Not user friendly
I’m a classroom teacher and am required to use this app to communicate with parents. It isn’t user-friendly for families.
ClassDojo to Apptegy
I have used ClassDojo flawlessly for the past 10ish years. Apptegy makes it difficult to find a parent to a child to message them individually. (You can’t search by the child’s name to get to the family.) Giving points in ClassDojo was simple by just tapping a student’s name/avatar. Apptegy makes it very difficult by to scrolling down a list, checking a name, and choosing “add” and selecting points. As far as I know, I cannot take attendance in Apptegy, so selecting all students for points means I need to unselect students every time. Another very frustrating components is navigating the app. I made a class, but my messages aren’t included in my class, so I have to go in and out of that area of the app. Adding pictures is also very challenging as I have to write a description for every photo or choose AI to write for me (which describes the photo in a very silly way). Lastly, the amount of clicks/touches it takes to navigate the app just takes up an absurd amount of time. (Question: Like ClassDojo, can I see when a parent translates my message to their home language?) Suggestion: Call the app the same name for teachers, parents, and students, so there is no confusion.
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Average
This app isn’t the most reliable. It’s not the easiest to use.
New to the app
I like the app but I really wish that we could schedule messages, not just announcements, to parents. It would make my teacher life so much better. I have missed out on so many updates because of this. Scheduling messages to go out when you get new information for future events is just so convenient. I also wish that we could turn off read receipts.
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Best platform
Apptegy has saved me so much time sending out messages. They’re customer service is amazing
One Stop Shop for Communication
Apptegy is a wonderful product that has many elements of communication in one place. Highly recommend!
Editing Posts
It’s extremely buggy and takes a ton of time to load. It also crashes when you try to edit posts.
Not the best
App keeps crashing, notifications don’t always come through, sometimes when notifications do come through they are hours or even days late, and this platform in a pain to get a large number of students students in a room since there is not an option for students to join a room themselves.
Not Great
How in the world is anyone giving this more than one star? Can’t even edit a post without the app crashing entirely.
Horrible to use as educator and parent.
As an educator and parent, this app is horrible. As a teacher, it continues to crash when I try to edit a post, it doesn’t show notifications when I have messages, it is not easy to find a parent for a specific student because the students name is not listed or you see siblings first and not your student, you can only post a limited number of photos and must title each photo, it takes forever to upload photos, you cannot easily archive or group messages from the prior year, I have extra kids with my class for A&H/specials only and since those teacher added a new group to my account those students parents are added to my message roster and now I have to decipher which parents are mine to send groups messages which is difficult since parents have different last names and you can not see student names easily. I have also tried to download a transcript of a message thread between a parent and it is terrible- it puts it in a spreadsheet and you can’t read anything from a message or print it to read.
As a parent, this site crashes and needs updates almost weekly for the last year, I hardly ever get notification when there is a feed update or new message and I have notifications turned on, it is also difficult to save photos sent via the message part of the app and photos don’t always load into the app clearly depending on the teachers phone type, it is also very hard to find a previous post in the feed on your phone.
This app is missing sooooo much that was beneficial for teachers and adults that Dojo had- posting an upcoming event with alerts for parents (not on a calendar, just an event happening to note), posting 20 pictures at once, easy to download message transcript, randomizer for student selection, timers to use in class, calming music to play for transitions or work time, and so much more.
I wish we were still using Class Dojo. This was a terrible move!
I would give zero starts I possible.
As a parent, this site crashes and needs updates almost weekly for the last year, I hardly ever get notification when there is a feed update or new message and I have notifications turned on, it is also difficult to save photos sent via the message part of the app and photos don’t always load into the app clearly depending on the teachers phone type, it is also very hard to find a previous post in the feed on your phone.
This app is missing sooooo much that was beneficial for teachers and adults that Dojo had- posting an upcoming event with alerts for parents (not on a calendar, just an event happening to note), posting 20 pictures at once, easy to download message transcript, randomizer for student selection, timers to use in class, calming music to play for transitions or work time, and so much more.
I wish we were still using Class Dojo. This was a terrible move!
I would give zero starts I possible.
