PowerSchool Student Information System vs. Ravenna

PowerSchool Student Information System is a cool software that can be highly recommended to anyone who is living in the educational management space. It is proven that this software can reduce your manual workload massively if you use it right. Plus it is really worth the price you pay. Especially if you are in the administrative field, this software will help you to minimize manual efforts put into student registrations, staffing recruitment, and main resource management processes.

Incentivized

Well suited to having the ability to import information when there are large numbers of scholars to be updated, such as graduations or moving up a grade. On the other hand, the program is geared towards a school and we are not a school so we had to do a lot of tweaking for our purposes.

Incentivized

• 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

• Customer service in response to problem-solving.
• Extremely hands-on in making additions to the software on the spot to fulfill a need.

Incentivized

• Does not consistently communicate with related software such as Illuminate for Special Education Students.
• Drop down menus frequently refresh as data is entered which slows down the user's ability to enter information.
• Icons are sometimes unclear and not easily understandable. Word labels for some items might be more effective.

Incentivized

• There are a lot of terms used for different information in the database. It would be nice if that could be streamlined somehow and more intuitive for the users.
• There are a lot of details to go through to make custom list or create reports. If you don't do these processes regularly, it seems you are always relearning the process.
• There was a point when data changes needed to be done in two different places, but I think we may have resolved that issue.

Incentivized

We would be starting over at square one if we did not continue our PowerSchool subscription. We do not have a program in a place that would take its place.

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

Brian, our representative, as been tremendous. His response time is outstanding - and if he is able to alter the tool on the spot, he will. We've been able to do more sophisticated maneuvers because of his willingness to problem-solve with us. When the functionality isn't there, it is also a very honest conversation and we know when we have to work outside of the tool.

Incentivized

I have heard good things for Infinite Campus and Skyward. I would [evaluate] each of them and see what fits your needs. Each has their strengths and weaknesses and so picking the right one for your needs is important. PowerSchool [Student Information System] does have some great features, but lacks some fundamental reports and functions to make it top notch.

Incentivized

We were using the CRM database system, however it was too proprietary and when we wanted to make changes or customize we were continually paying an outside consultant to get things done. With inRESONANCE, we are able to make the updates, and customize as we need to internally. It has saved us a significant amount of money in this regard.

Incentivized

• It has created shortcuts for all staff members, saving us time.
• In creating shortcuts and combining many different systems into one, it is saving our school money.
• It has created a safety net for teachers because grades and student information is stored electronically, which means teachers not having to worry about losing or misplacing their grade books.

Incentivized

• Annual fund tracking is very easy and pulling simple things like donors/non-donors is easy. Fine for a straight-forward appeal.
• If you are going with a comprehensive/combine ask - this is not the tool for you. There's no way to split gifts with % allocation. We're losing money in spending time trying to figure out how to configure pledges in accordance with the software.

Incentivized