Alma SIS

Vorteile

As a teacher I can say that Alma is one of the best virtual classrooms that I have tried, it is an all-in-one and something that I love is the management of evaluations and students without having to resort to any other external platform.
The function that I use the most is evaluative management since right there I can check my lists for the student report card system as well as the grade assigned to the same task and document

Nachteile

It is difficult to say that Alma has something bad, rather something not so good and that is first-hand integration, but once learned it is phenomenal

Vorteile

It is an intuitive student management system, and their customer service can't be beat!

Nachteile

We would like to get more student information entered via Alma Start to migrate to Alma SIS - I think they are working on these updates though!

Vorteile

I like that I can look up any student in our school and see that student's schedule and current information.

Nachteile

1. Our students (Seniors especially) cannot get their current transcripts. This is troubling for many reasons. Perhaps the most important being their choices for scholarships and higher education will be affected by this. Students cannot apply for financial assistance through scholarships without current transcripts. I have personally spoken with at least three students who have missed out on scholarship opportunities, simply because they cannot access current transcripts.
2. Can't see overall student GPA
3. Can't see student class rank
4. Student Mobile usage is very confusing. Can't see grades the way they should.
5. Ease of access is horrible
6. No mobile app, and mobile website is very difficult to read
7. Not organized well
8. When emailing "all students" I cannot exclude certain classes; I can't email multiple classes at once without including EVERYONE
9. For attendance, it is very confusing. If a student is marked present first class, they are marked present for the entire day. This was clearly set up for use in an Elementary School. High School is different. We need to be able to see where our students are throughout the day.
10. Inputting grades takes many more steps than our previous system. There is no way to toggle between students with the keyboard.
11. There should be a way to block certain people from seeing certain information. At the beginning of the school year, student Social Security Numbers were viewable by any teacher or staff in our building.

Vorteile

I LOVE the customer service, everyone is very personable and quick to respond. My questions are answered completely and I am always directed to where I can find answers to my questions. The program is very easy to use and, typically, I can figure out most issues I am having using the resource pages.

Nachteile

It might be lack of knowledge on our end, but the teachers are not happy with the standardized grading in Alma. I would also like to be able to allow more detailed access to only certain teachers with specified things.

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

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.

Vorteile

I don't have a lot to compare ALMA to, but I feel that the user interface is very intuitive. After light training, I felt that I was able to navigate the software with ease, and perform many of the functions without having to struggle to do so. The resources for questions called the "study guide" has really good searchable articles and videos that addressed almost every issue I had. If I couldn't find the answer, the support staff was quick to respond and help with a solution.

Nachteile

Education is so vastly different from one school to the next. On the similar needs of schools I think ALMA performs great, but for specific needs or differences they struggle to meet all our needs. Many times we have to find a work-around for issues we are having. I will add that this is very rare. A specific example is that we can search students by grade. We can search specific classes, but not the whole grade. There are times it would be beneficial to see all the students in one grade.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

FACTS

Warum Alma SIS gewählt wurde

It was very difficult to use. We had to pay for help every time we had an issue. The reports never looked the way we wanted. It did not handle standards based grading well, and trying to have both standards base with traditional grading was practically impossible without some major programing knowledge. The list goes on, but these were some of our main concerns.

Zuvor genutzte Software

FACTS

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Alma SIS

- I think the look was more updated - parent perception of quality - Standard or Traditional grading supported - Communication from the console - I'm not sure if the others did this, but it has been very helpful - Customer Support - the reviews on this was a big reason for choosing ALMA

Vorteile

The main selling point from Alma was the ease of use. Out of all of the systems I've demoed and tried, it was easily the easiest to log in, poke around, and figure out how to do what I needed to do with minimal training.

The second selling point is their customer service. Absolutely top notch. Their people are friendly, very responsive, and (most importantly) humans. I enjoy talking to them! I can usually get a response from a rep within minutes and even our teachers are welcome to message them with questions.

