Alma SIS

Pros: The feature that I like most about Alma is the ability to flag students with medical issues. By creating a critical health alert, teachers and other school staff are easily made aware of certain high risk students. Also, I like that the school nurse is able to upload individualized health care plans to Alma, making it simple to pass along pertinent health information for those who need to know this.

Cons: One thing that could be considered a con is the speed of program. Sometimes, it takes longer than others (when trying to access student health information).

Pros: The Alma SIS is intuitive for faculty and families. The interface is easy to love and the information is in a very predictable format that makes it easy to find quickly. When technology goes awry, like it always does, Alma's customer support is top-notch. They have been phenomenal at helping us navigate issues on the admin and family side and working through to a solution. We are incredibly pleased with the product and feel that we are getting a great value for our investment.

Cons: Honestly, there are very few things we do not like about Alma and the issues we have come across have been very easy to navigate and are often things that we didn't realize we could do!

Pros: $79

Cons: The only thing I would say I least liked was that it was not compariable to the system that was use for reporting to our district office.

Pros: Accessibility, relative ease to setup, number of features, especially for price, email and messaging system was fantastic.

Cons: Customer service response time could be hit or miss, other than that the pros definitely outweighed any cons.

Pros: It is easy to navigate Alma as a teacher to find information. I like the ability to send out messages to families.

Cons: I wish that the attendance section included students leaving early in the count of absent/tardy. It would be nice if the messages could be sent as a text and email and not require 2 separate messages to be sent.

Pros: It is live up to date information about students. As an SLP I'm able to see attendance, student contact information, student pictures for use of visual schedules. I love that it is easy to use.

Cons: One challenge I’ve encountered with Alma SIS as a service provider is the inability to create my own classrooms or groups. As an SLP, I work with students across multiple grade levels and classrooms, so having my caseload organized in one central place would significantly improve efficiency. Currently, I have to search for each student individually, which takes extra time and makes it harder to manage documentation and track progress. If Alma allowed service providers to create and manage their own student groups or "classes," it would streamline workflows and better support the unique roles of specialists in schools.

Pros: Alma makes stream lining all things school so easy both as a teacher and a parent. It easily allows me to sync my grades, track attendance, and check where my students are each day.

Cons: Alma does take a little while to get used to and there are some features like special education alerts for teachers that could make it better.

Pros: What I like most about Alma SIS is that it really helps me stay organized with grading and makes daily communication with parents much easier. The customer support is responsive and helpful; they are quick to address questions and provide guidance when needed.

Cons: Our main challenge with Alma SIS is managing costs in a non-dollar economy as a nonprofit. Still, the platform’s organization and communication benefits make it a worthwhile investment despite the financial difficulty.

Pros: We switched to Alma from Blackbaud and it was like night and day for our faculty and families. As a very small school with limited in-house tech staff, Alma was almost completely self explanatory. Between the chat and videos, almost all questions were answered. The Wednesday sessions online were also great. Once we did need major assistance to correct a major error in initial set up (we chose a 7 day week and not a 5 day week). The folks under the hood took care of the problem and got us back on track without losing any of our data. For the price, Alma provided every features we had needed and used in Blackbaud.

Cons: The Bell Schedule concept should be reviewed VERY carefully before you get started to avoid problems. Our schedule was in flux when we started which added to our challenges. Once we got it set up properly it worked perfectly even with our non-standard schedules.

Pros: Alma's value for the money offset other unanticipated line item costs just when we needed it. As Academic Director, our teachers appreciated the ease-of-use when creating assignments and inputing grades.

Cons: As our needs grew, we needed to add on other features for a cost. That said, Alma fit the bill in the moment.

Pros: It is incredibly user friendly, and if I can't find something easily, the customer service responds so quickly!

Cons: I wish it had better options for the medical side of things. Such as inventory for tracking medications taken, what time they were given and if doses are missed.

