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Ellucian Banner vs. PowerSchool Student Information System

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Ellucian Banner

    Score2.6 out of 10
    N/AEllucian offers Banner educational ERP, including its student management system emphasizing control and reporting of process-oriented facets of education such as grading and attendance.N/A

    PowerSchool SIS

    Score8.4 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
    Pricing
    Ellucian BannerPowerSchool SIS
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Ellucian BannerPowerSchool SIS
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Ellucian BannerPowerSchool SIS
    Considered Both Products
    Ellucian
    No answer on this topic
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    80%
    Would buy again
    12 Answers
    95%
    Would buy again
    18 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    82%
    Delivers good value for the price
    9 Answers
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    80%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    89%
    Happy with the feature set
    17 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    5 Answers
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    9 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    78%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    92%
    Implementation went as expected
    12 Answers
    Features
    Ellucian BannerPowerSchool SIS
    Student and Faculty Administration
    Comparison of Student and Faculty Administration features of Ellucian Banner and PowerSchool Student Information System
    Feature
    Ellucian Banner
    8.5
    8 Ratings
    3% above category average
    PowerSchool Student Information System
    8.5
    3 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Integrations with 3rd-Party Education Technology7.98 Ratings9.02 Ratings
    Online Registration Management8.97 Ratings10.02 Ratings
    District Communications, such as messaging and alerting8.94 Ratings8.12 Ratings
    Roster Management8.56 Ratings9.03 Ratings
    Platform Customization8.16 Ratings7.73 Ratings
    Teacher Self-Service8.86 Ratings9.03 Ratings
    Student Data Security8.67 Ratings9.43 Ratings
    Community Support8.66 Ratings7.43 Ratings
    Class Scheduling8.67 Ratings9.43 Ratings
    State and National-level Reporting9.27 Ratings7.12 Ratings
    Compliance Support8.96 Ratings7.62 Ratings
    Teacher and Parent Mobile Application7.25 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Ellucian BannerPowerSchool SIS
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Ellucian BannerPowerSchool SIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.4
    (21 ratings)
    9.0
    (32 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    8.5
    (12 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Ellucian BannerPowerSchool SIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Ellucian
    As a SIS, Banner Pages is the full meal deal. There are multiple modules that integrate out of the box. Because Banner is all I've ever used as a SIS, I can't contrast it with another program. I can say, it gets the job done for us. I will also say that a tremendous amount of time goes into strategizing how to get new functions to work for us and there always seems to be some catch that requires even more work. In general, the university has been hesitant to build too many modifications into Banner because they take a lot of time to maintain. Inevitably, a new update (of which there are MANY for Banner) will break stuff that isn't "vanilla." This is unfortunate because we've had some great ideas for how to make Banner better for us, but also understandable. If you're looking for a highly modular system, this isn't it. Banner has lots of components, but the components work the way they work and that's that. Also, don't expect very quick responses to bugs or glitches. If the bug is major, yes, it will be addressed. But, little function issues seem to be regularly overlooked.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Pros
    Ellucian
    • I think it's great to use if you are tracking grades for certain classes, especially if you'd like to see how students do, comparing midterm to final grades. If you have the permissions, you can see both.
    • It's also good to track students individually. You can look up a certain semester, and see how they did in that particular time frame, but you can also see their cumulative gpa, or even look up their entire course history.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Cons
    Ellucian
    • One thing I miss from the previous version of Ellucian Banner, is the control + page down. I struggle with alt + page down.
    • I love the Ellucian Banner favorites; however, it is a little difficult to navigate.
    • I can honestly only think of 2 things that could be improved. I use Ellucian Banner daily.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Ellucian
    We have no reason not to renew with Ellucian - we are in deep with the ecosystem, and have Ellucian providing us with information technology support. If anything, should the opportunity arise, we'd probably consider adding a different ellucian tools into the suite of applications we already have on board.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Usability
    Ellucian
    You definitely have to learn it before it becomes easy to use. It's better than it was, but it's still not entirely intuitive. You can't just look at it and play around to figure out how it works
    Incentivized
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    PowerSchool Group LLC
    Great features, but it can feel very cumbersome at times
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Ellucian
    It's pretty much up all the time.
    Incentivized
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    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Ellucian
    Has gotten much better due to new hardware.
    Incentivized
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    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Ellucian
    Our department generally does not contact the support center for Banner but the IT department does. That being said, in the seven years that I have been here, I have not once needed to contact the support center; we have had no glitches on Banner's side that needed to be addressed.
    Incentivized
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    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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    Implementation Rating
    Ellucian
    very satisfied, along with the IT staff and ellucian support the upgrades do very well and have minimum down time.
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    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Ellucian
    PeopleSoft was more user-friendly. It also provided the ability to save and bookmark queries. PeopleSoft will allow users to use common names to search for queries. Overall, it seemed much more current than Banner. PeopleSoft provided enrollment data for specific sections which allowed one to spot trends of enrollment in a given class.
    Incentivized
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    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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    Scalability
    Ellucian
    being able to scale with hardware was easy and not cumbersome. We were allowed to user virtual machines which made things very scalable.
    Incentivized
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    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Ellucian
    • There is positive ROI on the product overall. It had reduced or allowed us to focus our staff members on something which is very use and it does the job in the background.
    • The application has supported in a lot of ways in saving resources and utilizing them in very productive & efficient manner
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    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
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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