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Hand delivering Messages would be more efficient
Our school district requires we use this app for communicating with families. The level of “updates” it goes through only for messages to end up undeliverable, app crashes when modifying posts/adding content…also, the fact that the ENTIRE district catalog of students/staff is uploaded so finding your students without an “S” number takes forever. The depression of losing our accessibility to class dojo only to be forced to use this “Apptegy/Thrillshare/ Rooms/whatever name they give it on a given day”, will last a life time. It’s as if the creators of this app said “how can we make it HARDER for teachers and parents to connect…ah yes. THIS.” As if that wasn’t already a struggle to begin with.
When I retire from this grueling profession, THIS APP will be the thing I write about in the memoir.
When I retire from this grueling profession, THIS APP will be the thing I write about in the memoir.
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closes when you try to edit a post
Can we get this fixed please?
Loving This App!
This app has definitely made things easier for me to communicate with my class. The ability to upload 10 photos instead of four and easily message my students and guardians plus post announcements has been great. I’ve also enjoyed posting to our Facebook page with a push of a button. I’d recommend it!
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Translations
I wish the app wouldn’t automatically translate messages originally written in Spanish to English. The translations aren’t good and as someone who is bilingual I’d like yo read the message in the language the were sent without having to switch the language of the entire app to Spanish.
Absolutely terrible!
I have been using Dojo for almost ten years and I miss it so much! Our district switched to Apptegy/Thrillshare/Connect this year and it is terrible. So glitchy and missing so many of the features of dojo that have been critical to my classroom management and communication. We were promised automatic translation and it won’t translate at all in a district with a large Spanish speaking population. Behavior tracking is tedious and not at all fun for the kids. There is no “buy-in” for them. We miss the cute monsters and fun sounds. Also missing the events feature. Being able to schedule classroom events and announcements and automatically send reminders is really hurting family engagement in my class. Very upset with this app.
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Pretty Awful
The most sensible things are missing for this communication tool. who needs a calendar, right? The app consistently freezes when trying to add or remove users to your room. The app gives an emoji and comment option, but those don’t work at all. Outside of being able to private message, this is a one way communication tool with very few options.
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Response from developer
We really appreciate your feedback. Please contact our Support team at support@apptegy.com so that we can better understand the issues you're describing and help troubleshoot along with you. You're describing bugs we haven't encountered before, but our team is investigating these aspects of the platform and conducting testing to clear up any potential issues.
Ugh
This app is a disservice to teachers. If your school or district is considering adopting Rooms as its primary form of home-school communication, DON’T.
Teachers already have more than enough on their plates without being forced to rely on a communication platform that makes a basic part of our job more complicated, frustrating, and inefficient than it needs to be. A school communication app should make it easier to connect with families—not create another layer of problems teachers have to troubleshoot and manage.
When districts choose a platform like this, they need to seriously consider the experience of the people who are expected to use it every single day. “It technically works” is not the same thing as being intuitive, reliable, or teacher-friendly.
Home-school communication is too important to be handled by an app that creates more work instead of reducing it. There are far better options available. Teachers deserve tools that support their work, not tools they have to fight with just to communicate with families.
If you are a district administrator researching communication platforms: please listen to the teachers who will actually have to use them before signing a contract.
Teachers already have more than enough on their plates without being forced to rely on a communication platform that makes a basic part of our job more complicated, frustrating, and inefficient than it needs to be. A school communication app should make it easier to connect with families—not create another layer of problems teachers have to troubleshoot and manage.
When districts choose a platform like this, they need to seriously consider the experience of the people who are expected to use it every single day. “It technically works” is not the same thing as being intuitive, reliable, or teacher-friendly.
Home-school communication is too important to be handled by an app that creates more work instead of reducing it. There are far better options available. Teachers deserve tools that support their work, not tools they have to fight with just to communicate with families.
If you are a district administrator researching communication platforms: please listen to the teachers who will actually have to use them before signing a contract.
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Stupid
It wi t let me sign in at all this is a bad fault delete this sucks
Easy to Use
Easy to send out posts and message parents and students. Convenient when I don’t have my computer
One of the Worst Apps
This is by far one of the worst apps I’ve ever used for communication I schools. Closes out or resets all the time, when trying to edit a message it closes out completely, freezes a lot, and just not ideal for fast quality communication.
