All Alma SIS Reviews
1-25 of 296 Reviews
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Tom
Education Management, 51 - 200 employees
Used unspecified
OVERALL RATING:
4
Reviewed February 2024
Alma SIS Review: Great for elementary schools
Said
Verified reviewer
Education Management, 201-500 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed July 2021
Alma the soul of your education
For a long school year such as a semester or a full year it has been phenomenal as a portfolio for classes with my students
PROSAs a teacher I can say that Alma is one of the best virtual classrooms that I have tried, it is an all-in-one and something that I love is the management of evaluations and students without having to resort to any other external platform. The function that I use the most is evaluative management since right there I can check my lists for the student report card system as well as the grade assigned to the same task and document
CONSIt is difficult to say that Alma has something bad, rather something not so good and that is first-hand integration, but once learned it is phenomenal
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Because I needed more control
Eric
Primary/Secondary Education, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2021
Easy to Use and Functional
Alma has allowed us to improve our communications within the school and with parents and students. Parents and students can see middle school students' grades and assignments. We also use it to broadcast emergency messages such as snow day closings.
PROSAlma is very easy to learn and to use. It has a lot of great features that make it flexible for the needs of different schools. Most importantly, the customer service is fantastic. They get back to you quickly, are helpful, even pleasant with some of my "stupid" questions to which I should know the answer and are open to ideas for improvements and new features.
CONSSome may wish for an "all-in-one" SIS/LMS system. Alma is more an SIS+ with some features that would allow a school to get away without an LMS, but certainly not all the features one would find in a combined SIS/LMS system. However, I think this is a good thing, as it provides flexibility to meet the needs of particular schools. For example, we are a Google Classroom school and don't currently use a full featured LMS such as Schoology or Canvas.
Reason for choosing Alma SIS
Alma was easier to implement then many of the bigger options and had a more up-to-date interface them some of the other smaller options.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Easy Grade Pro, our gradebook for years, was no longer being supported and we needed a new SIS system to replace Rediker, which was not meeting our needs.
Katy
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
1
EASE OF USE
1
VALUE FOR MONEY
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
2
FUNCTIONALITY
1
Reviewed February 2018
The absolute worst year I've had as a professional school counselor.
none.
PROSYou can log in quickly. The people who have come in to assist with how horrific this year has been have been mostly humble and at least tried to help.
CONSAbsolutely impossible to have what we need at our hands as high school counselors. Everything is laborious or actually impossible to do. It has taken MONTHS to get even tiny bits of advances to make this usable. Transcripts, which are an essential piece for our kids, took 6 months to have functioning, and they're still inaccurate. Scheduling is months behind because the programming is inept for a school this size. It lacks confidentiality and privacy that's important for our students. Household units are not available, access to other buildings makes it impossible to know who has siblings and other people living in their home, which poses a safety issue when filing reports to CPS, report cards are still completely wrong and inaccurate. I could truly go on for an awfully long time, but I digress. At the end of the day, I think I can vouch for every person in my building when I say that this program was rolled out in a deplorable way, changes and improvements are slow and sometimes non-existent, and it's made me reconsider even working in this corporation due to how terrible this system is. A program in its infancy has been detrimental to every single stakeholder in this corporation, and I've been disappointed since the first day of training in August.
Vendor Response
We truly appreciate you taking the time to help us improve the Alma experience. Change can be difficult, and while most Alma users have had positive experiences, we are continuously improving because our mission of serving educators like you is our life work. Along those lines, we have the industry's leading response time to customer inquiries by a factor of 10. We love working with your corporation because of the positive impact it is having on its students -- and we know its an organization you can be proud to be a part of. Other similarly-sized districts in the Alma family currently enjoy the flexibility, security and power our platform provides - and we'd love to explore how we can bring you to that same opinion. Your account manager will reach out to set up a time to go over (and fix) any issues needing attention.
Replied February 2018
Nick
Education Management, 201-500 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed April 2020
A solid Student SIS
They are a fantastic company with a bright future ahead of them. I'm happy to support them, enjoy using their product, and appreciate their customer service.
