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PowerSchool Student Information System vs. Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    PowerSchool SIS

    Score6.3 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    The PowerSchool Student Information System covers administrative needs, such as scheduling, attendance, reporting, data management, faculty management, emergency/medical and health management, registration, and more for K-12 schools and districts. It is easy to use and boasts an industry-leading gradebook, PowerTeacher Pro. Users enjoy a fully web-based SIS that is flexible, configurable, and scalable with real-time updates on any operating system, browser or device.N/A

    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/ASpiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management.

    $0

    (free for 1-5 Seats)

    Pricing
    PowerSchool SISSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Core Plan
    $0
    Premium
    $6
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    PowerSchool SISSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    PowerSchool SISSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Considered Both Products
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answer on this topic
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    18 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    35 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    35 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    89%
    Happy with the feature set
    17 Answers
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    34 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    9 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    27 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    92%
    Implementation went as expected
    12 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    31 Answers
    Features
    PowerSchool SISSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Student and Faculty Administration
    Comparison of Student and Faculty Administration features of PowerSchool Student Information System and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    PowerSchool Student Information System
    8.5
    3 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    -
    Ratings
    Integrations with 3rd-Party Education Technology9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Online Registration Management10.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    District Communications, such as messaging and alerting8.12 Ratings00 Ratings
    Roster Management9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform Customization7.73 Ratings00 Ratings
    Teacher Self-Service9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Student Data Security9.43 Ratings00 Ratings
    Community Support7.43 Ratings00 Ratings
    Class Scheduling9.43 Ratings00 Ratings
    State and National-level Reporting7.12 Ratings00 Ratings
    Compliance Support7.62 Ratings00 Ratings
    Teacher and Parent Mobile Application8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of PowerSchool Student Information System and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    PowerSchool Student Information System
    -
    Ratings
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    8.1
    56 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings8.855 Ratings
    Expert directory00 Ratings5.548 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings4.943 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings9.346 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings10.055 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings10.054 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of PowerSchool Student Information System and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    PowerSchool Student Information System
    -
    Ratings
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    9.5
    53 Ratings
    17% above category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings9.549 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings9.549 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of PowerSchool Student Information System and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    PowerSchool Student Information System
    -
    Ratings
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    8.7
    53 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings9.847 Ratings
    IVR00 Ratings4.512 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings9.028 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings10.047 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings10.029 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    PowerSchool SISSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    PowerSchool SISSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (32 ratings)
    10.0
    (84 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (29 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.8
    (10 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (12 ratings)
    8.7
    (26 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    PowerSchool SISSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Likelihood to Recommend
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    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
    Read full review
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    It's a great helpdesk solution - we currently have five years of data within it, roughly 25,000 tickets. The older edition is a great inventory and software license tracking tool. It is easy for users to use the interface and submit tickets and requests on the web, and its email integration is solid. The new version is a below-average system monitoring tool, only giving up/down status and a few other metrics.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    • 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
    Read full review
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • It helps to multitask, even on the go with the mobile App.
    • We can customize to meet your needs with automated responses, notifications, and templates.
    • Detailed reports allow managers to keep track [of] and analyze data.
    • Allows for a database to store notes helpful for future tickets.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    • 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
    Read full review
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • I have always wanted a way to redirect a support request into another IS bin, such as a development task.
    • It's possible to extract the data from the Spiceworks database, but it would be helpful if the process to do so were easier.
    • Improved ability to customize the system generated emails to improve the formatting and company branding.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    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
    Read full review
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Spiceworks is a free tool, so there would be no hesitation if we are required to upgrade it. We have installed Spiceworks on a dedicated server with more than enough resources to get the most from this tool, so we will have this running in our department for years to come.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    Great features, but it can feel very cumbersome at times
    Incentivized
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    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Spiceworks is user friendly and easy to set up. It can be customized to suit your needs. If there are any problems, you can go to the community forums for support and be in contact with many IT Pros, as well as the Spiceworks support staff and development teams who are always happy to help users out
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    We use it both locally on our own server so up time is decided by us and we also use the hosted help desk. We have never had an outage of that.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    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
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    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Spiceworks has been working out of the box, and some of the basic customizations have been successful with just our internal staff handling. We don't have any other issues with the tool. It provides us with the inventory information we want in a quick and concise report in a variety of formats for our team.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    If you can spin up a VM to run it on, you'll thank yourself later. If you have remote sites, set up a local server (or dedicated computer) at each site and set them up as remote collectors for the main site. You'll save time and bandwidth
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    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
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    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    EGroupware UI is clunky and hard to use, Jira is great but the pricing is expensive in comparison with spice works that has a free version and you can test it out properly before buying and make a correct decision based on your business plan and company objectives with the right software.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    • 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
    Read full review
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • Positive - Allow organizations to implement structured Help Desk procedures.
    • Positive - IT can begin to quantify their tickets and uncover needs within the organization.
    • Positive - IT can develop a solid roadmap with [the] management of future needs, equipment refresh schedules, etc.
    • Positive - IT can pinpoint employees who may need extra training or updated equipment based on historical ticketing data.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    PowerSchool SIS Screenshots

    Screenshot of Student attendanceScreenshot of Standards-based gradingScreenshot of At-risk dashboardScreenshot of Parent view of student schedule