

4

5

6

Project Plan Proposal

Core Training Start From

Project Plan Agreed

Data Cleansing Start From

Transition Support Starts

7

8

9

10

11

Led by

Transition support ends; Customer assigned to customer success manager

Bromcom School

Week

12

13 School Go Live Day

14

15

Bromcom / School * A second test migration can be completed depending on timescale.

O nboarding & S ervices / 13

The only MIS with totally integrated Power BI

All Embracing Live Analytics & Power BI Power BI is a suite of business analytics tools that deliver insights throughout your school/academy without compromising security.

Damon Hatcher - Product Owner for Analytics and UI/UX Although Bromcom provides a wealth of inbuilt analytics tools, we know that there are many schools and MATs that want to take things a step further with a fully customisable system that presents data from many sources.

Enter Power BI, the Microsoft service that’s become an industry standard for reporting and insight. Power BI allows you to create interactive visuals that are designed to offer insight into your data.

It can handle millions of records from multiple data sources so you could link together your pupils, staff, payroll and even student survey results to produce a comprehensive view of your school or MAT. Fully integrated with the MIS Bromcom is the only MIS with a Power

BI viewer built into the product. This allows staff to access Power BI reports just like any other part of the application and there’s no need for separate logins to the Microsoft service.

Built with Data Aggregation in mind Our Vision product aggregates MIS data from multiple schools into one central dataset. This can then be accessed

by Power BI to create MAT or LA level reports.

Data is pulled via Secure API Bromcom offers a few options for obtaining data from the MIS, all of which are directly accessible from Power BI. Therefore, there’s no automation or synchronisation service to manage, you simply enter the URL and credentials to gain access to the data.

Data is accessible The recommended approach is to use

14 / A ll E mbracing L ive A naly tics & P ower B I

our OData Connection as this allows you to directly access a curated view of the live database. This includes a predefined Student table with all pastoral factors and location information, the entire attendance history of your school (mark by mark), along with Assessment results, Exams and so on. Should you require any custom fields or additional data, simply create a report in Bromcom and enable the option for a live link for Power BI. Bromcom are ahead of the game when it comes to Power BI and we’ve produced a comprehensive solution that’s both easy to use and secure. It’s already used

by Schools and MATs throughout the UK and it’s been a game changer for every single one. Get in touch with our sales team to find out more.

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service formerly known as Windows Azure, created to use for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centers.

Microsoft Azure Osman Erener - Head of IT and Cloud Services Bromcom MIS Cloud Based Solution Bromcom MIS is a solution that was built from the ground up as a web based solution and natively hosted in cloud based infrastructure including multitenant, allowing delivery of its MIS to multiple schools from a single URL. Bromcom MIS is built completely on Microsoft technologies.

This being IIS front end web servers, and Microsoft SQL Standard 2016/2017 for its back end database solution.

Bromcom is Microsoft Gold Partner has a very close working partnership with Microsoft and so it’s MIS solution are rooted in and offered via the Microsoft Azure platform hosting its MIS in the Azure platform.

With this being the case Bromcom’s Cloud hosted solution offers the best total cost of ownership as it takes away all upfront capital, ongoing support, maintenance, running costs, licence costs and technology refreshes that are required for servers hosted locally, either in schools or centrally at the LA. It is for this reason that Bromcom MIS hosted on Microsoft’s Azure platform offers the lowest total cost of ownership, and therefore the best value for money. Whilst ensuring that your MIS will have availability SLAs in excess of 99.95%, will always be hosted via the latest technologies and be updated / upgraded seamlessly during pre-planned maintenance Windows.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Bromcom MIS solution utilises many of the Microsoft Azure redundancy features and therefore has no single point of failure. From redundant Power, network, broadband and cooling at the datacentre level to redundant web, SQL, Domain controllers at the server level, Bromcom can offer SLA higher availability. With advanced monitoring and alert systems in place the solution also offers great performance along with resource requirements forecasting to ensure the easily scalable solution is always running at optimal levels. Data backups are made nightly, retained for 30 days and stored in geo redundant datacentres ensuring restoration of data in the case of individual datacentre outages or regional (multiple datacentre) outages will always be possible (no data is ever stored outside of UK). Bromcom has utilised the Azure availability sets ensuring system availability is maintained even when Microsoft competes its necessary regular maintenance and update tasks.

Storage and GDPR Bromcom MIS is fully GDPR compliant. Bromcom MIS utilises Microsoft Azure’s UK based datacentres to host its MIS solution.

Reduced Total Cost of Ownership Bromcom has focused its efforts in bringing down the total cost of ownership of its MIS to provide the most cost effective MIS solution possible.

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The Most Elegant Outside and The Most Powerful Comprehensive Inside 1 2

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MAT-wide Reporting

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Secondary School Requirements

Save Money

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Integrated Power BI

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One-Stop Shop

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Secure Data-feed

Save Time

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The most Elegant UI/UX

1. MAT-wide Live Reporting Bromcom is the only MIS with an integrated Power BI avoiding the use of insecure data feed where other MIS’s cannot. This means MAT-wide and within school visualisation of data and analytics is easy, extensive and ‘live’ without delays.

2. Secondary School Requirements Bromcom’s MIS is feature rich and the most sophisticated to meet even the most demanding secondary school requirements. Hence this is why Bromcom is by far lead secondary school league for cloud MIS. 3. Microsoft Azure Built from the outset for the web Bromcoms MIS has been operating efficiently in the Cloud for the last

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No.1 Choice for Cloud MIS & Finance

decade, running at higher availability and now utilizing Microsoft Azure UK datacentres.

4. One-Stop Shop Why go to different suppliers for boltons for your MIS when you can get them from one place? With Bromcom basically everything is under one hat and can be dealt with much easier than having several different suppliers to contact, deal with and pay, thus saving both time and money.

5. Save Time Thanks to Bromcom MIS being all in one this will prevent users from having to use third parties, saving them time.

6. The most elegant UI/UX Bromcom launched the

new

interface and experience, providing a fresh modern experience for all, delivering increased functionality such as a global search, new dashboards and analytics all with fewer mouse clicks to make life easier. So the most powerful and comprehensive One-Stop Shop MIS, now has the most elegant UI/UX. 7. Save Money Our cloud solution will save you money on the purchase and core of maintaining additional supporting software for the MIS server. This includes the provision of Microsoft SQL Server, Operating System and Office Suite, Remote Access Service etc. All of these are handled by the cloud service that we provide.

8. Integrated Power BI Microsoft Power BI is the go to application for converting large datasets into meaningful information, link together your pupils, staff, payroll and even student survey results to produce a comprehensive view of your school, MAT or LA. Bromcom is the only MIS at Bett 2020 that has a built in Power BI viewer securely looking after your data.

9. Secure Data-feed The entirety of the database can be queried via a secure, automated data feed powering dashboards that can also link to financial/HR systems or any other data sources. Secure anytime, anywhere access with no need for software installation.

10. No.1 Choice for Cloud MIS & Finance Bromcom Cloud MIS has become the number one choice for MATs and schools because Bromcom listens to customers and always ready to adapt.

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