Ellucian Banner vs. Skyward Student Management System

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Ellucian Banner
Score 6.6 out of 10
N/A
Ellucian offers Banner educational ERP, including its student management system emphasizing control and reporting of process-oriented facets of education such as grading and attendance.N/A
Skyward Student Management System
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Skyward, headquartered in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, offers the Skyward Student Management System, a k-12 student information system which provides classroom tools (e.g. gradebook, attendance tracking, etc), Family Engagement tools with portal, as well as admin and student services task management.N/A
Pricing
Ellucian BannerSkyward Student Management System
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Ellucian BannerSkyward Student Management System
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Ellucian BannerSkyward Student Management System
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Ellucian BannerSkyward Student Management System
Student and Faculty Administration
Comparison of Student and Faculty Administration features of Product A and Product B
Ellucian Banner
8.2
8 Ratings
4% below category average
Skyward Student Management System
6.9
4 Ratings
21% below category average
Integrations with 3rd-Party Education Technology7.78 Ratings6.02 Ratings
Online Registration Management8.77 Ratings00 Ratings
District Communications, such as messaging and alerting8.74 Ratings7.03 Ratings
Roster Management8.26 Ratings8.34 Ratings
Platform Customization7.66 Ratings3.02 Ratings
Teacher Self-Service8.46 Ratings6.33 Ratings
Student Data Security8.47 Ratings8.84 Ratings
Community Support8.36 Ratings3.01 Ratings
Class Scheduling8.47 Ratings9.02 Ratings
State and National-level Reporting8.97 Ratings8.52 Ratings
Compliance Support8.56 Ratings00 Ratings
Teacher and Parent Mobile Application6.75 Ratings9.52 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Ellucian BannerSkyward Student Management System
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

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Medium-sized Companies
Schoolmint Hero
Schoolmint Hero
Score 9.7 out of 10
Schoolmint Hero
Schoolmint Hero
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Schoolmint Hero
Schoolmint Hero
Score 9.7 out of 10
Schoolmint Hero
Schoolmint Hero
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Ellucian BannerSkyward Student Management System
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(21 ratings)
8.0
(16 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(2 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(2 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(5 ratings)
6.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Ellucian BannerSkyward Student Management System
Likelihood to Recommend
Ellucian
As a SIS, Banner Pages is the full meal deal. There are multiple modules that integrate out of the box. Because Banner is all I've ever used as a SIS, I can't contrast it with another program. I can say, it gets the job done for us. I will also say that a tremendous amount of time goes into strategizing how to get new functions to work for us and there always seems to be some catch that requires even more work. In general, the university has been hesitant to build too many modifications into Banner because they take a lot of time to maintain. Inevitably, a new update (of which there are MANY for Banner) will break stuff that isn't "vanilla." This is unfortunate because we've had some great ideas for how to make Banner better for us, but also understandable. If you're looking for a highly modular system, this isn't it. Banner has lots of components, but the components work the way they work and that's that. Also, don't expect very quick responses to bugs or glitches. If the bug is major, yes, it will be addressed. But, little function issues seem to be regularly overlooked.
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Skyward
There is nothing specific that I would say sets it apart from any other LMS, but once you are used to the user interface and various features, it does everything that is needed and integrates well enough with other software to function. Probably isn't necessary in a smaller setting, but for multiple building districts, it is certainly robust enough to handle data collection and storage.
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Pros
Ellucian
  • I think it's great to use if you are tracking grades for certain classes, especially if you'd like to see how students do, comparing midterm to final grades. If you have the permissions, you can see both.
  • It's also good to track students individually. You can look up a certain semester, and see how they did in that particular time frame, but you can also see their cumulative gpa, or even look up their entire course history.
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Skyward
  • Flexibility. This multitude of fields available makes it easy to capture data the way we want or need to.
  • Quick response to trouble tickets. The company strives to reach out to the customer within an hour and start the process of resolution.
  • User focused. Improvements to the system always look at how the end user experience can be enhanced.
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Cons
Ellucian
  • One thing I miss from the previous version of Ellucian Banner, is the control + page down. I struggle with alt + page down.
  • I love the Ellucian Banner favorites; however, it is a little difficult to navigate.
  • I can honestly only think of 2 things that could be improved. I use Ellucian Banner daily.
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Skyward
  • Confusion when it comes to student grades- sometimes there are two different letter grades for a student for what is posted as "TR1" and "PR1." How does a teacher know which of these grades will be posted to a student's report card? How does a teacher know what the student's actual grade is for a particular course?
  • Switching between the Educator Access Plus and Student Management tabs can be complicated, especially for those new to the system. Why can't everything be in one place?
  • I recognize that Skyward logs out after a certain period of inactivity to preserve privacy of users, but is there a way to change those settings so that Skyward does not log out as frequently? It is difficult to keep having to log back in completely again.
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Likelihood to Renew
Ellucian
We have no reason not to renew with Ellucian - we are in deep with the ecosystem, and have Ellucian providing us with information technology support. If anything, should the opportunity arise, we'd probably consider adding a different ellucian tools into the suite of applications we already have on board.
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Skyward
It is the system I am most comfortable with, so having to learn a new system outweighs any problems I have with Skyward.
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Usability
Ellucian
You definitely have to learn it before it becomes easy to use. It's better than it was, but it's still not entirely intuitive. You can't just look at it and play around to figure out how it works
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Skyward
It takes some time to get used to navigating the features and layers, but once you know your way around it, it's pretty good.
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Reliability and Availability
Ellucian
It's pretty much up all the time.
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Skyward
No answers on this topic
Performance
Ellucian
Has gotten much better due to new hardware.
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Skyward
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Ellucian
Our department generally does not contact the support center for Banner but the IT department does. That being said, in the seven years that I have been here, I have not once needed to contact the support center; we have had no glitches on Banner's side that needed to be addressed.
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Skyward
Overall great job, issues were taken care of. People in support do care.
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Implementation Rating
Ellucian
very satisfied, along with the IT staff and ellucian support the upgrades do very well and have minimum down time.
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Skyward
Yes, I was part of the implementation team.
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Alternatives Considered
Ellucian
PeopleSoft was more user-friendly. It also provided the ability to save and bookmark queries. PeopleSoft will allow users to use common names to search for queries. Overall, it seemed much more current than Banner. PeopleSoft provided enrollment data for specific sections which allowed one to spot trends of enrollment in a given class.
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Skyward
I, personally, have not used other Student Management Systems, but having used Skyward, I do not necessarily feel any overwhelming desire to seek out the competitive software programs. Skyward does what it says it will and provides my school district with an easy and organized way to share and access all of the relevant student and family information we need. It serves it's purpose well and meets our needs.
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Scalability
Ellucian
being able to scale with hardware was easy and not cumbersome. We were allowed to user virtual machines which made things very scalable.
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Skyward
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Ellucian
  • There is positive ROI on the product overall. It had reduced or allowed us to focus our staff members on something which is very use and it does the job in the background.
  • The application has supported in a lot of ways in saving resources and utilizing them in very productive & efficient manner
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Skyward
  • Overall, Skyward has had a positive impact. One way is the student information that is shared and available to see. If I need to know something about a student’s academic history, Skyward has it.
  • Another way it has impacted our district is the way it has streamlined all of our payroll information. I can see check histories, different parts of my salary, and the year-end totals all in one place.
  • Skyward has also made a big impact on our district by making it easier to communicate with parents. All the parents’ contact information is available and email is even included in the program.
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