Populi

"Great all-in-one SIS"

Pros: This software is very intuitive, and staff, faculty and students have gotten completely up to speed in a very short period of time. Being hosted on the web means students and staff can log in from anywhere with any device and backups are taken care of automatically. The built in LMS features are really robust and have eliminated the need for google classroom, survey monkey, and other fixes we had been using. I am also very impressed with the built in reporting; there are preset reports for clearinghouse, IPEDS, retention etc.. and the ad-hoc reporting tool allows for almost unlimited custom reporting. The support staff team are very kind and responsive, and the data conversion from our old system was virtually painless. When searching for a new SIS we interviewed over 8 firms and are very glad we settled on Populi.

Cons: There are very few things we have found that we wanted that the system was not already set up to do, but for these you can always suggest product enhancements to the support team.

"A solid, straightforward choice for higher-education relationship management"

Comments: Populi is a terrific platform for integrating various data silos across your organization. We moved from a number of different databases into Populi recently, and the combination of all of our information in one place has streamlined our communication process with incoming students and allowed us to more easily collaborate in helping students through processes like enrollment and financial aid. We've struggled with finding some features at times, and in the case of marketing automation, we've discovered that Populi's system isn't quite fully-featured enough for our needs. The UI, also, has a dated feel. Nevertheless, it's a solid, stable platform that gives us integrated access to our contacts.

Pros: Populi is very straightforward, and makes it relatively easy to manage a high number of complex relationships with contacts
Tracking a contact from first inquiry through to alumni donor is very simple
Contacting contacts directly from within Populi works more smoothly than the communication platforms on some competitors
Support is extremely useful and quick

Cons: The automation platform is time-based and lacks some of the triggers and sophistication available in competitors
Some features are hidden inside of layers behind the straightforward UI, and it can be frustrating to track them down
Sometimes, a seemingly simple feature will be missing, and require extensive conversations with support. Support is top-notch and very helpful, but it can be annoying if you prefer to do things yourself.

"You get what you pay for and perhaps a little less!"

Comments: Pros
Easy to register, add students, course scheduling. Fast customer service however, not very satisfying responds.
Cons
It is not user friendly, very difficult to customize features. Even sending emails to selected students is a hassle. Adding meeting times to courses is awfully difficult and annoying. If you are a new, small institution and need statistics / have to be able to pull out a data any minute when requested I would not recommend this product. Our application information wasn't transferring to system and we found out after customer service that our application was not set right. The reason for that is Populi updated their admissions feature a while ago but our applications were not adopted to new system. So I had to enter age, gender, address, email etc manually for the each student in the system to be able to have an accurate data. No help offered for an error caused by their own management system! Again reporting features lack accuracy and not customizable.
For accreditation purposes I found this system not reliable, I will start looking for alternatives.

"Best SIS system for smaller colleges that we have used"

Comments: We couldn't be happier. Our sales contact gave us multiple demos of the different modules, trained us and was there for us during every step of the implementation. Everything was done remotely but it works well and there is no additional cost, which is extraordinary. I have helped implement three different SIS systems and the data transfer to Populi was the most efficient and painless I have experienced. The customer support is responsive and goes above and beyond what I expected. Overall they seem to really care about our success and we enjoy working with them.

Pros: It's designed by people who obviously understand the needs of a higher education institution. It is easy to use, intuitive, flexible and fast. You don't have to find ways to work-around problem areas, it just works amazingly well. The integrated LMS is smooth and very capable. The integration of the different modules e.g. student billing and financial aid, is seamless. The customer support is amazing. The implementation costs are next to zero.

Cons: It is designed to be simple to use so reporting and security permissions are not as flexible as our previous system. We have adapted to that though because the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. The customer support team also run customized reports for us when we need them and they are constantly making improvements to the system.

"Populi works great for our Montessori training programs"

Comments: We use Populi as a database for our prospective and current students, alumni, workshop attendees, donors, and general community members. We use it for marketing of events and courses, overall communications with our leads and community. We also use it to manage the academic requirements and assignments of our current students. It has overall streamlined the process of review of student work, communication and discussion between faculty and students, among students, and allowed us to consider distance learning models for our upcoming courses. Overall, the experience has been great!

Pros: Populi is very customizable, with great options to optimize its many functions for our unique organization. The developers and staff at Populi are extremely responsive and helpful, responding quickly and thoroughly to all of our many questions and requests.

Cons: As with any system, there are times when we run into functionalities that we would like and do not yet exist. I do feel like Populi is responsive and makes improvements based on features requests whenever possible.