This app is the worst thing I’ve ever tried to use! Most of the time the screens are just blank, as if trying to load data and can’t (doesn’t matter where I am, on cell network or wifi). Have not been able to see my students profile page and the last two days, the two times I was able to get a notification to show up, I couldn’t get any gps data for the bus. To say the app is useless would be an understatement. I don’t even understand how the company would release an app this bad. Are we beta testing it? And our district will no longer let us just use the website, which was 1000 times better than this bc I could actually see where the bus was (isn’t that the whole point of the smart tag system?) I’m hoping our district transportation gets enough complaints that we can at least go back to using the website because otherwise there’s no point to having the smart tags.
Developer Response
We're sorry for your frustration. Those issues you are experiencing are fixed in the recent updates. Please update the App to the latest version when you see the option. The parent app development was at the request of parent feedback and our districts. A lite version of the parent portal is in development and will be available this fall. A Customer Success team member will help you with the new features and notifications. Please get in touch with support@smart-tag.net.
Thank you for the “canned response” but I have read & fully understand the directions. I have also read the FAQ page. I am fully aware that “for safety & security” blah, blah… BUT, what safety & security does it provide me, as the parent, if I cannot see where my children are? I have the alert settings on for 10 minutes (then increased to 15 minutes, now 20 minutes) but received an alert at 4 (FOUR!!) minutes that the bus will arrive…hmmm. Is this tech not properly programmed for math? We, as parents, understand that traffic, etc happens, so when the bus is late & our elementary aged children don’t have phones & I have no way of knowing where they are, how is this technology helping us? Food for thought.
WHY IS THERE NO LIVE MAP ANYMORE?!?!? Seriously, I wanted this to work and I wanted to like it better than the website, but this is so dumb and unreliable! I signed up for “alerts” 10 mins away…I get “bus will be there in 4 minutes” A map appears, then disappears. It constantly tells me that I don’t have children, then about an hour after school starts (when no one is using app), I suddenly have children again! This is terrible!!
Developer Response
We apologize for your experience. We know the importance for you to have accurate information about your students. Our team is working diligently to correct the capacity and resource issues causing student information to “appear missing”. Regarding the live map, based on feedback from school districts nationwide and for the safety of students and drivers, the live map location of the bus is available from the time you receive the SMART Alert arrival notification (default 20 mins) up to the time the bus leaves your home stop. The Parent App includes new features that let you choose a time setting for bus arrival notifications and each time your student loads and unloads the bus.
Thank you for your patience.My son missed the bus because I depended on this app and it’s estimated time I should’ve known better than to trust this app. It showed an estimate of 11 minutes so we took our time walking to stop only to realize the bus got there literally 3 minutes after we received notification. I wish we could track the bus on the map like we used to before they turned it to app only. Now it only tells you when and where bus picked up or dropped of child. It was extremely dependable when we could follow the bus on the map and make our own estimated time. Now it’s anyone’s guess. And the other day I got a notification that bus would arrive any minute now, 16 minutes later is when it arrived. It’s extremely difficult for myself since I have to walk in 105 degree heat with the blaring sun and extreme humidity with my 2 year old to the bus stop and be waiting 30 minutes or so since I cannot depend on this app. Please go back to letting us track the bus movements on the road map so we can make our own predictions of time since we are familiar with the area and traffic flow here. Please incorporate the gps tracking on the app for the parents, this heat we’re having in my area is extremely dangerous and I would like to limit having my daughter and self out there while we wait for siblings. Thank you.
Developer Response
We apologize for the inconvenience. This new version allows for more custom notifications for parents in addition to the previous arrival alerts. Certain features are turned on at the discretion of the school district, including arrival notification time (default 20 min and can be longer per district) . When the driver signs into the route, the personal time parameters and notification settings may impact when the map is available. We would like to help you customize your parent settings. Please contact our customer support team for individual assistance at support@smart-tag.net.
Update: App is stable now. Looks like that major issues where fixed. To me looks like it is useful and I can track the bus and my kid. Thanks for supporting us.
I receive push notifications for any time my kids are checking in/out to the bus but if I go to the app it does not display anything. Then if I refresh the app, all the windows will continue trying to load content forever and nothing is displayed. I can’t see my profile, bus route, my kids, etc. After about 4h the app loads the information but I need to refresh because it says no activity, so it goes to the first stage in an endless loop.
