Orah vs. Ellucian Colleague

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Orah
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Boardingware, headquartered in Auckland, offers their student management system for boarding schools, built around managing the needs particular to boarding schools, such as student care and student tracking.N/A
Ellucian Colleague
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Ellucian offers Colleague educational ERP, including a student information system supporting higher education institutions with student admissions and registration, academics, curriculum management, and other aspects of student management.N/A
Pricing
OrahEllucian Colleague
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
OrahEllucian Colleague
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
OrahEllucian Colleague
Features
OrahEllucian Colleague
Student and Faculty Administration
Comparison of Student and Faculty Administration features of Product A and Product B
Orah
-
Ratings
Ellucian Colleague
7.8
Ratings
6% below category average
Integrations with 3rd-Party Education Technology00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Online Registration Management00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
District Communications, such as messaging and alerting00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Roster Management00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Platform Customization00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Teacher Self-Service00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Student Data Security00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Community Support00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Class Scheduling00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
State and National-level Reporting00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Compliance Support00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Teacher and Parent Mobile Application00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
User Ratings
OrahEllucian Colleague
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
7.5
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
OrahEllucian Colleague
Likelihood to Recommend
This is hands down the best application on the market in terms of making sure parents and staff understand where students are at any given time during the day. It also has done a great job of expanding into buy-in areas for students such as having event sign-ups inside the application. Having parent accounts also does a great job of keeping lines of communication open between the parents, school, and students.
Read full review
Ellucian Colleague is well suited for student academic information recall, such as advisement details, courses, primary choice, GPAs, and demographic information critical to in-time decision-making for faculty and institutional leadership. Less appropriate scenarios would include our financial management needs, such as accounting, ledgers, and financial transactions. These functions are better suited to other CRMs.
Read full review
Pros
  • User-friendly interface. One doesn't need to really even use the tutorials if they don't want to.
  • Customer service - I've never gone more than 24 hrs without an issue being resolved. Usually it's much less than that.
  • Constant improvements and expansion. The program keeps growing without the need to change what we're doing. There are improvements that are helpful, but we're not forced to use them if they are not actually useful or needed. This is a great asset.
Read full review
  • Colleague offers a single reference point for all student data, which creates consistency and unity across campus and ensures students hear the same information from every source.
  • Colleague recently updated its interface to be more accessible to all people. Previously, it was not accessible through any browser aside from Internet Explorer.
  • Colleague provide helpful user restrictions that prevent departments from altering or erasing data they do not typically use. For example, I cannot change student billing and accidentally wreak havoc for the cashier's office.
Read full review
Cons
  • Their updates sometimes lead to loss of functionality.
Read full review
  • Develop API's that are vendor agnostic rather than selecting specific vendors (Clearinghouse, ImageNow).
  • Colleague tends to be to reactionary to the changing needs in higher education rather than developing the future.
  • Hound clients to pay extra for consulting (consultants are usually bad), rather than helping institutions to use the product. Seems to be the first thing help line personnel jump to rather than working with clients to figure out creative solutions.
Read full review
Usability
No answers on this topic
Ellucian Colleague rates highly for its usability and functionality. Ellucian Colleague serves as a comprehensive solution, making it easier for students, faculty, and staff to communicate, find the information, and accomplish multiple tasks. Colleague has provided enhanced visibility into data and improved decision-making to drive strategic institutional outcomes. A colleague has created efficiencies for staff.
Read full review
Support Rating
I gave this rating because Boardingware support is unbelievable. They are quick to reply and have a chat feature that they not only are there for most of the day but you can leave a note if they are not available and they get back to you very quickly. I thoroughly enjoyed any conversations I had with support from Boardingware.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Senior Systems did not work as well and the functionality from the administrative side is not as user-friendly. I often felt like it was down and not working properly, or that I could not find where certain documents are. I believe that for a boarding school community Boardingware was much more user-friendly, and did not take as many steps in order to get the job done quickly.
Read full review
Ellucian Colleague offers exceptional value for the money compared to the pricier options in Blackbaud's suite of products. Ellucian Colleague stacks up well against Blackbaud and other CRMs in terms of its value for the money, ease of use, and customer service. Overall, Ellucian Colleague provides greater value for the money.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • We are able to manage the weekend and weekly sign outs of boarders. We are also able to store this information ion the cloud in case it is ever needed in the future.
  • Parents are able to manage their sons where abouts and also have the knowledge that they know where their boys are on the weekends
  • Housemasters are protected if they follow procedures in case of a boarder missing a roll call and has not signed out.
Read full review
  • With Colleague Student, we have been able to be more efficient in our department which has given us the opportunity to take on other projects that are helpful to our students.
  • Colleague Student has enabled my department to cut down on our paper consumption which has been a huge budget savings. Our old system was so untrustworthy that we were printing many things to keep in case we couldn't get the information out of the system again. With Colleague Student we do not have to do this. We have stopped printing many things we used to print.
  • Colleague Student has also helped us have a better handle on which students are preparing for graduation each semester. This allows us to more accurately print commencement materials, etc.
Read full review
ScreenShots