Opiniones de SARS Anywhere

SARS is a must have!

Comentarios: I started working with SARS in 2007 as a small piece of my job. At the time, we were only using it in 4 locations on campus. Currently, we now have 36 separate and unique locations campus-wide and I have let my other duties go and have become the SARS guru on our campus. It is my responsibility to meet with the various locations, configure SARS to meet their needs, and ensure that everyone is up and functioning efficiently on a daily basis.

Puntos a favor:

I like the creativity I get to use in SARS when I meet with various different locations on campus requiring a very different information set. I can do this by creating different schedule and/or reason codes that will meet their needs. One location on campus has a kiosk where 3 different departments are housed so I had to consider numerous scenarios that the students may face in order to make sure it was functional. I also have a set up in another department where certain criteria has to be met before they can log themselves in. This product is very flexible!

Contras:

Every now and then, someone asks for some data that I cannot pull based on their numerous reports. Usually, you can pull the data in one report, export it, and combine it with the data from another report to get exactly what the end user needs. However, any questions I have are quickly answered by the SARS Support team who are very capable and willing to help me out at a moment's notice!

A Very Useful and Useable Product

Comentarios: We are using the product to track advisors, tutors, students, study room utilization, study hour requirements, lab use, equipment use, counseling, and appointments by prospective students.

Puntos a favor:

SARS Anywhere is a very straight forward program, which allows a great deal of customization, but does not require it. Because it's locally hosted the data is in the clients hands, not the company's. But since it's browser based, it has the look and feel of an externally hosted product, which many students like.

Contras:

The reporting tools are a bit lacking. Because of data siloing at this organization the reporting tools provided were insufficient for our users. But because it's locally hosted, we are able to write direct queries and export the data to other reporting tools.

Outdated

Puntos a favor:

This software does a good job of accurately portraying when workers are available for scheduling among colleges.

Contras:

It's a very outdated user face that is not intuitive.

SARS Anywhere

Comentarios: We are using it for student appointment scheduling in our advising and counseling departments. Advisors and counselors can store appointment notes and plan schedules. We are also using it to allow faculty to identify students having difficulties in class which allows for early intervention. We may also use it for lab scheduling.

Puntos a favor:

I found the product and its companion products did a great job of addressing the needs of the college. It also met all modern web and accessibility standards. Most importantly, I found the support and implementation staff excellent. They were also willing to listen to new functionality suggestions and customize the product as needed.

Contras:

Some of the documentation was not up to date, but this was not an issue due to the excellent support staff. It would be difficult to implement the product without help from the support staff.

I don't know what I would do without SARS!

Comentarios: When I first started using SARS, we were only using it for 4 locations; we now have 35! It is wonderful as you configure it to the needs of a particular department. All of the software works together so a student can book an appointment, receive a confirmation text/email in addition to a reminder a few days before the appointment. It also captures all of the student contact credit for state reporting purposes. Not to mention the IT support team are phenomenal whenever I have any questions! I highly recommend this wonderful team and their product!

Puntos a favor:

I Like the way everything is integrated. We use SARSGrid to book appointments and pull data for Program Reviews and State Reporting; we use SARSTrak to check students in and notify counselors when the lines are out the door; we use SARSMsg to text and/or email confirmation and reminder verbiage in addition to eSARS to enable students to book themselves online!

Contras:

Sometimes I can't find an answer to an issue quickly enough in the manuals but the support staff is so great, they usually get back to me right away.

Streamlining Processes & Communication

Comentarios: Overall, we are pleased with what SARS has done to help us streamline multiple processes and communication to our customers.

Puntos a favor:

The ability to schedule appointments with ease. The reporting functionalities. Being able to use SARS for more than just scheduling. We have set up SARS messaging and SARS campaigns and they are great added values to helping us streamline some of our processes. The online scheduling of appointment has also been a great feature for our students.

Contras:

We have had a few software technicalities but we have gotten through them with the support of our IT department.

Love it!

Comentarios: I have used this software since 2002 and graduated to their various aps to satisfy our needs. We have grown from 4 locations to 36, which have all been customized to the needs of each department. We also use SARSTrack and their waiting list to text students to return when they hit number 3, additional info flags and the import ap to help identify students with holds on their records, the reason code linker to connect workshops to only those counselors teaching a particular workshop, and exchange to upload the data from SARS into Colleague.

