PowerSchool Student Information System vs. TOTVS Educacional

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

The TOTVS ERP is very well suited for online courses that require frequent contact and discussion among participants. On the other hand, the array of customizable features on the platform seems quite vast, which can make taking full advantage of the different features somewhat difficult if a business does not have a clear idea of what they're looking for.

• 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

• Attractive interface.
• Wide range of customization tools.
• No down time or crashes.
• Encourages interaction among students and instructors.
• Seamless payment processing and grading system.
• User-friendly consulting platform.
• Good cybersecurity.

• 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

• System sign-out after a few minutes of user being idle.
• Automated HelpDesk questions are very simple.
• Video load times were delayed at times.

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

The system itself was very easy to navigate as a user, but sometimes load times would be higher than expected

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

Basic HelpDesk questions, but few problems or questions arose.

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

• 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

• Workflows were easy to manage.
• Very few user complaints.
• Good cost-benefit.