Review
awful, can’t login even after resetting my password numerous times.
Lots of potential but utterly infuriating interface
The Arbor app looks nice and has plenty of features. However, it’s overcomplicated and lacks basic user-friendliness.
If you have multiple children, they are separated, so you have to keep switching between them, rather than (for example) booking school meals for each child on a particular day in one go with ease (instead, it’s SIX presses of buttons to go via menus and sub-menus get to another child’s meal for the same day).
Changing meals requires removing a meal, confirming, then going back into the menu before you can change it.
Payments are strewn around all over the place, separated into different menus.
Viewing payment history to check if you’ve already paid for an item is also not intuitive – you go to Payments and it’s not there, and there’s no way to access it from the payments screen (instead, you have to go to the Main Menu, scroll down and click ‘Invoices’… why not call it something more obvious like ‘Payment History’ or ‘View Past Payments’?)
When on certain pages, it’s obvious you may want to go to a related page (e.g. if I’m on the Payments menu, I may want to View Payment History to make sure I’ve not already paid for something!) but there are no shortcut links provided on most pages, so this requires going back to another menu to find your way from there, as per the above example.
There’s really no need to have Clubs, Trips, School Shop and Payments as four separate menus – if they’re separate then at least have some shortcuts to get between them easily rather than having to go via the main menu all the time.
And one of the most egregious features is that, when you get a message from the school, the push notification from Arbor doesn’t tell you what the message is – you have to click on the notification to take you into the app. That’s not all, though – once inside the app, the message doesn’t even appear, so you have to then go to the right menu, to click on ‘Messages’, and then select the new message that’s just been received to see what it says! It’s so badly thought out.
And possibly the most infuriating issue: it doesn’t even save your debit/credit card details, so EVERY time you want to make a payment, you have to enter ALL your card details from scratch. It doesn’t support ApplePay either (despite it having existed in the UK since 2015).
There are bugs, too – sometimes (though not all the time) when you go to login, it doesn’t put your password in for you, even though you’ve clicked on the ‘Password’ field, and then selected the option to input your password automatically via your iPhone.
Overall, there’s lots of potential in this app, but the interface is utterly exhausting to use, nothing is where you would expect it to be, and it then requires far too much clicking, scrolling. It’s as fiddly as you can imagine, as you endlessly click around to try and get where you want to go.
The menu layout and navigation needs a complete rethink – it very clearly lacks any thorough real-world testing.
Fix this, and it could be a superb app that’s an asset to any school, parent/carer and child – but, even as someone who is very computer literate, it often has me tearing my hair out due to its lack of user-friendliness.
If you have multiple children, they are separated, so you have to keep switching between them, rather than (for example) booking school meals for each child on a particular day in one go with ease (instead, it’s SIX presses of buttons to go via menus and sub-menus get to another child’s meal for the same day).
Changing meals requires removing a meal, confirming, then going back into the menu before you can change it.
Payments are strewn around all over the place, separated into different menus.
Viewing payment history to check if you’ve already paid for an item is also not intuitive – you go to Payments and it’s not there, and there’s no way to access it from the payments screen (instead, you have to go to the Main Menu, scroll down and click ‘Invoices’… why not call it something more obvious like ‘Payment History’ or ‘View Past Payments’?)
When on certain pages, it’s obvious you may want to go to a related page (e.g. if I’m on the Payments menu, I may want to View Payment History to make sure I’ve not already paid for something!) but there are no shortcut links provided on most pages, so this requires going back to another menu to find your way from there, as per the above example.
There’s really no need to have Clubs, Trips, School Shop and Payments as four separate menus – if they’re separate then at least have some shortcuts to get between them easily rather than having to go via the main menu all the time.
And one of the most egregious features is that, when you get a message from the school, the push notification from Arbor doesn’t tell you what the message is – you have to click on the notification to take you into the app. That’s not all, though – once inside the app, the message doesn’t even appear, so you have to then go to the right menu, to click on ‘Messages’, and then select the new message that’s just been received to see what it says! It’s so badly thought out.
And possibly the most infuriating issue: it doesn’t even save your debit/credit card details, so EVERY time you want to make a payment, you have to enter ALL your card details from scratch. It doesn’t support ApplePay either (despite it having existed in the UK since 2015).
There are bugs, too – sometimes (though not all the time) when you go to login, it doesn’t put your password in for you, even though you’ve clicked on the ‘Password’ field, and then selected the option to input your password automatically via your iPhone.
Overall, there’s lots of potential in this app, but the interface is utterly exhausting to use, nothing is where you would expect it to be, and it then requires far too much clicking, scrolling. It’s as fiddly as you can imagine, as you endlessly click around to try and get where you want to go.