Puntos a favor:

I like that SARS is always evolving to keep up with changes that are constantly being made in our funding formula. The grid helps to keep everyone organized and on time.

Contras:

I cannot run a report of the end users without the archived people being included. I believe this is on their list of fixes.

Best Customer Support & Experience

Comentarios: Our college has been a customer of SARS for more than ten years and I can say hands down these guys are the best software company ever. The software is great, well thought out in terms of integration and application to the education environment, and what makes it even better is the staff. When I have to call tech support, which is usually because I forgot how to configure something, I get through and solve my issue 99.9% of the time on the first call. In the rare instance when they have to call me back on something, they do it at the time and date they say they will. I have even gotten a call from the owner of the company on a Sunday asking me if he could help when I called on a Saturday and left a message on the support line. All I can say is these guys are the definition of customer service. The wide array of products in the SARS line has helped me to achieve my goals of increasing services to students across all service units on campus. The products allow me to increase my communication to the students about these services and has helped me to more efficiently assign resources. We have been able to integrate data feeds to/from the SIS, and reporting of student usage of services is now available for decision making processes in real time. I cannot say enough about how much I value my relationship with my rep, and the folks at SARS.

Sars Grid to Anywhere

Comentarios: The overall experience has been great. The upgrade from the old product has made this leaps and bounds better. Overall the interface hasn't drastically changed which is a good thing for most users. While it lacks some new design elements of modern web design especially for the student experience, overall it function vs price is great making it a tremendous value.

Puntos a favor:

- Ease of use - customization of roles/security - customer service - technical support - familiarity - browser based - cheap video conferencing cost

Contras:

- limited report customization - user experience (especially for students is still somewhat dated) - notifications require modular purchases (separate product)

Transition from SARS Grid to SARS Anywhere

Puntos a favor:

For an everyday user, the transition from SARS Grid to SARS Anywhere is fairly simple. Very intuitive screens and configuration options. As a System Administrator, I appreciate the helpfulness of the SARS Technical Support team. They have been so helpful and always help me to find a solution to my questions.

Contras:

Lack of drag/drop feature. It would be so helpful for scheduling purposes to be able to drag/drop appointments, meetings, etc. from one advisor to another. Hopefully this will be a future enhancement. As a system administrator, the various modules have been challenging to configure and manage. User settings had to be fully reconfigured in the move from SARS Grid to SARS Anywhere, as well as the Messages module and messaging features in SARS Anywhere. Fortunately, SARS Software Tech Support has been outstanding to provide guidance and assistance when needed.

SARS GRID is Tops!

Comentarios: We have used SARS GRID products since 2003 including GRID, SARS Anywhere, SARS-TRAK, SARS-MSGS and eSARS. They integrate well with our student information system, are easy to use by our staff and students, and are a necessary tool for scheduling student appointments and communicating with them in a busy educational environment. The customer support is excellent. They go above and beyond. We have had some very specific, customs requirements in the past and they always come through with a solution that works for us. I can't say enough good things about their customer support staff. Most of the products are web based and they support LDAP authentication and single sign-on. Their products are very reasonably priced as well, and their unlimited user licenses make it uncomplicated to manage from an IT perspective. I highly recommend SARS Software and their suite of products.

Does it all!

Comentarios: The software solves so many of my campus needs and the support we receive is top notch! We own nearly every piece of SARS possible minus one component and I wish we had purchased it instead of what we did for early alert, it would have saved us a huge amount of money.

Puntos a favor:

The fact that I can do so many things with the software to solve all our campus scheduling, tracking and communication. It performs all that I need it to and more!

Contras:

Nothing I can think of, it is one of my most dependable software packages.

Sars Grid Review

Comentarios: One of the best customer support experience I've ever had. Rep and his wife and their crew are wonderful. Always available for answers. Always willing to help and work things though. While sars grid is a bit dated with its interface and integration, the new version is leaps better.

Puntos a favor:

Ease of use. Simple to setup and train users. Customer support is fantastic.

Contras:

Sars grid is a bit dated. Inflexible with reporting. You have to experiment with the exporting of data if you want more advance analytics than the delivered report. User interface is also a bit dated with SARS GRID but anywhere is great.

Easy to use scheduling student appointments for a community college counseling department.

Puntos a favor:

Simple grid, easy to navigate and search appointments. User friendly. Ability to color code time slots for certain appointment categories makes it easy for the user while searching for specific time allotted appointments.

