JSiMS vs. Blackbaud Education Management Solutions vs. TripIt

A good, and constantly improving solution for private schools. I don't know that a lot of its functionality would be well suited to public schools, but maybe? The integration with other Blackbaud software is a huge plus for us, as we have several of their other products including their flagship Raiser's Edge. Smaller schools may not need the sophistication of Blackbaud solutions, and it is not an inexpensive option.

Incentivized

TripIt is great for anyone who has multiple trips at any given time. It is also very good at tracking multiple reservations automatically on individual trips. It's not appropriate for low volume trips or only short trips. It is also good for sharing itineraries with others. It's not good for calendar views.

Incentivized

• Seamless integration between the LMS, EMS and SIS modules
• Real-time, effective chat support helps me not only with urgent needs but also to work through possibilities for increasing how we use the product.
• Feature upgrades monthly that respond to voiced needs from users

Incentivized

• Itinerary Management - TripIt does a great job collecting all of your travel information, including your flight and hotel information all in one location, so that you don't have to deal with multiple vendor apps, emails, or even printouts of that info. It also handles multiple upcoming trips for even easier management and organization
• Notifications - TripIt notifies you of changes to your itinerary, such as delays or gate changes, which is great to have that information pushed to you rather than having to constantly look at flight boards for updates.
• Apple Watch integration - As an Apple Watch user, TripIt has gone the extra mile to provide a useful watch app for travelers, making your travel information available on your wrist. This makes it even easier to catch changes to your itinerary, and not have to juggle a phone while you already have a passport and luggage to worry about!

Incentivized

• Forms - lack of conditional questions
• Gradebook -lack of links to assignments
• Not being able to customize displays, for example, Grading tab - we just finished 1st semester and teachers could only see the current quarter but not the 1st one which is still part of the first semester. Lack of customization in assessments.
• Scheduling- even though re-running generating schedules, we're still getting a high number of unscheduled students. Lack of being able to limit the number of scheduled classes in a row for teachers.

Incentivized

• Some addresses sometimes do not load (But this is becoming rare these days)
• Add some color to the icons (again minor improvement)
• Ability to create cross destination group trips with different cities to have a full overview of the trip and crossover points

Incentivized

It is a solid product. We have some issues with the capabilities of the website building components and the out dated technology behind its communications software but overall Blackbaud Education Management Software services to combine numerous functions into one product.

Incentivized

I have been using it for a while now and I did renew it every year because it is the best way for me to keep my travel plans in one place with easy visualization

Incentivized

Blackbaud EMS is very usable from my perspective. I am a power user and get lots of valuable functionality. It is, however, a complex system. Sometimes necessarily complex to accommodate flexibility for diverse customer needs. Some complexity seems unnecessary and/or hold-over functionality from earlier versions; nice to see this type being evolved away from over time. It is valuable to receive regular updates to the system along with good release notes of what changed and notices of significant changes in advance.

Incentivized

For me- Tripit was super easy right out of the gate. Initially, using Concur required a little bit of training.

Incentivized

Ive only had the receipt scan feature crash 1 time; no other issues- in fact the app is more on top of details than I am!!

Incentivized

pages load fast, notifications are great. up to minute. after deboarding- my next steps are displayed. Syncs with the hotel & frequent flyer rewards programs too.

Incentivized

Decent support however the chat feature can take a great amount of time out of the workday. If for instance you are waiting for someone to respond in the chat and there is a fire drill, if you are not responding within a few minutes, you are disconnected and have to start all over again. It would be great if you could submit your problem and then whoever has the most experience, can respond. The training in the Blackbaud University is good but also time-consuming - a 3 hr training in the middle of a workday is a lot to ask. I like the 90-minute sessions. It would also be great to offer a shorter webinar to update on any changes implemented. Other than the email I subscribed to, there is no information on how these updates actually work.

Incentivized

I have never called their support. That is a great question especially when rolling out into a medium to large organization. Concur is a well-respected company, so I can only suppose their Support is reasonable. I have not experienced their support.

Incentivized

Set up clear workflows & processes for the masses! No problems with software, only end users...haha

Incentivized

Blackbaud K-12 is very similar. I feel like I would be trading one set of issues for another so it's kind of a wash. We are very much hooked into the Blackbaud website with our Google SSO, SmartTuition, and Schooldoc integrations. It would be difficult for us to transition. That is the main reason I haven't really entertained other web firms.

Incentivized

TripIt is designed specifically to help individuals manage their travel info in one place. Before I used TripIt, I had to manually save my travel info in a Google Drive folder, add flights to my personal calendar, then manage multiple airline apps to get flight alerts. TripIt has made my travel much easier.

Incentivized

Tripit is working great for everyone, each department meeting both company and individual needs.

Incentivized

• Negative - The rollout is brutal. Blackbaud said it could happen in 6 months, but that is definitely not a reality. It will take well over a year, and one complete school cycle to actually integrate everything correctly.
• Positive - The amount of time saved in data processing has allowed our office to become more involved in other areas of the school.
• Positive - The ease of having everything in [one] place, from inquiry to application to contracts and course registration, has been a HUGE benefit to our applicants and their families.

Incentivized

• It makes it easy to see if your are missing a hotel stay.
• It makes it easy to see if you are missing a flight.
• It makes it easy to send reservations to someone's email and have it added to their TripIt.

Incentivized