Pros: Intuitive interface that staff and teachers can learn quickly Strong student data management tools Reliable grading and reporting system Good customer support responsiveness

Cons: There is a learning curve for us as we are new to the system but support is very good... there is really nothing to write on this part.

Pros: Alma is a first-class learning management and student information platform for small-to-medium sized schools and/or learning communities. The user interface provides a user friendly and intuitive experience for teaching faculty and staff personnel. The facilitation of basic record-keeping and stream-lined communication features help contribute to constituent cohesion and work flow synergy.

Cons: Alma served our school community's needs in all areas that our administrative team needed support in. From demographic profiles to academics to basic management of student life protocols (i.e. student and parent communication, tracking of behavioral reports, etc.), Alma was the right platform for us at the right time in the life of our small school community in a state of transition.

Pros: Alma SIS is an organized system for the entire school, from Administration to Student/Teacher/Parent needs - everything is user friendly and easily accessible. The support received is also excellent.

Cons: The ability to customize data, for example, add languages etc to the list - there are only a few languages listed, adn for an International School, we would like to list the multiple languages our students speak.

Pros: The SIS ALMA is user friendly for the administrator, student, teacher, and parent. When I, an ALMA Administrator, need assistance their customer support is easy to access and always can help within moments. When I, as a teacher, use it - I know my grades are secure and can easily be accessed by students and parents to keep up to date with what their child is achieving. I like many of the features including leaving notes, adding calendar events, sending whole class messages or something on the bulletin board feature. We are lucky to utilize this SIS in our district.

Cons: There is nothing that comes to mind as a con for ALMA. Of all the SIS systems I have utilized, this is my preferred system.

Pros: I have used Alma SIS for years, in two different school districts. One of the best qualities of Alma SIS is its ease of use. My teachers love how easy it is to navigate for attendance, grades, etc. Since Alma is so easy to use, just a few clicks, and attendance is done. Also, especially with the integration and sync with Google Classroom, teachers spend little time entering grades. This provides more time to attend to all the other tasks that teachers have on their plates every day. Students and parents also love Alma because of how easy it is to navigate.

Cons: Honestly, nothing. Out of all of the student information systems I have used, both as a parent and an educator, none have come close to the experience I have had with Alma.

Pros: ALMA SIS is a great end-user system. It's easy to navigate and get the information you need with a few clicks. The Spreadsheet data editor is probably the most used part of ALMA for me, as a quick way to get data and pull what you need by fields and groups without a degree in programming. :-) Having the ALMA alert system built into the program is great for sending out urgent messages quickly.

Cons: Honestly, there isn't anything that I like least about ALMA. It takes time to train on a new SIS, and I feel folks may confuse a lack of knowledge with a lack of system performance. The training videos are very helpful, as are the weekly Zoom Q & A's.

Pros: This program is easy to use for me as a teacher. It is user friendly and does everything an online grade book should do.

Cons: Rarely, there are some glitches and crashes but the Alma team is extremely quick to get things back up and running.

Pros: User-friendly; everyone on campus including parents and students learned how to use it and don't require my assistance very often.

Cons: Missing grade level filter in the school directory and notifications when someone submits an Alma Start form.

Pros: I like the best that that it’s interface is user-friendly and pretty easy to understand. Best option is that you can set up grade categories and corresponding weights so that when logging in assignment and category, it automatically does correct computations. I also liked that iy simplifies communication with students and families through built-in messaging features and saves so much time.

Cons: My only concern so far is mobile version of the website is not that efficient. It would be nice to have a mobile application.

Pros: ALMA SIS is very intuitive (unlike some other SIS that I have used in the school setting), user friendly, and I like the navigation features. I also liked the feature to send a message or help ticket and get quick responses.

Cons: There's not much that I did not like. I wish my school used more of the features, like adding test scores, and inputting calendar information.

Pros: Super convenient and easy to use. I like seeing how each category of assessments I create shows how each skill contributes to students' overall grade.

Cons: For our school's block schedule and different events for HS and MS, the calendar section is not the easiest to read.