The third selling point is that they are new system with a considerably active development cycle. We knew, going into it, that they wouldn't be as fully fleshed out as competitors like PowerSchool. That also means that it's easier for newer and fresher ideas to be implemented. It's not built on some old archaic database. Many of the features they do have that I use regularly such as the Report Card Builder and the Spreadsheet Data Editor/Report builder are very well done. We regularly get emails about new features being added and they listen to their customers when new features are requested. They've given us a lot of new toys since we first signed on with them.

The final selling point is narwhals.

Nachteile

Probably the biggest issue that I face regularly is that their district level stuff isn't as fleshed out as I would like it to be. Many of the cool features that are available at each of the schools I manage can't be done in the district portion, aggregating all data and whatnot. I've been told they are working on that stuff though!

Vorteile

Alma is very easy to learn and to use. It has a lot of great features that make it flexible for the needs of different schools. Most importantly, the customer service is fantastic. They get back to you quickly, are helpful, even pleasant with some of my "stupid" questions to which I should know the answer and are open to ideas for improvements and new features.

Nachteile

Some may wish for an "all-in-one" SIS/LMS system. Alma is more an SIS+ with some features that would allow a school to get away without an LMS, but certainly not all the features one would find in a combined SIS/LMS system. However, I think this is a good thing, as it provides flexibility to meet the needs of particular schools. For example, we are a Google Classroom school and don't currently use a full featured LMS such as Schoology or Canvas.

Vorteile

This product is very easy to use, in real time and easy to understand. Novel users can open up this SIS program and navigate in order to find the information they are looking for.

Nachteile

We were one of the first public schools to sign on with ALMA, therefore we have evolved with the company. There have been some growing pains as we have evolved. The tech support teams have been gracious and very helpful in keeping us up to speed and rolling.

Vorteile

We moved from PowerSchool to ALMA and it is sooooo much better!

Everything is intuitive. No paying for extra training for everything. No extra modules being hawked to you every month. No need to pay for someone to "maintain" the software.

It isn't some old Database software that you need to learn equations for. It looks wonderful, is easy to use, and super adaptable.

All of the new additions that you get charged for with other software are free updates with ALMA.

If you do have a problem, ALMA *wants* to hear from you! It's an entirely different relationship.

And it has more features. Because it is a modern piece of software and not something based off of antiquated 90's era software, there are more bells and whistles. New options are being added every couple of months. Often based on what the users have asked for.

This makes my job 100% easier!

Nachteile

Some things are still a little complicated but it comes with online instructions to help you along.

Vorteile

The software enables us to have all the data related to students, teachers, curriculum and assessment in one place. There are many things that are just "one click" tasks and things don't have to be re-done at the beginning of each school year. They can just be copied, transferred, modified... I also like that there is always a solution to everything, even if an option does not exist in the system, the support team helps find ways to make sure we get what we need.

Nachteile

There are some things that we would like to have. For example: the option to show attendance on the report card per class (as opposed to per day), or the option to include a digital signature on the cover. These are some tiny things that we have found ways to resolve, but we have communicated them with the support team and we feel confident that they take our feedback into consideration.

Vorteile

The platform is very easy to use and intuitive.

Nachteile

The platform looks like a little bit old-fashioned

Vorteile

Alma SIS is understandable to use and all the school management needs are included in it.

Nachteile

But Alma SIS doesn't match our region. Especially in the payment section. Furthermore, the time difference makes slower our connection.

Vorteile

Calculating marks, organizing curiculum, making notes and comments about the student's marks are all bundled up into one interface. Compiles comments and report card creation onto one PDF that is simple to use.

Nachteile

Inputting assignments and assigning them manually is tedious. The "Save" button and "Submit for Review" button are both the same size despite the "Save" button being the more important one during report cards submissions.

Vorteile

Features are intuitive and easy to use.

Nachteile

It is unclear how emails sent with the software will appear to recipients. For instance, sometimes Alma automatically adds a greeting/opening so the message ends up having an automated greeting and the one that I write.

Vorteile

This is one of the easiest products I've used at a school. It did not take me long to learn how to use it. I am able to find student information quickly. It is easy to add student grades, or link ALMA to my Google Classroom where grades are automatically uploaded for me. It has a plethora of features, all of which are vital for the seamless running of a school.

