Hi everyone 
I’m currently part of a ‘SIMS school’ but we’re investigating the use of other MIS - mainly Arbor at the moment based on positive feedback elsewhere.
Is anyone here an ‘Arbor school’ and using Applicaa? What is your experience of the two systems together?
Thank you 
L7.
We are using both. I love Applica now that I’m getting used to it, but I the jury is still out regarding Arbor. We are a stand alone Sixth Form, and we’ve had a number of bumps in the road with it. I’ve never used SIMS though, so I honestly don’t know how it compares to that, it may well be better. I would do lots of research before making any final decisions. I’m not sure if that helps!
Thank you for your reply! It is helpful because published reviews rarely show the day to day experiences of the people who use the system.
What kind of bumps have you experienced and how did you resolve them? How long have you been using Arbor?
Hi 7Hart, I’m sorry for not replying.
I was wondering if you’d made the move to Arbor, and how you are getting along with it? I expect that the decision has been made by now and you’re working with your new system? Are you a school or a Sixth Form?
I don’t work with Arbor personally, I’m Admissions so use Applicaa, other members of our team use it, and we’ve had it now for around 2 years. We’ve used both for the last 2 enrolments - the first one was a complete disaster, but we learned from our mistakes and made fewer this time around.
From what they’ve said, they feel that Arbor is designed for schools and not Sixth forms. Previously we used Cedar as our MIS which was designed for Sixth forms, and allowed us to do reporting and transfer of data much more smoothly and in a timely manner. Arbor takes three times as long, is clunky and doesn’t give us the support we need with it. It’s a bit of a square peg, round hole situation. We’ve been trying our best to make it work, but it’s very frustrating when something that would have been the press of a few buttons now takes a full day.
My dream would be to have Applicaa design it’s own MIS system, so that there is no exporting into an MIS system, and with both systems talking to each other in a seamless, less time consuming way.
Let me know if you need any more information and I’ll try to reply much much quicker! I had every intention of replying, but time just ran away with me - I’m so sorry. I have a bit of time now that enrolment is complete and applications for this year have finished.
Thanks
Jo