MyStudentsProgress.com Reviews

Pros

I love how many things you can do with MSP. From grading, to attendance, calendar, emailing, reports, they cover it all.

Cons

The only thing I wish they had was a lesson plan module. We have to use an outside program, and it would be easier to just have it integrated into MSP. But I understand they are working on that!

Pros

This is one of the more affordable solutions we found for our school. The customization for our report cards and transcripts was excellent. Custom demographics was also a nice addition as we can make a student's profile data contain fields that are specific to our needs. It's best quality is the account manager\technical support they provide. Any question I have is answered extremely fast and the answers are well thought out. This has been invaluable to us, since our school setup is somewhat unique. It has been a huge relief to us.

Cons

There are some fit and finish issues that I imagine will be worked out in time. For example, a label for a text field might be off center with the text field itself. The user interface might not be making the best use of some of the space. Sorting through classes can be time consuming as some fields will not sort alphabetically, but some fields do. The service had a couple brief outages, but those have been resolved as of late.

Pros

Customer Service: It has been most useful to have a representative assigned to our school who knows our idiosyncrasies. Although we cannot readily reach her by phone, she responds to emails very quickly and addresses issues in a timely manner. Training sessions/webinars are individualized and very helpful. Our representative has gone "above and beyond" expectations to make sure our questions are answered.
Assignments and Grade book: Our teachers are very happy with the ease of inputting assignments and grades, as well as with associated features.

Cons

Templates: Report card and transcript templates are very inflexible. The software limitations on how grades are displayed on report cards was not fully explained prior to our sample report card submission, after which we were "stuck" with templates that did not work well for us. Transcripts need to be able to show more than four years. The MSP templates do not allow for this.
Attendance: MSP is unable to track attendance by minutes missed, as required by Ohio law.
No school scheduling or business office modules.

Pros

Setting things up and getting them working is a breeze. The structure of things in the database seems well planned and things mesh well. The support I receive whenever I call or email is outstanding.

Cons

It isn't so easy for users to get signed in for the first time and even then, aside from the documentation, it isn't easy for them to use. This is especially true for the not digitally literate users. This includes mostly parents, but also a couple older teachers and our principal.

Pros

[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] from MSP has provided excellent support, from training to trouble-shooting. She is always quick to respond to our inquiries, and she helps explain solutions with patience and kindness. Our school has a unique schedule and many specific needs that are not typical of a K-12 school. She has helped customize MSP to suit our needs.

Cons

The software is not very intuitive in design and navigation. We have needed support to be able to understand it and make it work for us. Thankfully, the support is great.

Pros

The best part of this software is the person who support us day to day. We use several features and have others available to use that we don't currently need. Nice to know they are there should we need them. There has been no question or issue that our support rep hasn't been able to handle promptly. The pro of this software is that when we need something added or changed or just direction of how to handle an issue that happens once in a blue moon it's handled professionally and quickly.

Cons

There are no negative to MSP. What may seem at first to be a hitch is resolved when discussed with the rep who then helps us implement what we want.

Pros

My Students Progress is user friendly, easy to navigate, and most importantly, dependable.
Tech Support goes over and above to ensure that when an issue should arise, it is addressed immediately and taken care of in a reasonable amount of time.
MSP is well liked by our faculty and staff as it has sufficiently cut in half their daily workload.
When I call my Tech specialist, [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN], he returns my calls within an hour. He walks me through new and various approaches to improve my technique as the school administrator on My Students Progress. He is always very patient, understanding and happy to help.

Cons

I do not have any issues with the MSP Software.

Pros

MSP has all of the qualities I need to provide feedback to my middle school students and their parents on a daily basis. I can input grades, comments, report card information, assignments, due dates, rubrics, and sample assignments.

The customer support is also prompt and proactive in helping our team.

Cons

The site will kick me back two screens for certain aspects (looking at an individual's grades). I wish that I could easily toggle back and forth between class and individual grades.

Pros

MSP has proven to an immense help to me each day. I love how easy it is to use and I enjoy the organization aspect of the site. It has made my grading and attendance process so much easier!

Cons

I do not have anything bad to say.I like everything about MSP!

Pros

The front end applications are very user friendly.

Cons

Not all the modules interact with one another; data is inconsistent from one module to another. We initially had quite a few issues with report card templates -- corrections done for one quarter weren't carried over to templates for other quarters; inconsistencies with formatting, fonts, alignment, etc.; missing grades or comments. Inability to limit number of characters in comments fields for report cards. Once a new CSR was assigned to our account, we had fewer issues and the support has been excellent.

Pros

MSP is a very intuitive school management system. I find that teachers and parents with technology comfort levels that vary widely all have an easy time navigating the functions of MSP. Very rarely does the system glitch, run slowly, or yield unexpected or undesired results. The teachers in our school use it for attendance, lunch, grading, reports, contacting families, monitoring student data, running reports, and more, with very few issues. On the occasion that we do have a question, our customer service representative gets back to us immediately with a solution, suggestion, or at the very least an assurance that the problem is being investigated. Lately, we have been using the new payment module function of MSP, and have had many questions, requests, and need for troubleshooting because we are new to the program. Our customer service representative responds quickly to many questions and requests each day, and has even organized lengthy phone/screen-sharing meetings with us to more efficiently and effectively help us use the system. I could not be more grateful for the customer service and attention to detail.

Cons

There is very little I dislike about MSP. Now that the payment module is in place and MSP is working to customize it to client needs, MSP suits almost every logistical need we have in regards to student management.

Pros

MSP is awesome. I switched our small, private school over to it this past year and the transition was quite smooth. Their customer support is attentive to our every need and able to address any and all issues in a very short amount of time.