PROSThe main selling point from Alma was the ease of use. Out of all of the systems I've demoed and tried, it was easily the easiest to log in, poke around, and figure out how to do what I needed to do with minimal training. The second selling point is their customer service. Absolutely top notch. Their people are friendly, very responsive, and (most importantly) humans. I enjoy talking to them! I can usually get a response from a rep within minutes and even our teachers are welcome to message them with questions. The third selling point is that they are new system with a considerably active development cycle. We knew, going into it, that they wouldn't be as fully fleshed out as competitors like PowerSchool. That also means that it's easier for newer and fresher ideas to be implemented. It's not built on some old archaic database. Many of the features they do have that I use regularly such as the Report Card Builder and the Spreadsheet Data Editor/Report builder are very well done. We regularly get emails about new features being added and they listen to their customers when new features are requested. They've given us a lot of new toys since we first signed on with them. The final selling point is narwhals.
CONSProbably the biggest issue that I face regularly is that their district level stuff isn't as fleshed out as I would like it to be. Many of the cool features that are available at each of the schools I manage can't be done in the district portion, aggregating all data and whatnot. I've been told they are working on that stuff though!
Reason for choosing Alma SIS
PowerSchool had just released a new HTML5 interface. When asking for a sandbox demo, they couldn't even be bothered to show off their shiny new product. They gave us an old dinosaur of a sandbox that was not appealing at all. Alma whipped us up a sandbox no problem. Some of the fake names of students, teachers, and were hilarious references as well! Also, during the review process, we were using a Powerschool product known as Haiku. One day it went down. The page just wasn't loading. We emailed Powerschool for information and, just as a test, emailed Alma as well. Alma got back to us within 15 minutes. Powerschool got back to us about 2-3 days later. There were a number of other little things like that that swayed our decision.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
TylerSIS was horrible.
Ivana
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2021
Ivana B's Review
The software enables us to have all the data related to students, teachers, curriculum and assessment in one place. There are many things that are just "one click" tasks and things don't have to be re-done at the beginning of each school year. They can just be copied, transferred, modified... I also like that there is always a solution to everything, even if an option does not exist in the system, the support team helps find ways to make sure we get what we need.
CONSThere are some things that we would like to have. For example: the option to show attendance on the report card per class (as opposed to per day), or the option to include a digital signature on the cover. These are some tiny things that we have found ways to resolve, but we have communicated them with the support team and we feel confident that they take our feedback into consideration.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
I'd just like to emphasize (as it doesn't let me choose more products above), we had two products that we used: one for grading (Classroom Monitor) and another one for attendance and other data (Admin +). We made the switch so we can have one system for everything. I am not sure why Alma was the choice but I do know it was recommended by one of our administrators because of their experience with it in a previous school.
Jonathan
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2021
Review for Teachers
I have had a good overall experience with Alma. They have focused on having good customer service and it has worked out well from my perspective as a teacher.
PROSThis is a pretty good product, not perfect, but good. The most useful part here is the link to google classroom for grading. This helps me be able to give feedback in one place and have it connected to my students and their parents. The parts that would be nicer for our specific use would be if Alma would be able to be linked to Atlas, Inc. this is what our school uses for different organizational goals.
CONSThere have been a few glitches in the system that our administration has run into. First dealing with the report cards for 6th grade did not work out with the Semester 1 Reports. So we had to give the parents the Nine weeks report cards for our school. The one part that is disappointing is the link does not work with standards based grading. This problem does not stem from Alama, but is from Google not doing standards based grades. Other than that it has worked much better than the Power School System we had in place before.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Power School did not have an option for standards based grading system that worked well. Our administration had to go through LOTS of hoops to get the report cards looking good.
E.
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2020
Great Support!
We have always had great success with Alma. They are supportive, friendly, and responsive.
PROSThe customer service reps are always kind and supportive. They are quick to respond and ready to help out. They even change their software based on suggestions.
CONSThere is nothing that I find to be the least liked about this software. They are always willing to help and update.
Reason for choosing Alma SIS
Alma was more user-friendly and more cost-effective.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Alma was more user-friendly and more cost-effective.
Justin
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed May 2020
I Love Alma
My overall experience has been great. As I was the one pressured to find a SIS software program for our organization, I am glad that I decided to go with Alma. I didn't know what the outcome would be but I am happy in the decision that I made.