Developer Response
Update: We appreciate your changing your review to 4-stars and sharing on this platform. We want this app to work for you!
An issue with the App performance is due to the extraordinarily high usage. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. We resolved the issue and continue to monitor to ensure our system performs as designed. We are committed to providing the best experience possible to help you have peace of mind. Thank you for your patienceI appreciate the notifications to let me know when to expect when the bus will arrive or depart. I would like to see the bus route as well. Real time where the bus is at I used to be able to see this on the website before it was an app. It gives a piece of mind if there is a delay or breakdown.
Developer Response
Thanks for your feedback. Based on feedback from school districts nationwide and for the safety of students and drivers, the live map location of the bus will only be available from the time you receive the SMART Alert arrival notification (default 20 mins) up to the time the bus leaves your home stop. The Parent App includes new features that let you choose a time setting for bus arrival notifications and each time your student loads and unloads the bus.
Customer support team is about as bad as the app. Contacted them today because I stopped getting notifications of when my children load and unload since the first day of school despite them having been on the bus everyday. Just wanted to see if that was an issue they were still working on. I receive a response on how to set up my app. ??? I then explain my issue again in another email and state that my app is set up already. I later receive a screenshot which shows my children’s riding activities on the first day of school and nothing else. She then tells me there’s no record of them tapping on or being entered manually- EXCEPT I WATCHED my son tap on this morning which is what prompted my email. I would just appreciate if someone read my email and responded accordingly instead of wasting my time with boilerplate responses. We’ve now spent the entire day emailing back and forth and I have less confidence in this app than I did before and I still don’t know the answer to my previous question… as a matter of fact I’m left with more questions? Like how is this the app providing any parent assurances????
Developer Response
We apologize for your experience. We know the importance for you to have accurate information about your students. Our team is working diligently to correct the issue causing student information to "appear missing." A software upgrade will be released within a week. We are committed to restoring to full functionality as soon as possible. Feel free to call us for support at 512-686-2360. Thank you for your patience.Katy ISD has changed its app 2 years in a row, and it just got worse each time.
Bad user experience, smart alerts works randomly and send innacurate updates.
Cannot follow the bus on the app to see when it's time for me to go to the bus station. (again, sometimes it works, most of the times it doesn't).
I wonder how someone reviewed this and thought it would be a good idea to replace an existing solution.
It does not work. Notifications don’t usually show up and when they do they are wrong. My kids will randomly disappear from the My Students. The map has only “worked” once and went from at school to at stop without anything in between.
The web version was so much better. In over 5 school years, with 2 kids riding different buses, the map was wrong 1 time! Notifications were also spot on except for the last 3 months of the year. Probably when they were testing the app 🤬
WHY IS THERE NO LIVE MAP ANYMORE?!?!?
Seriously, I wanted this to work and I wanted to like it better than the website, but this is so dumb and unreliable! I signed up for “alerts” 10 mins away…I get “bus will be there in 4 minutes” A map appears, then disappears. It constantly tells me that I don’t have children, then about an hour after school starts (when no one is using app), I suddenly have children again! This is terrible!!
Developer Response
We apologize for your experience. We know the importance for you to have accurate information about your students. Our team is working diligently to correct the capacity and resource issues causing student information to “appear missing”. Regarding the live map, based on feedback from school districts nationwide and for the safety of students and drivers, the live map location of the bus is available from the time you receive the SMART Alert arrival notification (default 20 mins) up to the time the bus leaves your home stop. The Parent App includes new features that let you choose a time setting for bus arrival notifications and each time your student loads and unloads the bus.
Thank you for your patience.First of all, it won’t download to your actual phone. So the only way that you can actually access it is you have to keep going back into the App Store and click on it that way. In Other words, when you download the app, it doesn’t appear on your actual home screen of your phone.
Also, after you register your child, and it says, click on dashboard, or link another student, none of those buttons actually does anything. You click on them and they flash, but you don’t go anywhere. If you exit out of the app, and try to log back in, your child that you just registered has disappeared and you have to start all over on a loop.
Developer Response
We apologize for your experience. We know the importance for you to have accurate information about your students. Our team is working diligently to correct the capacity and resource issues causing student information to “appear missing”. A software upgrade is in development and will be released within a week. We are committed to restoring to full functionality as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
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