Contras:

I didn't find any cons with this program, other than being so easy to use or too simplistic. Some of my coworkers however needed to input other information or extra information into the appointment box which doesn't show on grid unless you click on appointment slot.

SARS Anywhere

Puntos a favor:

Great way to schedule appointments. Appointment data kept in one place and easily accessible. Great customer service.

Contras:

I really enjoy this product. It works as designed and when we make a mistake, their excellent customer service department corrects any issues.

Unequalled customer support for equally great and versatile software!

Comentarios: The ability to connect in a mobile fashion with our students about counseling appointments, career development appointments, financial aid appointments, etc. I am positive we have not uncovered all the capabilities of SARS Software.

Puntos a favor:

Versatility and ease of use. Customer Support is awesome, and the tech people are all excellent to work with.

Contras:

We are still discovering ways we can use this software - which is a good thing to discover about an easy to use software product. It has so much functionality, we are always finding ways we can apply it to our college.

CCSF has been using SARS Grid since 1998, and subsequently added several companion products.

Puntos a favor:

Security. User-friendly. Wonderful customer service. Copy features from a master location to build new locations. Creates MIS Reports from SARS data. Allows management to identify and allocate resources. A flexible suite of products being supported by an outstanding technical support team. I highly recommend the SARS Suite of Products.

Contras:

Needs additional report features for non-technical support staff; thereby freeing up some resources from the IT support team.

Appointment/Check-in tool

Comentarios: SARS has served me well, I am not aware of other tools that do what SARS does.

Puntos a favor:

I love that SARS is much better at appointment management than Microsoft Outlook. SARS can even manage walk-in clients.

Contras:

SARS doesn't seem to integrate well with our other data management tools at our school and it's not free

First-Rate service and support!

Comentarios: The ability for our counselors, staff and managers to access SARS from "anywhere" has made a big difference in our ability to serve students; we are more efficient, and have the ability to access information more readily.

Puntos a favor:

SARS Anywhere is intuitive and convenient. Moreover, the team at SARS is incredible: they are patient, knowledgeable, and never make you feel like you are bothering them.

Contras:

I'd like more flexibility to customize how reports are formatted, but what is available meets our core needs.

GREAT Customer Support

Comentarios: The best experience is with staff. Whenever we have difficulties, staff are always willing and able to assist us quickly!! SARS Anywhere is the absolute best program!!

Puntos a favor:

SARS Anywhere is easy to learn and work with.

Contras:

I wish we could run a report showing the exact time and location of each counselor for each day. Counselors can submit timesheets and we must guess where each one was working since the counselor may work at several locations on the same day. Was it Hanford, General, Tulare, etc.?

SARS Anywhere and Customer Support

Comentarios: This year we gave students the ability to schedule their own appointments via eSARS for one department and it increased the rate of appointments scheduled and attended. We continue to implement the features in other departments to help increase productivity and improve student services.

Puntos a favor:

SARS Anywhere is very user friendly and our staff find that it helps them better serve our students. As the primary administrator of the system, I frequently work with the customer service team and could not be more pleased with the superb service that I receive.

Contras:

We have multiple administrators in various departments and some do not find the configuration steps to be intuitive right away. Once working with the software for a period of time, they are able to adapt.

Spot On Customer Service

Comentarios: We have two colleges actively using SARS for well over a decade.

Puntos a favor:

It's not complicated. Documentation is well written, you can learn it on your own. Any question or issues, TECH SUPPORT IS VERY RESPONSIVE!!!

Contras:

Anxiously waiting for the updated version of SARS Admin where ability to add new locations are separated from Location Configuration.

Functional, easy-to-use program

Puntos a favor:

It's nice to be able to create, view, and modify my schedule from home. It's easy to write and access notes about the students I see, and students appreciate being able to schedule their appointments online.

Contras:

I can't think of anything. It is very user friendly and has a lot of great features.

SARS Anywhere - Cuesta College

Puntos a favor:

Easy to learn without much training Can be used in many departments

Contras:

Software glitches daily and freezes very often Constant error messages and delays in updating Frustrating to use

Good system, great client support

Puntos a favor:

We have been using SARSGRID system for more than ten years, and without any reservations, the company has one of the best support teams we’ve worked with.

Contras:

The company needs to reengineer the public facing web applications to support mobility.