PROSIt is very user friendly. It has everything that our school needs. It is also syncs data with other programs we use within our school.
CONSThere is nothing I least like about the software. If there is a change I would like to see made, all I have to do is contact customer care and they will reach out to their engineers to see if its possible.
Reason for choosing Alma SIS
I was given a particular budget that I had to work with and out of all the other programs I had looked at within the same price range as Alma, Alma's interface is what stuck out to me the most. Having had to make an important decision like this alone, I would say that I got lucky.
Courtney
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2021
Alma Review
Overall this has been a great student management system from the teacher perspective. It was easy to learn, and just takes some time to get used to the new/different features after transitioning from a different system.
PROSAlma is very user friendly; you can figure it out without much training at all. The gradebook has great color coding and customization options. Many features have streamlined options such as the "mark all present" for attendance.
CONSAlma does not currently have the ability to link standards to gradebook assignments in a way that categorizes sub-scores on report cards. I also wish it had features such as a "fill-down" button for gradebook assignments. There's also my multiple "click-steps" to entering a a score in the gradebook, which is tedious at times.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Illuminate was no longer offering student management services.
Marci
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2021
We are happy with Alma
We are very pleased with Alma and the implementation process.
PROSIts ease of use is perfect, Easily adaptable to our school environment.
CONSthere are a few minor features that are missing
Reason for choosing Alma SIS
Its integration with Schoology.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Rediker was too clunky, too expensive, and way more than we needed.
Mark
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed January 2021
Powerful - 21st Century - Highly Recommended
When you have been with company for years is it hard to make a switch. From day one Alma made our transition to their software painless. Lets face it, people do not like change, especially a secretary that has been here for 30 years. Alma made it easy with their robust training and support our secretaries were smiling "like the butchers dog" The days of our principals spending all summer creating a master schedule are over. Alma's schedule builder is amazing! Overall I would highly recommend Alma and If they continue to stay on the cutting edge of innovation we will never need to make another switch.
PROSThere are so many GREAT features about Alma, to list just one is hard to do. I love the feed back that I receive from parents, teachers and administrators stating what they love about Alma. As an technology administrator you only hear when something is not working. Alma provides so many easy to use features everyone loves it. From the administration scheduling, it's seamless integration with Google Classroom, easy custom reports, on-line student registration and the awesome communication link with parents and students.
CONSWell there really isn't anything I do not like about Alma, they continually update and add new designs and innovation to it's all inclusive student accounting system. Understandably some suggested features take longer to add then others.
Reason for choosing Alma SIS
Alma didn't nickel and dime you with additional needed features and conversion expenses. They had a sense that they were creating a possible lifetime partner. GREAT JOB!
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
MMS was making and made major changes to their software form switching servers and operating systems, to changing database software. The outages and lack of response and complaints form everyone made me start to my research. I spent months contacting vendors, getting quotes and participating in demos. I contacted other schools from our surrounding area and other states. Alma seemed to always stand above the rest.
Kris
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed April 2020
Great value, excellent support
Our biggest benefit with Alma in the last two years was when they implemented their online enrollment process. At the time, we were considering moving from Alma to PowerSchool to gain this function as we were still doing paper application and enrollment. PowerSchool was quoting $20,000 to provide this, and that was a discounted price! Alma's online enrollment was brand new, but I spent a month going through their Study Guide to create our first process. The online support was a huge help! At the end of that 30 days, I was able to confidently recommend to our Head of School that we say "no" to PowerSchool and stick with Alma. This feature and many others have only improved since then. We appreciate that Alma charges us less and lets us create this and other processes for ourself.
PROSThe support for Alma is exceptional! As I am learning to use different features the Help guides & live support answer all my needs in a timely manner. I brag on the Alma support to other companies who are not as helpful. I also appreciate how Alma listens to my suggestions for improvements. In the almost two years I have used the product, I have seen many of the features I have asked for being implemented. I get a regular email (weekly or bi monthly) that updates me on new features and almost every time, there is something there that I have been wanting. You've got to love a company that listens to and responds to its customers.