The menu layout and navigation needs a complete rethink – it very clearly lacks any thorough real-world testing.
Fix this, and it could be a superb app that’s an asset to any school, parent/carer and child – but, even as someone who is very computer literate, it often has me tearing my hair out due to its lack of user-friendliness.
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Very hard to book clubs and No invoices provided
This has been the worst by far parent app. Its time consuming. I have two children attending clubs morning and afternoon. To book them in I have to deal with this more than 30 minutes every time. Topping up 4 accounts, 2 breakfasts and 2 after school . After paying I have to go to each of them (4 times again) book the days and the times.
I don’t want to think parents with 3 or more children. Very chaotic.
And another thing, I cannot download any invoice, thing that I need to declare my childcare costs every month.
Rubbish
I don’t want to think parents with 3 or more children. Very chaotic.
And another thing, I cannot download any invoice, thing that I need to declare my childcare costs every month.
Rubbish
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TELL YOUR SCHOOLS TO STICK TO PARENT PAY
This app is a total farce compared to parent pay. Everything takes longer to do, requires more clicks, it clunky bordering on unusable. Speak to the admin team at your school that have to suffer on the other side. No one consulted them, it so much harder for them. Schools have to be responsible with budgets but don’t let deploy this abomination
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Notifications not descriptive
The notification appears as “New message received. Tap for details” why can’t the message be descriptive rather visiting to app every time to understand about that notifications.
The message read and unread should be highlighted with different background or foreground colour, as it is very difficult to differentiate both.
The message read and unread should be highlighted with different background or foreground colour, as it is very difficult to differentiate both.
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Inexplicably bad
Logged out and seemingly never to be let in again. Linked to a school that doesn’t use it, not to the one that does and can’t change. Arbor team seemingly think parenting isn’t time consuming and stressful enough so have added this fresh hell for us all. Thanks!
Doesn’t work
Always glitchy and I can’t log in
It’s still awful
The process for booking a child into wrap around care is way more complicated than it needs to be - I need to add funds before I can even register for a place, and even though the session only costs £1.85, the minimum I can top up is £2. Make it make sense. Diabolic app that appears to have been designed by someone who never set foot in a school let alone had a child attend one.
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Unbelievable
After last update app is unusable. Not recognising old password. Tried resetting it and that doesn’t work either.
What’s the point in updating if you’re going to break it?
What’s the point in updating if you’re going to break it?
Terrible
Absolute dog shot of an app. Useless
A constant challenge
Relentlessly serving error messages that make no sense, combined with a horrible, clunky UI that makes achieving even the simplest of this a constant uphill struggle. Dreadful and infuriating.
Worst app
Unfortunately both my children’s schools use this app. It’s appalling. For messaging there is no way to delete once read so all of the messages pile up, surely that’s basic for messaging apps? When I logged on yesterday it forced me to create a new password. Now it won’t work at all and I can only log onto the desktop by recreating a password each time. I have no idea why schools would invest in such rubbish.
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A Chocolate Teapot is more useful
One of the worst apps I've used in a long time. Password AutoFill doesn't work, forcing me to open my password manager, copy a long, complex password, and paste it manually every time I log in. That's a basic feature that should work reliably.
The interface feels dated, the user experience is frustrating, and it honestly seems like very little usability testing was done before release.
Please invest in proper design, testing, and quality assurance. Modern development tools can help speed up improvements, but fundamental functionality and user experience need much more attention. In its current state, this app simply isn't good enough.
Just use Claude FFS!
The interface feels dated, the user experience is frustrating, and it honestly seems like very little usability testing was done before release.
Please invest in proper design, testing, and quality assurance. Modern development tools can help speed up improvements, but fundamental functionality and user experience need much more attention. In its current state, this app simply isn't good enough.
Just use Claude FFS!
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Very poor
Unreliable and very poor functionality. Ugly design. Have to do loads of clicks to do anything.
Trash 👎
So hard, logs me out. So stressful. 🗑️
Hate it
Have been asked to change password but it won’t change .This app was designed to add stress to parents life .ridiculous
Not good
Really poor app. Never remembers passwords and it’s terrible to navigate
Notifications
Why have notifications stopped no push sounds or banners so im missing all messages Im not logging in everyday on the off chance there is a new message this needs sorting as as a parent the app is pretty useless without it
Clueless
Why our school has chosen this app, I have no idea. It’s a mess of menus and confusing UI, I have just no idea where to begin with organising childcare.
Crashes all the time
Really poor, crashes all the time and needs for multiple password changes that still don’t allow access! SO frustrating!! Satchel one was much easier
