Product Review of Arlo – for Training Providers

Arlo is a cloud-based training management system for promoting, selling, and delivering physical and online training. Arlo automates manual processes and everyday tasks. It provides streamlined course scheduling, online registration, and invoicing and receipting. The system can also be used to run marketing activities and manage client records and relationships.
Website: https://www.arlo.co/
What Users Love About the App
“What I like most is that the build-up function is really thought through. They try to accommodate different types of training and are able to mostly find a good balance between pre-set processes and possibilities for customisation. Compared to other LMS (which I haven’t used, but have checked their functions and pricing) Arlo offers less functions in one aspect. However, you can add various integrations, (i.e., your own accounting software). That also makes it easy for smaller training providers to get started with software and make life easier without having to commit to a full-service LMS.”
“Arlo has a ton a great features for event management and registration. I really liked the back-end planning features for administering venue/catering details and instructor notifications. The front-end class listing and registration page looked really slick. Also, their customer support is really great, both online and in person. For a company with a lot of time to dedicate to learning the system and administering it on a daily basis, it is a very powerful platform.”
“One of the biggest positives when it comes to the Arlo software is the automated features. Our office used to spend a lot of extra time communicating small details and follow through just to make sure information was shared with our registrants at the proper moments. Thankfully, with things like a wait list with a programmed process, we do not have to keep track of those details manually.”
“The best things are the payment platform and the mobile app available for when I am at an event. It is so easy to record attendance and/or grab an attendee’s number to check in on them if they haven’t arrived. Arlo has eliminated human error at our end. Now we know that if a registration is wrong it is because it was entered incorrectly by the client, not someone on our end!”
“As an administrator, if is so easy to use. If I have a more technologically challenged client, it is easy to walk them through the process of booking. And if they do not want to learn the process, it is super-fast for me to book for them! I find the “send payment” link option really helpful as well because it saves the admin time.”
What Users Dislike About the App
“I wish there was more flexibility in the automated email system and that there was more ability to alter what goes to the client. Not so much in terms of an email’s content, but the ability to automatically stop the email from sending once the client has taken the steps the email originally asked them to take.”
“Integration was over sold. I mostly teach webinars and self–study courses. The Arlo software claims of intergradation with Moodle, GoToWebinar and Zoom sold me on it. However, it turns out none of these work well. I am left manually entering and transferring information with both Zoom and GoToWebinar. Theses platforms don’t integrate with any real benefit. Moodle required me to hire a third party to install and manage the plug in. After spending almost $14K with the Arlo set up, I was still hit with another $1k for Moodle!”
“Arlo is very time consuming to get set up and administer. There are so many steps required for basic things like adding a new class, and so many options to click through that it is very unwieldy. It is also missing some really basic functions, like sending a notification to the administrator if someone cancels their registration or allowing customization of the event email notifications that get sent out. When we first signed up for the platform, we were promised that the ability to charge deposits for a class (which is very important for us) was under development and would be available very soon. Yet, a year and a half later, that feature is still nowhere to be found. After months of trying to make Arlo work for us, we finally had to switch to a different platform.”
“Customer support is so limited in NZD hours with no North American business time zone support. The language used hasn’t been adapted to US English. The fact that they cannot integrate with QBO, Hubspot, or LMS’s from North America, nor address blended learning, is a disappointment. Given the lack of connectivity to North American leading software service platforms, the sales pitch of automating our processes did not materialize.”
“For many functions (newsletter tool, online training, etc.) you need to buy third party software and use integrations. As described in the pros, it is great to start with Arlo without major commitment. However, after a while you want to use more and more features (like newsletters or webinars) so you will have to use different providers for every single function. It is okay because many are probably using Mailchimp, or something that integrates with Arlo, but it would be great if Arlo could offer it. I get annoyed by having so many different logins and having to get used to all the different softwares.”