Arbor School MIS vs openSIS

Arbor School MIS is a cloud-based management information system for schools of all sizes, including primary, secondary, special schools, alternative provision settings, and pupil referral units. It brings together attendance, exams, SEN tracking, document management, admissions, payments, communications, and reporting. Visual dashboards can compare results with DfE and Ofsted benchmarks and provide live benchmarking against Arbor schools. Arbor AI includes Ask Arbor, student summaries, drafted emails, letters and SMS, and formula suggestions. API integrations include Wonde, Groupcall, ParentPay, CPOMS, LGFL, OTrack, Cunninghams, Classcharts, Studybugs, and Scopay. Schools can review what data an API app may access; approved write integrations can edit Arbor data. MIS data is hosted on AWS London servers, stored in the UK, and encrypted at rest and in transit with AES-256. Staff controls include role-based permissions, password controls, and two-factor authentication. The product is available on web, Android, iOS, and API. Pricing uses a school-phase base fee plus a per-pupil fee and is available on request.

openSIS is a student information system for school operations, including student and staff records, enrollment, attendance, scheduling, grades and reporting. Its listed tools also cover health information, admissions, billing, discipline, lesson plans and analytics. The maker describes it for K–12, higher education, vocational and career technical schools, and virtual education. Schools can install and manage the free, open-source Community Edition themselves or choose SaaS plans. The SaaS Mobile Connect app provides access to attendance, grades, assignments, schedules, billing and school communication on iOS and Android. Listed integrations include Moodle, Canvas LMS, Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, Stripe, PayPal, QuickBooks, Office 365, Azure Active Directory and Google Workspace. Core Startup costs $4 per staff member per month, billed annually, and is limited to 5 staff, 50 students and 100 parents at one school. Essential costs $8 per staff member per month, billed annually, and includes unlimited students, parents and schools. Advanced costs $12 per staff member per month, billed annually, and includes API access with full documentation. A 15-day trial is available.