Likelihood to Recommend Orah (Previously Boardingware)
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 Hero is a great time saver for any busy school administrator. Students are able to use technology to earn positive points and also track and manage their own discipline. It is user-friendly and adaptable to the specific needs of the school. I love writing my own tracking codes and setting the action thresholds.
Read full review Pros Orah (Previously Boardingware)
Keeping all information organized in one place. Having my entire student database at the touch of a screen. Read full review Allows ALL students to earn points at the push of a button. Connects with infinite Campus so student schedules and info are always accurate on the Hero site. Allows teachers to create their own groups for after school programs or even small groups in their classrooms. Read full review Cons Orah (Previously Boardingware)
I would like to see all parents having to capture weekend arrangements, whether they are going out or staying in. An automatic reminder SMS sent to parents who have not made arrangements by a certain time. Read full review Hero had the Hero Homeroom where teachers could collaborate and receive rewards but that was discontinued. I think that a similar reward system for those who are supposed to be inputting information would be helpful, where consistency for the required input is rewarded. For example: teachers were to be recording points for all their students every period every day - if they received points for completing their input & could then choose to spend those points on rewards that would help encourage participation to make it more successful overall. Too hands-off in making sure that implementation is as successful as possible. Too techie for non-tech savvy people. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Orah (Previously Boardingware)
It is a great product
Read full review Usability Orah (Previously Boardingware)
again. for the day to day usage, adding points is a bit of a chore but I keep doing it because the students respond
Read full review Support Rating Orah (Previously Boardingware)
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 Someone is always available. I like being able to call, chat, or email as needed. There are also a lot of tutorials and webinars provided. Hero does a good job of providing tools for onboarding new users and customers as well. It is easy to find whatever information you are looking for.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Orah (Previously Boardingware)
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 We used a tardy tracking system a couple years ago but it wasn't as efficient as Hero. It did not keep track of any positive behaviors. I don't remember the name of the system but I know it only focused on the negative behaviors and giving out consequences for those negative behaviors.
Read full review Return on Investment Orah (Previously Boardingware)
We were tracking student leave by hand or by an in-house program. Both of these became inefficient and/or unusable. Having Boardingware has expedited the process. It's hard to give numbers, but we're several days ahead of where we used to be in terms of tracking students' leave for Thanksgiving break. Parent involvement was always an issue, but with Boardingware parents must approve a leave before we (the school) does. This makes parents take responsibility for their child which happens less than it should. Having access to flagged students with health issues makes it much easier to plan field trips. We can easily know who should have what meds or epi pens based on their Boardingware profile. Safety awareness and prevention has gone up due to this feature. Read full review Definitely worth the money. The kids are happy, they're using the program as often as they can, and they appreciate the opportunity to be rewarded for their good behavior. We've been able to sustain a store, and that's super awesome. I know we wouldn't be able to without the help of Hero and the ways in which we keep the hype. I think I need more help with teacher adoption. We have a lot of initiatives at our school, so we're trying to take on a little more than we can chew at this point. We're getting there though! Read full review ScreenShots