Nachteile

I would love to see the Curriculum calendar more developed so that curriculum, units and standards could be added. I played with it a little last year but struggled to figure this section out. I believe it is in the works, however.

Vorteile

ALMA is colorful with a high ease of use for parents and students. It is easy to access and manage student and school data.

Class scheduling is a breeze. We can accomplish more in one day that we could in one week with our previous product.

Nachteile

Printing report cards is a disaster. There is no option to batch print report cards all in one job. There is no page break option, so RCs end up getting copied to the backs of one-another if they have an odd number of pages. The only option is to print each .pdf individually.

There are several remaining issues with data reporting for California accountability reports.

Vorteile

I like that Alma has so many reports that I can generate to look at different aspects of the school such as progress reports, attendance, missing assignments, and so on. I also love how easy it is to create your own report card templates and create your own grading systems and monitor everything from one platform. Parent communication is also very easy!

Nachteile

I wish it kept the history of group messages I send. Also, it would be very useful to be able to view messages that teachers send to track school-home communication.
I would love to see a better lesson planning feature offered.

Vorteile

It's the only SIS that looks like it was designed in the past decade. The site itself is easy to use. The basics (scheduling, attendance, calendar, student bios, medical) are all well done, user-friendly, and look great. Gradebook is excellent. Frontline support is helpful.

Nachteile

Reporting is a nightmare. Reports come in random formats. The descriptions are confusing. The filtering is confusing or doesn't work right. The screen where you choose reports is just a long confusing list. There's no preview of what the report is or looks like.

Some information that you'd expect to be readily available (like a student's current grades) require running one of those confusing reports to find. The district portal is useless. New features that have been added (fees, report builder) feel unfinished and lack basic functionality that one would expect. While the front-line support is good, anything that has to go beyond them gets lost in a black hole when sent to "engineering".

There are some quirks to the program that just make no sense. Little things here and there.

Vorteile

The user interface is very intuitive. Everything is where one would expect it to be within the program. Migration to Alma from our previous SIS was so straight forward and seamless that I was not sure the SIS was going to be ready on schedule. It was ready on schedule and very few issues have been encountered.
Issuing digital report cards is very easy and our parents love it. We also communicate with our parents on a regular basis by using the email feature in Alma. Parents also have expressed satisfaction with the parent portal for checking their student's grades. Teachers find it very easy to use the gradebook.

Nachteile

Any concerns/needs we have expressed to Alma have resulted in instant inquiry and potential solutions.

Vorteile

Web based
Fast
Quick support
Google SSO
SAS

Nachteile

Email editor is TOO basic.
Report writer is not flexible, cost per extra fields.
Retrieve unenrolled student's data from previous years should be easier.
Apply changes to multiple classes, schedules, etc should allow to select randomly or by criteria.
Backup/Restore feature not available.
Mixed Letter, Numbers and Standards based grades are not compatible.
Transcripts reports must allow more flexible design.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Schoology

Warum Alma SIS gewählt wurde

Complete suite must be web based on the cloud

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Alma SIS

Lower cost Technical support

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

This software allows me to easily interact with our entire student body by accessing contact information and schedules for each student.

Nachteile

I haven't found anything I don't like so far with this software.

Vorteile

The best thing abour Alma is its ease of use. In addition, it has one of the most professional and responsive customer support departments I have ever encountered in any product or industry.

Nachteile

It does not yet have all of the functionality that we would like, particularly in the area of recording curriculum, but since we adopted it three years ago they have regulerly added new features and improved the functionality of what was already there. I really do believe that in short order they will address curriculum within the program, and at that point every major use we have for an SIS would be covered.

Vorteile

Alma is very easy to use, even for those that are not particularly proficient with technology. It's functionality is improved from other SIS programs I have used in the past (Progressbook and Power School). As an administrator, I have far more control to make changes and adjustments that fit my staff and students. The customer support team is also very helpful and responsive.

Nachteile

There are some features that are missing. We have requested GPA-based grade calculation and some additions to transcripts that have not yet been implemented. However, several other features that we have requested have been implemented over the past two years.

Vorteile

Extremely user friendly with a modern interface and great support.

Nachteile

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

Vorteile

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.