CONSAlma has added many features that I didn't even know I wanted - thank you! The only feature they do not yet have is a way to accept and charge for payments. We can track financial info on Alma, but cannot have it accept funds. That would be a huge thing for us because we could eliminate using a separate program for this feature - we actually use two: MySchool and TADS.
Reason for choosing Alma SIS
Cost mostly.
John
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2018
Shifting to Alma has positioned us well as we transition our district to competency based learning.
Alma has a modern interface that is intuitive for our users with all of the information they need right at their fingertips, or one screen away. The student/parent portal is informative and is enabling us to move toward a more paperless registration process. Our teachers love the communication tools built into their grade book that enable them to immediately reach out to a student and their parents without having to jump out of the work they are doing. The report card and grading systems are flexible enough to support both traditional and proficiency-based philosophies. Alma is also proactive in cultivating relationships with third party vendors to add additional functionality to the environment. Alma has also been proactive in monitoring our state reporting requirements and updating our state report templates which is no small task. And Alma's support team is nothing short of amazing. My teachers have the freedom to reach out and get the support they require and that is priceless.
CONSThere were a few features I would have like that did not come "out of the box" such as robust reporting tools, and built-in scheduling tools. That said, Alma has worked to integrate those into the system and future users will not have that problem. The one other piece that I believe is in process is updating the transcript system so that it employs the same interface as the report card generator.
Anonymous
51-200 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
1
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
1
Reviewed January 2020
I want to love Alma but...
I really want to love Alma. There's so much potential but the problems we are running into keep building up and fixes are few and far between. Luckily we only have about 1000 students and a few schools. I don't know how we would manage if we were a larger organization.
PROSIt's the only SIS that looks like it was designed in the past decade. The site itself is easy to use. The basics (scheduling, attendance, calendar, student bios, medical) are all well done, user-friendly, and look great. Gradebook is excellent. Frontline support is helpful.
CONSReporting is a nightmare. Reports come in random formats. The descriptions are confusing. The filtering is confusing or doesn't work right. The screen where you choose reports is just a long confusing list. There's no preview of what the report is or looks like. Some information that you'd expect to be readily available (like a student's current grades) require running one of those confusing reports to find. The district portal is useless. New features that have been added (fees, report builder) feel unfinished and lack basic functionality that one would expect. While the front-line support is good, anything that has to go beyond them gets lost in a black hole when sent to "engineering". There are some quirks to the program that just make no sense. Little things here and there.
Reason for choosing Alma SIS
User interface, modern design, promises from salesperson
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Modernization
Vendor Response
Sorry to hear you aren't sharing the common elation of switching to Alma that nearly all of our customers experience. It sounds as if you may have actually missed out on some introductory training, and we'd love to set that up for you. As you have chosen to keep your identity anonymous, I cannot flag your concerns to your account manager. Looking forward to hearing from you soon via Capterra so we can remedy this. Update: Hello again! It's been almost a month, and we haven't heard back from you yet. We really would like to address your issues. Our customer service staff is ready and waiting!
Replied February 2020
Lynette
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed May 2019
Alma: A Teacher's Point of View
Our overall experience has been satisfactory. We rarely have the "drama" we dealt with when using our previous software. Keeping up to date more quickly and making changes to make the teacher use more efficient and faster would be of big help.
PROSOur school was first drawn to Alma because it combined a good software to meet student, parent, and teacher needs with great value. Customer service is fantastic. If any of us ask an online question, help is quick.
CONSAlma takes a long time to keep up with the times. For example, we have used it several years, but they just added the ability to enter a score on one student's grade book for a given assignment, and then hit enter, and then an automatic opening to the next student's grade to enter. In effect, it now performs well with a number key pad. Entry was singularly entered one a time which was so slow. In addition, there should be a quicker way to approve report cards. Finally, because we want students to monitory their grades, it would be helpful for them to have their own password access for limited viewing, keeping the parent password private for fuller access.
Matthew
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed July 2021
ALMA Year One Review
Alma has been highly responsive. Their customer service beat all other SIS products that we have worked with. Many of the issues that we are having are due to a specific issues to California schools.
