Product Review of GoPad for Schools

GoPad Secure for Schools is an iPad app with cloud administrator dashboard focusing on kid security, attendance, and communication. GoPad takes every aspect of campus security into account, managing attendance for kids, faculty, staff, and visitors. Information is synced between the classroom, front desk, and administration and is backed up locally and on the cloud. If there is power or Internet failure, local GoPad backup provides faculty and staff with required medical and contact information. Access to this information is critical in the event of an emergency evacuation or when learners are off campus at a school event.
Website: https://www.gopadsecure.com/
What Users Love About the App
“The GoPad is used in our school in every classroom for taking attendance. With a swipe across a name the teacher is able to check a child in and out quickly. Attendance taking is quick and simple and eliminates a lot of paper. I find it very easy to use the GoPad.”
“Parents can sign in and out easily. It’s easy to add information. It generates reports. It meets Health department requirements and improves safety for our children. Being on an iPad, we can easily take photos of all caregivers to add to their contact information.”
“The program will consistently pause to do updates or freeze to load when I have parents trying to checkout at dismissal. -I have had parents complain that even after going through the correct steps, they are still not receiving e-mail notifications when their child is picked up”
“We had a meeting with customer service directly at our school while we were in the process of setting up GoPad. During our meeting, customer service team seemed responsive to all of our concerns and the company seems to value the input of its customers rather than selling the product and then making the customer deal with any issues that arise.”
“Simple and reliable. I love the easy check in and check out process for admin and teachers. The program is very responsive and nicely laid out.”
What Users Dislike About the App
“The one issue I have found with the GoPad when taking attendance is if I swipe a wrong name and quickly Undo it, the parents are still notified that their child was checked in or out. The Undo does not undo notification. It doesn’t seem that there is a way to undo a mistake in swiping.”
“As the person responsible for collecting and inputting much of the data, I found it difficult to collect much of this info from the parents. It would have been easier to set up very basic profiles for each student and have parents fill in the rest of the information.”
“The data entry is too limiting. Also if the data glitches and transposes everything to be the same, there seems to be no way to fix this.”
“Has great potential to include more features. The student profile can use more customization in the required fields. I wish the mass message function can be customized to individual organization’s logo and design.”
“It moves the names/photos around so they are in a different order when I go to sign out a child. When this happens I sometimes hit the wrong person to pickup and therefore I need to go back.”