MSP is quite extensive in all that it can do, yet it is well laid out. Every function of the system is easily accessible, and best of all, it makes sense. The amount of time I spend doing admin tasks has been cut down significantly since switching to MSP, plus I can do way more than I ever could with my previous system mashup of WordPress and Google Docs.

My favorite part about MSP is how fast and easy it is to find any specific piece of information. If it's a certain detail about a student or a whole report on a custom demographic, it's quite easy to get whatever I need in a matter of seconds.

But best of all, MSP is relatively affordable. Compared to the other systems out there (I looked at a ton before finding MSP), it's great to have a piece of software that even small schools can afford.

Cons

I'd say my least favorite part about the software is the customization. But, in some ways that's a good thing. I just wish that I could brand MSP a little bit more to our school. Adding our logo in various places, putting a support email somewhere, customizing the login screen those would all be great to do. But sadly, I can't. However, it's not a deal breaker. I'd rather have a system that works!

Pros

MSP offers a lot of report options. It is nice to be able to send communications to your target audience. I found this helpful when creating information for our teachers and staff for our Emergency Binders and Voice & Text Messaging.

Cons

The lunch module doesn't work for us on the updated MSP screen and we've had to go back to the old format to use that particular module. I'd like to be able to use this module with the new MSP screen format.
I also wish that we could use the calendar module to track student daily attendance as well as teacher/staff attendance. For example, If a teacher is absent on an in-service day (non-student day). I do not have a way to track the teachers absence on MSP if I want the student daily attendance count to be accurate.

Pros

Customer support staff is exceptional. The software is not very intuitive, but rep at Customer Support is always willing and available to help. She is patient, knowledgeable, and responsive. The Development team takes customer feedback seriously and has implemented several upgrades and enhancements based on feedback.

Cons

It is not intuitive or user friendly. Several of the menus are hidden or buried in other menus. There is a lot of training involved to really get up to speed.

Pros

Easy to use and intuitive menus. I love all of the report functions. Lunch menus are easy to input.
Student progress reports are great. I like that MSP will make changes to the report card templates as needed. Conduct feature is a great help.
Love the parent notifications.

Cons

The only con I have is the voice messaging. I would love to be able to do the entire calling from a phone and not have to go back and hit submit on the computer.

Pros

This software seemingly provides functionalities beyond my expectations because its features are what every end-user wants especially in the education set-up. As a teacher and end-user, it lessens my task as in terms of monitoring the attendance report, students' lunch time, real-time updating of students' grades, printing reports and demographics of each student. In just a mouse click I can easily monitor each student data and generate reports with little or no downtime at all. I also believe that the best feature of this web application is that the customer support is at its best. Whenever there are issues on the use and glitches of the application, the customer support provides an immediate feedback.

Cons

This system is near to perfection because every feature was designed properly but hopefully it will become customizable depending on the information needs of each institution.

Pros

It was just the right fit for our school. Some of the other software had lots of modules that we would be paying for that we would never use. One of the best aspects of the software is the support team that comes with it. Even past our initial set up, they were there with continuous support.

Cons

Some things we were hoping for, parent teacher conferencing, wasn't there yet. We still have to use a third party to do this.

Pros

The fact that it is so user-friendly. No one has time to sit and try to figure out how a website functions. MSP is so easy to navigate for all users.

Pros

We like the convenience of having all the info at our fingertips. Being able to capture and run reports for parent and student data is fairly simply.

Cons

Report card system and teacher grade books are cumbersome. We hear lots of grumbling from faculty at grade time about MSP and difficulties with inputting grades and comments.

Pros

Ability to search student profiles quickly; centralized location for parents to update their own info and find all the necessary forms

Cons

Cumbersome and not intuitive AT FIRST, but after exploring a bit, it becomes much easier to navigate; steep learning curve for newcomers, faculty and parents alike; difficult to provide troubleshooting advice to parents without having gone through the process of registering as a parent

Pros

The convenience of looking up information and easy access to reports.

Cons

To remember to use reports and not lists as the lists are not updated when updates are applied through search.

Pros

I like that it is user friendly once you have been trained on how to use each module. I also like that parents can update certain information and that report cards can be sent out electronically.

Cons

Would be nice to have an online video on how to use the different modules for a teacher, a parent, and an admin. Like one video for each user that will train them in one session. The only other thing would be to make it possible for an admin to go in and view/change a parent, teacher, and student passwords when they get locked out or are just starting to use the program.

Pros

Our company is not a school but we manage and take care of many students from multiple schools. Being able to have their photos, demographics, and key info available with any web browser and to be able to print customized reports and lists is very helpful with organizing programs and activities. We might need to see data on seniors living at one of our locations attending a particular school, and in a few seconds there it is.

Cons

Since the software assumes data from one school will be entered, the data entry work-around for putting in grades from 5 to 8 schools was on the tedious side but it was still possible.

Pros

That we finally have a cohesive system in the school that houses prospects to enrolled students. There are many modules that we are currently using and will incorporate into the future usage and all seem pretty easy to navigate through. There are some modules that when clicking on help, the PDF help documents do not load or could not be found. Meaghan has been a total help during those times.

Cons

The biggest con that I've run into is the extreme preciseness that is needed when entering a new student or doing a mass upload. If there is an extra space, or an invalid character, you will be taken to an error screen but the cause of the error is not given. It becomes frustrating when that happens and information is not given as to why that error is occurring.

Pros

I like how flexible the program is. I can use it at work or at home, on my desktop or my cell phone. Also the custom reports are incredible. As an admin, I am able to find exactly what I need every time.

Cons

Certain functions you will need to call text support to fix. Like adding a family id after the family is already in the system Fortunately, the support staff is amazing and takes care of any issues I may have right away.