PROSALMA is colorful with a high ease of use for parents and students. It is easy to access and manage student and school data. Class scheduling is a breeze. We can accomplish more in one day that we could in one week with our previous product.
CONSPrinting report cards is a disaster. There is no option to batch print report cards all in one job. There is no page break option, so RCs end up getting copied to the backs of one-another if they have an odd number of pages. The only option is to print each .pdf individually. There are several remaining issues with data reporting for California accountability reports.
Reason for choosing Alma SIS
Cost, customer service.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Cost, end-user experience.
Susan
Education Management, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
1
EASE OF USE
2
VALUE FOR MONEY
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
2
FUNCTIONALITY
1
Reviewed March 2018
Dysfunctional, Disorganized, Shallow, Time Consuming, Primitive, Not intuitive, Poor Design
None
PROSI have found little positive to say about the functioning of the software. It does not fit the size of our organization and the design structure is too primitive. There are too many steps involved for transactions.
CONS*the que*lack of confidentiality*process of accessing information, having to scroll through entire population to select students for reports*scheduling functionality is primitive* data reliability and validity for student grades and transcripts* student and parent use has diminished* report card processing is cumbersome* student display of schedule; no full year* student print out of schedule and on and on
Vendor Response
Wow, Susan. We are dismayed to see your experience with Alma doesn't match the rest of our users! Thank you for the feedback. As you can see from nearly all of Alma's other reviews, this seems to be an isolated issue with just your school. (We are even getting stellar reviews from others in your district, and in your school.) Alma is built to handle any size school or district - big and small, so we may need to drill down and figure out what training is still needed. We understand change can be challenging, which is why our world-class customer service team is always here to help. Our platform is widely recognized as having the most intuitive design and easy to use interactivity, while providing the deepest data insights available. We look forward to improving your experience! Your account manager will reach out to help you through this transition.
Replied March 2018
April
Education Management, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
2
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
2
FUNCTIONALITY
2
Reviewed February 2018
People are unhappy thru out the school system, very disappointing.
Face page has all in one, everything needed for information of a student.
PROSCommon sense functions, easy to move about. I like the look of the program and is easy to teach to other users. I like how the reports card area is set up, altho we can not print them easily without a pdf converter!
CONSReports -reports are not in pdf forms as needed. Hate the reports, most secretaries do not have time to mess with formats and a lot of us do not have the software to even do so, corporations do not want to provide that due to budgeting. Please start making PDF options. The reports options are basically useless for my position of lead secretary. Not doing well with our higher grade level schools. We can not even run reports cards.... the reports make us do more work, and we do not need more work . We do not have the abilities to use the reports. PDF form is a better option for secretaries. The biggest complaint thru the system is Reports are not what we need....
Vendor Response
Hi April, This is great feedback! Every user has different needs with the data produced in reports. Some users want to manipulate the data, which is when excel and CSV files are best. And others wish to see and share the data in a more formal way. That is when PDFs are most helpful. Depending on the report, we can make PDF an option as well as CSV! Your Account Manager will reach out to better understand which reports we should amend.
Replied March 2018
Ricky
Used free trial
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
Reviewed March 2016
Love this tool. Love the customer service even more.
We moved from a very expensive and ridiculously difficult system to this one and it has made things so much easier. So far we use Alma mainly for the Grade Book and Attendance and it works really well. Attendance has gone through some changes since we signed up in September 2015 and this has caused a little confusion but once you understand what's happening (contact support) it's quite simple to use. Don't let this deter you though because I've already been assured that changes are coming. Speaking of which you won't get empty promises from these folks. I've requested a couple of updates since we signed up and some were even implemented within a couple of weeks. Everyone is nice to you when they're trying to get your money. The true test of a company's motives is the way they treat their customers after the sale. Well Alma have passed this test with flying colors. Every user (teacher and admin) has direct access to support so queries are usually dealt with pretty quickly since there is no need for support requests to go through me :) One of the best things you can do when you get started is to go through the online documentation in the support area. Many of my questions were answered right there. Be warned though - you may need to actually read :O As far as I can tell there is no perfect system out there (and I tried a ton of them before I found Alma) but with the constant improvements, beautiful interface and top notch customer support you'd be hard pressed to find a better solution. Creating reports cards was actually enjoyable and teachers were very pleasantly surprised by the simplicity of the process on their end. We also haven't been compelled to adopt all the modules at once. Adopting one small section at a time has made transitioning from our old, very outdated processes quite smooth and I for one can't wait to dive into the other features like parent portals and school fees. You guys have a fan for life here :)
Vendor Response
Hi Ricky, We have LOVED working First Baptist Christian School and we look forward to many more years together! Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. As you said, we are constantly improving the platform and we will keep you updated with any changes. Thanks! Elizabeth
Replied March 2016
Jennifer
Education Management, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2021
Alma for Schools
Overall, I love Alma! At first, I was a little intimidated by having to switch my grading over to a system and fit what I would typically do into a "box" that was essentially pre-decided for me. I was glad to see how customizable all of the options are on Alma. I also love that parents/students can see grades at any time!
