Alma SIS

Glad we're using Alma

Zalety:

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.

Wady:

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 is a modern SIS system with great support

Komentarze: Our transition from our previous vendor was a breeze thanks to the assistance from Alma staff, and they are very responsive when it comes to changes in state reporting. The support team is always great to work with. The Spreadsheet Data Editor is a great feature that makes a lot of tasks easier.

Zalety:

Extremely user friendly with a modern interface and great support.

Wady:

The invoicing system is not very flexible, and isn't set up for waivers and credits.

Not for High Schools

Zalety:

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).

Wady:

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.

One site for all functions, that's every teacher needs

Komentarze: Most of the time it's fantastic. I can check the report and study progress not only for this year, but many years ago. And I can see students' progress for other subjects also, it helps me to have an overall vision and understanding to the student's study condition.

Zalety:

One site for all functions On alma teachers can take attendance, record study progress, make report card, contact parents and students easily through email automatically, report incident. Parents and students can check the attendance, study progress and contact teacher as well.

Wady:

Sometimes it's out of service. It happened many times already. Showed a Bad Gateway.

Alma Joy! Sweet as Chocolate

Komentarze: 5 Star! I work with report cards and transcripts. My families love the electronic report cards sent right to their email for their convenience.

Zalety:

User friendly. Thinks how I think. Attractive. Love the webinars. Everyone in Customer Engagement and the Techs are so sweet and caring.

Wady:

Can't really think of anything at this moment.

Alma SIS review

Komentarze: Good, we really like the software and it meets our needs at the elementary level. Their customer support is excellent.

Zalety:

Alma is intuitive and easy to navigate. Setup and implementation was smooth, overall, it is very user friendly and easy for teachers and families to navigate. The reporting is excellent and the report cards look professional. Accessing data is easy on a day to day basis.

Wady:

There are some simple features missing, like schedule send, more editing options with school announcements which would have a bigger benefit.

Adopting Alma SIS

Komentarze: Although we're still on the learning curve, it's been a very positive experience.

Zalety:

Best part of the interface: It's very intuitive, logical, and organized. Best part for the tech crew: The tech help staff are very helpful, professional, and supportive.

Wady:

Worst part of the interface: The colors can't be customized to be our school colors. Worst part for the tech crew: The people running the system can't impersonate another user, which makes it hard to see what the user is seeing when you're trying to help someone.

Alma has been transformational

Komentarze: 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.

Zalety:

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.

Wady:

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.

Lesson Learned

Komentarze: Great and communicative. The really know their clients.

Zalety:

Simple to use, integrates well with other programs, and keeps getting better

Wady:

there are glitches, they fix them quickly

Alma review

Komentarze: pleasant, would recommend to colleagues in search of a new SIS

Zalety:

Ease of use, colorful UI, plenty of features

Wady:

Lack of honor role option on report card, newness to our state has caused some road blocks

Great product

Zalety:

It's a very professional and easy to use platform

Wady:

The price is high compared to the features needed for our use

It's really amazing, very useful and easy to use

Zalety:

I really like this experience and it always works well with me and really easy to use.

Wady:

Till now I didn't find any cons . It really covers all I was looking for .

Review

Zalety:

I like that this service is very user friendly, and easy to find the answers to questions that I have.

Wady:

I think maybe a feature could be added where teachers could add notes and comments, not just administrators.

Sound working program

Komentarze: Overall this has been a fine program to use.

Zalety:

The use of use and finding what is needed in a quick and timely fashion.

Wady:

The inability to pre label assessments in categories.

Alma Review

Komentarze: Positive over all.

Zalety:

The option to send mass emails and messages to parents and students.

Wady:

Not having incorporation with Ed Plan, and options for specific fields.

Powerful - 21st Century - Highly Recommended

Komentarze: When you have been with company for years is it hard to make a switch. From day one Alma made our transition to their software painless. Lets face it, people do not like change, especially a secretary that has been here for 30 years. Alma made it easy with their robust training and support our secretaries were smiling "like the butchers dog" The days of our principals spending all summer creating a master schedule are over. Alma's schedule builder is amazing! Overall I would highly recommend Alma and If they continue to stay on the cutting edge of innovation we will never need to make another switch.

Zalety:

There are so many GREAT features about Alma, to list just one is hard to do. I love the feed back that I receive from parents, teachers and administrators stating what they love about Alma. As an technology administrator you only hear when something is not working. Alma provides so many easy to use features everyone loves it. From the administration scheduling, it's seamless integration with Google Classroom, easy custom reports, on-line student registration and the awesome communication link with parents and students.

Wady:

Well there really isn't anything I do not like about Alma, they continually update and add new designs and innovation to it's all inclusive student accounting system. Understandably some suggested features take longer to add then others.

Moving in good directions

Komentarze: Far better than any other software I’ve used to manage classes, but still approaches the problem from an administrative, quantitative standpoint, rather than a student development standpoint.

Zalety:

There are concessions made to narrative evaluation, which is great for an alternative school. Each block, the system gets cleaner and easier to handle as we write our evaluations for the kids, and, since our output is so much more complex than a single letter grade, it’s really important that the cognitive overhead for each evaluation be as small as possible. I’m really gratified that Alma continually improves this aspect.

Wady:

Touchscreen integration is clunky but getting less so. It’s often hard to see what I’m doing, as column headers disappear as I scroll. There are a bunch of interface elements like this that make interactions awkward or repetitive, which induces frustration and boredom, which leads to errors. It feels like evaluations are 90° off. I want to be able to evaluate a student, but it’s easiest to evaluate not only one class at a time, but one skill for the whole class at a time. It discourages thinking holistically about individual students and encourages comparing them in each skill. I think this makes it harder to do evaluations and makes them less accurate. Daily evaluation notes go nowhere. We take attendance each day, which is dutifully reported, but any qualitative expression we have is thrown away. This does a great disservice to students because it means that, in the course of a day, it’s harder to make qualitative assessments of a student, leaving us only with their attendance data — a quantification that’s easy on a database designer but is hostile to learning.