Nachteile

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

Vorteile

Alma is the most user-friendly SIS on the market. The intuitive interface makes everything from registration, grading, report cards, and state reporting a breeze. Users in any role will find Alma to be significant improvement over any SIS they have previously used.

Nachteile

The autonomy of do-it yourself customization is limited when compared to other vendors. However, the Alma team is ready and willing to implement any desired customizations on your behalf. It might just take some time to get them rolled out.

Vorteile

Alma is extremely user friendly and has a modern look for parents. We love that they are constantly listening to user feedback and making improvements to the platform. Their customer service teams is one of the best I've ever worked with.

Nachteile

While they are constantly listening to feedback and making improvements, Alma is still growing. The two areas that we miss functionality are in communications and fees/invoicing (done through Stripe -- you deal with Stripe's support team, not Alma's).

Vorteile

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

Nachteile

Can't really think of anything at this moment.

Vorteile

Innovative and intuitive SIS that serves all stakeholders of our school well–from students and families to teachers and administrators.

Nachteile

Similar to other SIS platforms, the admin approval process for progress reports and report cards can be time consuming.

Vorteile

Their cost is very competitive and their IT is amazing. They work very hard to try and answer all your questions quickly.

Nachteile

Sales people tend to oversell the capabilities of Alma, it is a good system but it is not able to deliver the moon. We are currently fighting tooth and nail with CALPAD compliance.

Vorteile

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.

Nachteile

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

Vorteile

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.

Nachteile

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.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

FACTS

Warum Alma SIS gewählt wurde

Blackbaud was expensive and complicated to manage.

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Alma SIS

Our teachers who went to the presentations liked the Alma interface the best.

Vorteile

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

Nachteile

there are glitches, they fix them quickly

Vorteile

Ease of use, colorful UI, plenty of features

Nachteile

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

Vorteile

Alma SIS has some of the best tech support, one on one access all the time. They are always considering feedback and ways to implement when possible.

Nachteile

Some of the things that I request for feedback don't always get completed but they have their reasonings for that.

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.

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

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

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.

Vorteile

I like how user friendly the system is. Families, students, and staff are able to navigate Alma with ease.

Nachteile

We look forward to Alma implementing some kind of texting in the future hopefully!

Vorteile

Easiest platform for communicating with staff, students and families.

Nachteile

Setting up registration each year. Sometimes I would miss one small part and once parents started the process I couldn't go back and make adjustments.

Vorteile

The ease of use and functionality. It is very intuitive.

Nachteile

Difficulty to look at/find students in different ways, ie Grade, Groups, Activities

Vorteile

Very strong design-sense, and improving their app-center interface. Customer Service is fantastic.

Nachteile

Their admissions platform needs to advance to include billing/tuition.

Vorteile

It's a very professional and easy to use platform

Nachteile

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

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Gradelink

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Alma SIS

seemed better suited for our school needs

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.

Vorteile

I love how user friendly Alama is. There is a lot of information that this software contains, but it is easy to navigate and fairly simple to use.

Nachteile

I think the most difficult thing to navigate is just the linking to Google Classroom. It's not impossible to figure out but I haven't devoted much time to get it set up and working to a level that I like yet.

Vorteile

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

Nachteile

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

Vorteile

C'est un excellent logiciel de gestion des cours et d'inscription des étudiants.Il favorise la gestion de l'admissibilité de chaque étudiant.

Nachteile

Moi personnellement je ne rencontre aucun problème avec le logiciel

Vorteile

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

Nachteile

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

Vorteile

I liked how powerful and customizable the Alma SIS software is. With it, I can customize every single detail of my school's workflow, from scheduling classes and managing student accounts to tracking attendance, setting up library catalogs, and creating custom reports. The software also allows me to easily create groups and import data from various sources, including student information systems, library catalogs, and grade books.

Nachteile

One of the main issues I have with Alma SIS is its lack of scalability for larger campuses. It's very difficult to effectively manage large amounts of data, and Alma SIS does not provide the necessary solutions for efficiently managing large schools. Additionally, the interface is not intuitive and can be difficult to navigate. Finally, Alma SIS does not offer any customization options, so campuses are limited in terms of how they can customize the platform to their needs.