PROSI love that as a teacher I can customize my grade book easily and have different types of assignments weighted differently (and it does all of the math for me!). I also am so happy about the fact that I can publish the grades to where students or parents can see the grades instantly. It is also very easy to email home mid-term grades to all students/parents in one email :) .
CONSSome of the functionalities that Alma offers are great functions, but they are not always user friendly. For example, there are A LOT of steps to go through to create a report card/progress report. I had a very difficult time figuring out how to create a progress report for a student who took one elective class first term (sewing) and a different elective class second term (art), and other students were vice-versa without it causing issues on the report card. I would also like to have the ability for students/parents to see a percentage grade for a class as opposed to just a letter grade. It makes a difference when you see a 79% vs 70%. I would also like to be able to truly design my own report card. I can make what I want fit onto a single page, but with the options available on Alma, it is not as easy to adjust certain areas to make everything fit.
Tina
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2021
Alma - An Easy-to-Use Gradebook
Whenever I have had a question, it is answered pretty quickly. Alma has also done a good job of responding to our concerns.
PROSI like that Alma has customized the system to a lot of our needs since we first adopted it. It's very easy to use!
CONSI would like for the Alma gradebook to work more seamlessly with our LMS, Schoology.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Administrative decision
Kimberly
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed May 2022
Alma SIS
Great! Love their customer service and speed of response
PROSEase of navigating, state reporting and Alma response to making sure reports work well.
CONSNothing so far, it has been very easy to set up and get our information into the system.
Reasons for switching to Alma SIS
Easier to use, better reporting features.
Sean
Education Management, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
1
EASE OF USE
1
VALUE FOR MONEY
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
1
FUNCTIONALITY
1
Reviewed February 2018
This is the worst student management program I have been exposed to.
None that other programs don't offer with better access.
PROSI can Email student classes, when they are accessible, honestly though this program has been a disaster.
CONSNo report cards, no missing work access, no class rank, GPAs are spotty, Transcripts are junk, no app. We had to hand compute class rank, Cumulative GPA, and enter transcript credits.
Vendor Response
Thank you for taking the time to reach out to us! We want you to know that we take your feedback very seriously. I've addressed each of the items listed under cons below and would greatly appreciate it if you would contact support if any of these items are still a concern. - We do have Report Cards unless I am misunderstanding you. - We have reports for missing work, class rank and cumulative GPAs. Parents and students can also see missing work when they log in to their respective portals. - We have improvements to our Transcripts planned but if there is something specific you have feedback on we would love to hear. We are committed to improving your experience and won't stop until you're satisfied. We would be happy to set up some additional training time for you so you know where to access some of these tools. If you are interested in additional training let our team know through your in-app support or by emailing us!
Replied February 2018
Emily
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed May 2022
Great, Easy to Use Product!
Overall I have been very happy with Alma. It is easy to use and any questions or concerns that we have had have been addressed and answered in a timely manner.
PROSAlma is easy to set up and use, which is essential in a school environment. The different features are intuitive and my staff needed minimal training and support before fully utilizing the product.
CONSI do wish some things could be customized further. For example, in Myanmar students do not have first and last names, so if we could change to a single naming field that would be really helpful. Similarly, I would appreciate the ability to customize other demographic data such as race, ethnicity, and languages.