Moving to Alma from another SIS

Komentarze: Staff is in the process of learning how to perform their tasks in Alma as opposed to the previous SIS.

Zalety:

It is intuitive and easy to manage. Tasks such as scheduling is easy and quick. The Alma Start module allows you to quickly set up processes for registering / approving and enrolling new students.

Wady:

The documentation could be better. There is no one Administration guide to get all the answer from. A chat feature from support would be a great help to get an answer quickly for simple questions.

Great value, excellent support

Komentarze: Our biggest benefit with Alma in the last two years was when they implemented their online enrollment process. At the time, we were considering moving from Alma to PowerSchool to gain this function as we were still doing paper application and enrollment. PowerSchool was quoting $20,000 to provide this, and that was a discounted price! Alma's online enrollment was brand new, but I spent a month going through their Study Guide to create our first process. The online support was a huge help! At the end of that 30 days, I was able to confidently recommend to our Head of School that we say "no" to PowerSchool and stick with Alma. This feature and many others have only improved since then. We appreciate that Alma charges us less and lets us create this and other processes for ourself.

Zalety:

The support for Alma is exceptional! As I am learning to use different features the Help guides & live support answer all my needs in a timely manner. I brag on the Alma support to other companies who are not as helpful. I also appreciate how Alma listens to my suggestions for improvements. In the almost two years I have used the product, I have seen many of the features I have asked for being implemented. I get a regular email (weekly or bi monthly) that updates me on new features and almost every time, there is something there that I have been wanting. You've got to love a company that listens to and responds to its customers.

Wady:

Alma has added many features that I didn't even know I wanted - thank you! The only feature they do not yet have is a way to accept and charge for payments. We can track financial info on Alma, but cannot have it accept funds. That would be a huge thing for us because we could eliminate using a separate program for this feature - we actually use two: MySchool and TADS.

Pretty product, unusable in detail

Komentarze: We feel lied to and misled by bad products, bad customer service, and no options to personalize anyone. Buyer beware.

Zalety:

It looks pretty and professional. The student/parent side looks clean.

Wady:

1. They have sold their scheduling I think to some 3rd party so none of the accessible API will allow you to access the times classes are happening. Truly a nightmare for integrations. 2. Customer service is atrocious. No one answers the phone and he text based service takes over an hour to get a copy pasted answer. Then the help person leaves and won't have a conversation with you. 3. Their reports are unusably bad. Truly nothing is in depth or customizable. This is beta software at best. 4. Nothing can be imported, everything from proficiency sets to data must be uploaded by hand one at a time, hope you like to copy and paste. 5. Admin can't do anything to set up classes. Teachers need to redo work a hundred times over.

Switched to Alma, never going back!

Komentarze: Before we switched our school to Alma we were using multiple programs to help our teachers with their record keeping responsibilities. We had one program for grading, another one for rosters, and yet another one for communication with parents. We even had an entirely different program to help generate grade reports and student schedules. None of them interfaced with each other, and our staff were often doing double and triple entries for each student. Since switching to Alma we have reduced the administrative burden on our teachers and office staff by over 50%. Alma has enabled our teachers to better utilize their office time, and freed up valuable opportunities for more one on one teaching time. This is a win-win for everyone involved in the education process. Thank you Alma!

Zalety:

Alma integrates our administrative processes into one, easy to use program that both parents and teachers love!

Wady:

The financial/billing component is not as comprehensive as we need.

Alma Software - The Superstar of Student Information Systems!

Zalety:

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!

Wady:

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.

Easy to use and provides an enjoyable experience.

Komentarze: I am able to quickly get in touch with my students at any time regarding any matter that needs to be addressed.

Zalety:

I like the fact that this software is simple to use with no prior instructions needed to start. I was able to accurately use the software the same day that I bought it meaning that I was able to really get a grasp on how it works. I also am a fact that I can create a file report for each student and write notes daily to track their progress. This is not something that seems to be common with software, but I appreciate the added touch.

Wady:

I wish that the software gave me the ability to see absences as well as when students have been tardy. Having this information handy would allow me to file my reports more accurately. I also am not a fan of the price tag, I feel as though it could be cheaper.

Very easy to use an constantly improving

Komentarze: Much much easier to manage student data than power school

Zalety:

Alma has a great and beautiful interface and its very easy to use. The support is excellent, easy to access, and very responsive. We wanted to replace Power School because it was difficult to use and felt like it was designed for larger institutions, requiring more resources than we have.

Wady:

When the product was new it wasn't as robust as other similar software but they take user feedback and constantly add new features.

My Honest Review

Zalety:

I loved that our district made a deal to get a group purchase for ALMA so it made the price just perfect for us. ALMA looks beautiful and is an excellent tool. It is such a powerful data tracking tool which is great when you're trying to analyze large amounts of data. I love that you can run an extract and upload it to CALPADS, it makes reporting so much easier! The customer support team always has a great attitude and truly feels like they love helping you.

Wady:

One of the major CONS is that it is not yet fully approved by the state for reporting, which adds another step to program administrators to get it approved for attendance. That was a major bummer. Another CON is that because it is such a powerful system, some training is required if you hope to use it properly. When I started using it I thought I could just teach myself how to use it and ended up costing myself and my teachers a week or so of grief until I could get proper training. It's all in the settings. If you don't have those set up properly, then you're doomed. Once you train for 2-3 hours though with their great staff, it's a breeze after that!