Orah Reviews & Insights

Score9 out of 10

6 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Orah are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Versatility in tracking student locations and conducting COVID symptom checks: Many users have praised Boardingware for its versatility in tracking the locations of both day students and boarders. It has been highly effective in conducting regular COVID symptom checks, ensuring the safety of all students.

User-friendly visual interface with easy-to-use filters: The visual interface of Boardingware has received high praise from users for being user-friendly and easy to navigate. The ability to see all students at a glance, coupled with the use of intuitive filters, has made it extremely convenient for administrators to manage student data.

Real-time response feature during emergencies: Users love the real-time response feature in Boardingware, which allows everyone to quickly indicate their safety during emergencies. This feature has provided peace of mind to both students and parents, knowing that help can be easily requested and coordinated when needed.

Reviews

5 Reviews

Boardingware: Great for Boarding Schools

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 18, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is across the whole organization. It helps significantly with attendance, checking students in and out, knowing where students live, and any allergies/medications they may have. This is vital in a boarding school community as you are liable for someone else's child. It is imperative that you always have their information in the palm of your hand.

Pros

Keeping all information organized in one place.
Having my entire student database at the touch of a screen.

Cons

It often freezes or stalls. In an emergency it could potentially be an issue.
I wish that I could put class schedules in.

Likelihood to Recommend

Boardingware is well suited for many situations. Some of the moments when I like having the entire school database in the palm of my hand are during fire drills or lockdown drills. Further, when checking students on and off-campus, it is very nice to have. Additionally, at night when I am making sure all students are accounted for. However, it is less suited for situations within the classroom, such as where students are.

Verified User

Employee (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Boardingware - safety for the school and the boys.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

December 20, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Boardingware to manage the roll call, contacts, sign outs and pastoral care of 130 Boarders at SACS High School in Cape Town. The information is all stored in the cloud and so it is secure. It allows us to manage the whereabouts of the boarders and makes duty masters accountable, even years after the have left the organization. This software not only ticked all the boxes for us, but also gave parents piece of mind too. The consultants were outstanding and their after sales help and support has been faultless, especially Kathleen who lives on the other side of the world, but has been incredible to deal with when we need her. One might possibly thing this software may be expensive, but when you break it down per student and what it offers, we certainly will continue to use it. It is easy to load students information through an Excel spreadsheet or through existing school management software. They offer training through Skype or Telephonically. I certainly can recommend this software to boarding schools.

Pros

Captures roll calls.
At a glance, one can see if students are on campus.
Ease of use.

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

When a boarder is missing from roll call, you can see where he had signed out and when was due back. One can see contact details and make contact with the student or parent.

Barry van Selm

Deputy Headmaster - Marketing/Head of Boarding at SACS High School (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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Boardingware review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 15, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Boardingware to track students' whereabouts. This is not just for school trips, but medical leave, vacations and any other reason a student may leave campus. We also use it to designate which students have medical issues that need to be put on a watch list to include anything from allergies to diabetes. In the near future we'll be using this program to also track school/class attendance. Currently Boardingware is used by all faculty and staff campus wide.

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.

Cons

The only thing I've thought of is that more space for a larger photo on the student's profile would be helpful. Other than this they need to just keep doing what they are doing.

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for involving parents in the leave process of their child.
Accountability of students from any location
Accountability of students from any device

Not sure what it would be less suited for as it fits our needs perfectly.

Herman (Hans) Hermanson

Residence Life Coordinator at Blue Ridge School (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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Boardingware brings peace of mind!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

November 15, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using Boardingware for the Residential Life Program. We use Boardingware to track where all students are when they leave campus, to take roll, to write personal, medical, disciplinary notes and any other information that should be known by every faculty member and medical professionals.

Pros

Allows for all important information to be kept in one place.
Their app allows every faculty member to access information from anywhere.
They have been responsive to our feedback.

Cons

Their updates sometimes lead to loss of functionality.

Likelihood to Recommend

Any residential life program in the world would benefit from implementing Boardingware. It has substituted all sorts of different Google docs, spreadsheets, clipboards, etc.

Antxon Iturbe

Director of Residential Life at St. Anne's Belfield School (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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Best product on the market as of this review!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 13, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Boardingware is currently only being used internally within the Residential Life department to address the travel scheduling and accountability for our students. It helps ease the minds of our parents, as well as lighten the load of our dorm staff while teaching responsibility to our students as they grow into young adults..

Pros

Boardingware does an exceptional job of listening to its constituents, both administrators and parents alike, and adding or adjusting things accordingly to meet the needs of those that use their product.
Boardingware does an incredible job of having a simplified student and parent user experience with apps specific to those users. The full program is incredibly powerful, and can be confusing for those not trained in its use, so to have these separate and specified apps do a wonderful job of creating a positive experience for the end users.
Boardingware is great at being a reliable application with features that allow for consistency and accountability on all ends. It is quickly becoming our primary platform for all record keeping in the residential life program.

Cons

Boardingware does depend on quite a bit of buy-in from the student end to be used to its fullest, and as with any product aimed about both adults and teenagers, that can take multiple academic years to cultivate regular use.
Boardingware is a "power user" program on the staff end, which means it is an incredibly powerful tool that has a lot of options. This depth can also make some of the menus or information a little bit difficult to find or understand. The need for training is a strong one, and retraining is often necessary even for veteran users.

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.

Andrew Wright

Director of Residential Life at Foxcroft Academy (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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Best product on the market as of this review!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 13, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Boardingware does an exceptional job of listening to its constituents, both administrators and parents alike, and adding or adjusting things accordingly to meet the needs of those that use their product.
Boardingware does an incredible job of having a simplified student and parent user experience with apps specific to those users. The full program is incredibly powerful, and can be confusing for those not trained in its use, so to have these separate and specified apps do a wonderful job of creating a positive experience for the end users.
Boardingware is great at being a reliable application with features that allow for consistency and accountability on all ends. It is quickly becoming our primary platform for all record keeping in the residential life program.

Cons

Boardingware does depend on quite a bit of buy-in from the student end to be used to its fullest, and as with any product aimed about both adults and teenagers, that can take multiple academic years to cultivate regular use.
Boardingware is a "power user" program on the staff end, which means it is an incredibly powerful tool that has a lot of options. This depth can also make some of the menus or information a little bit difficult to find or understand. The need for training is a strong one, and retraining is often necessary even for veteran users.

Likelihood to Recommend

Andrew Wright

Director of Residential Life at Foxcroft Academy (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile