PeopleAdmin Higher Ed Platform, from Powerschool vs. PowerSchool Student Information System

PeopleAdmin handles the process of recruiting very well. It integrated into the jobbing.com web pages as well as other job websites. The learning curve for users is not too steep. The web page format is intuitive to users. The user interface looks good. The initial issue would be the number of candidates the organization handles per year. Due to our business, we handle a large number of candidates, but US and international. PeopleAdmin facilitates this process.

PowerSchool is great for schools to keep track of student information, schedules, and grades. It integrates with other programs to make setting up classes easier and faster. PowerSchool gives teachers a singular place to find information or input students' grades. It also has an app for parents or guardians to use to check their student's grades which is very useful.

Incentivized

• Applicant tracking was a good use of this tool for our department. I think it could use a few more customization features but overall it was a good tool to weed out applicants who were not qualified for the position.
• The system has some canned reporting tools that also worked well for our department and management needs.
• It was a great place to house our position descriptions and provided a readily accessible source for hiring managers to make requested updates and changes and for employees to see and have access to their position descriptions.

• PowerSchool houses student or staff information that can be easily accessed by those teachers and administrators who need the information. This allows everyone to go to one place to access information.
• Parents can view their child's grades at any time with their protected login on a parent portal. This allows teachers to keep parents informed and involved in their child's progress at school. When everyone works together it increases our students' chance for success.
• PowerSchool offers videos to train new users. When we have new employees, the videos can be accessed at any time the employee needs as opposed to them waiting for someone to help them.

Incentivized

• Moving applicants through workflow is not a very fluid process. When the number of applicants spans multiple pages one is forced to work with each page individually; moving applicants to a status that requires approval precludes moving any others in workflow without filtering them out but it is not obvious that one needs to be aware of this.
• One can't search for a job description by simply typing in the employee's name - it requires using the position number and often the name is what is at hand.
• When one changes positions within the organization and requires different access there does not seem to be a way to be added globally to job descriptions in the new unit - the process is far too manual. Although I believe adding new units to ones profile is fairly simple, apparently one can't remove the old units so I continue to see things that I no longer need to.

Incentivized

• The user interface could be more intuitive. Because of the many features, it can sometimes be difficult for administrators to find what they are looking for.
• A recent upgrade allowing for more flexibility in the relationship between students and parents was long in coming and didn't go very smoothly. We are now dealing with a ton of clean-up after the upgrade. Even after we have cleaned everything up, there is still a ways to go before PowerSchool is on par with other SIS systems in that area. In their defense though, they are actively working on getting caught up.

Incentivized

We are evaluating our options as it relates to PeopleAdmin. We are likely to renew as we can not find another product that gives us the functionality we have with PeopleAdmin 5.8 in the area of Position Description. Outside of that, we would likely be close to finding another product solution.

The district is unlikely to change systems due to the cost of training and tech support to facilitate such a switch.

Incentivized

Great features, but it can feel very cumbersome at times

Incentivized

Overall, I have not had to use support for PowerSchool Student Information System because our school district gives us training in each area in which we will be utilizing PowerSchool Student Information System. In terms of in-user support, I feel that there is mild to moderate user support that is built into PowerSchool SIS.

Incentivized

I've used both Target Recruit and HR Smart. When working with Target Recruit it quickly became apparent it was not the right solution for us. Another solution we examined prior to selection PeopleAdmin was iCIMS. iCIMS is a very social system but was not as familiar with the Higher Education recruitment processes as was PeopleAdmin.

Incentivized

Each software I used in my career had special features which were specifically unique for them. PowerSchool Student Information System was an impressive software that offered the ability to ease student registrations and admissions online using web forms where students and parents could submit and upload their information and necessary documents to the school/institute with just a few clicks. Even though this feature is available on a few other similar software, PowerSchool Student Information System was the only software that was specialized in this area.

Incentivized

• We are now able to track our recruitment sources to determine our ROI on university paid subscriptions.
• We have reduced our recruiting approval review times by 50%
• We have identified areas for improvement substancially by having robust reporting available at our fingertips.

• Having one system within the school district is beneficial. Teachers are able to access a variety of information and also do input all within the same program.
• Communication with parents has been impacted greatly, as they always have information at their fingertips without teachers having to call or email them with a grade update. Parents are able to check student's grades at any time.

Incentivized