Illumine Reviews

Pros

It has everything I could ask for. I am a working mom and I always felt anxious and guilty for not being there for my boy or not be involved or informed enough. Its like Illumine has crept into a parents mind and collected all the needs and built this app. I can see what activities my toddler son is doing, i get the notifications, I know when he ate, what he ate, when he slept at all times. I immediately get to know if he got hurt or had a quarrel. The UI is pretty good (Sorry for the PM in me speaking). I can drop notes to the teacher. I can very well communicate with the school admin and have all record of conversations. I see the reminders at all times. I see the lovely pictures of my boy with all his friends and it fills my heart with joy.

Cons

One tiny thing could be that if a school does not use a specific feature, may be that can be hidden so the parents don't see it. Although my son's school uses almost all features, they don't have the live streaming thing. So may be if that feature can be completely hidden.

Pros

The features available are perfectly catered for the needs of pre-schools as well as parents. It is really user-friendly, be it for the admins, teachers or parents. Even the more elderly teachers that are not familiar with the latest technology can use the application with ease!

Cons

There were some minor glitches or crashes in the app, but after notifying the support team, the problems were solved promptly!

Alternatives Considered

Google Classroom

Reasons for Choosing Illumine

Kubikt was more focused on finance and operation management, and it was difficult to get a grasp of how to make full use of it as it was too complicated for our admins even after attending a full-day training. Although in terms of price, Kubikt was far less pricey than Illumine, it did not have the features that would potentially bettered our pre-school.

Reasons for Switching to Illumine

Initially we were just looking for a platform to conduct online learning during the covid-19 outbreak, and we stumbled upon Illumine and the platforms mentioned above. I was impressed with the excellent customer service that I received, hence I decided to start the trial. We explored the other features offered in the app and thought it would be nice to take this opportunity and stand out from the other pre-schools in my country.

Pros

It is very user-friendly. The support team is quite efficient

Cons

Uploading of a long video is a problem at times

Pros

1.On Admin side, filing is made faster and easier. I can say that it helps ease the Admin records for the school.
2.Fees / Invoices is good. it is done fast once made its in the email of parents
3. Child's Profile - usually parent's log their child to school but most of the students we have are under supervisions or guarded by Grandparents and Uncles and Aunts. this doesnt have the content on the information profile.
4. when parent's upload files, these must go directly to the child's profile or file once teacher opened the file for easy tracking.
5. I didn't see any certification format like the invoice made.

Cons

1. on messaging, you cannot delete or rephrase the message. and you cannot even copy or paste the same line. its so limited.
2. the attendance dates, when you need to suddenly have to check out the child's attendance . there should be a late in or red mark so when you check the overall attendance you can summarize it fast.

Pros

I loved how the user journey of the app is so well thought of. I appreciate that i can onboard my child, pay fees, look at announcement, activities and a live CCTV camera option to keep an eye on my child throughout the time he is at school.

Cons

I do not understand why each screen has a "loading" prompt. I feel some of the actions that can be cached onto the app for a short duration should solve this problem

Pros

Easy useing and shareing, is good to find all needed information.

Cons

No, everiting is nice and easy to use. I coudn't espect more.

Pros

Very user friendly. Exhaustive features. Enhances the goodwill of the organisation. Helps parents and educators in tracking the development of the child

Cons

Camera access can be improved. Writing notes and reminders sometimes becomes difficult.

Pros

Love how we can communicate with daycare/schools in a streamlined manner via the app.

My daughter's daycare uses this app to provide updates on their daily activities/food/play etc which is very useful for us parents.

Cons

Is a bit slow in response at times.
Payments not active

Pros

this app is good in terms of school and children management.

Cons

NA. As such as no cons seen in this app .

Pros

Communication management and the sharing of pictures.

Cons

I cannot use emogi's and the spacebar and full stop is too close to each other which hinders fast typing.

Pros

1 year ago, before we implemented Illumine, I as the CEO and my former Head of Marketing had to handle tons of customer support tickets ourselves; and then, we had to hire 2 then a 3rd Support rep at $3000/month nearly in the Philippines. Just for something we knew was resulting from customers struggling to get into their Zoom class each day. Customers left because they were tired of the technical difficulties and annoyance of having to ask Support for things daily. Illumine was an all-in-one automated, streamlined, simplified answer to all that.

Cons

The fact that it does NOT replace the need for Google Sheets, Stripe, and my CRM completely. I think if it enabled us to fully market, sell, manage classrooms / customer relations, and handle billing all in-house, that could be very valuable. But you can't necessarily expect too much from any 1 SaaS tool either...

Pros

I like their billing system as I used to lose a lot of paper invoices before. It used to taxation issues at the end of the year. All the receipts are now available in my mail as well as in the app. The live streaming/CCTV feature is great as it lets me see my kid once in a while when I am at work. Also, I can share medical and food notes in the app and I don't have to follow up with the teachers to see if they have completed it or not. Also since I do not use other social media that much I used to miss out event photos previously which I am now able to see in their app.

Cons

There is no option to mark a photo as favourite. Since the school shares many photos I hope they give an option to mark a photo or a video as a favourite.

Pros

Illumine helps make the connection between home and the preschool setting stronger. It allows teachers and parents to communicate important information to each other. It allows for photos to be shared with the families, so that they can see the learning taking place in the classroom. It allows me to keep track of the development that my child is going through, in a very structured, easy to understand format. I like this software a lot

Cons

I really do not have any cons for Illumine. My experience has been very positive and I like the product and their user interface . I am being 100% honest when i say that I have never had to contact customer support so I can not speak to that, but I do know that the implementation of the solution was pretty simple .

Pros

My kid's school used this, and the whole experience to communicate with her teachers and receiving daily reports about my child would not have been much more straightforward. During the pandemic, extra updates such as online learning and activity sharing with learners are handy, and she felt connected to her teachers even though she is away from school. They have various tools, such as notifications, assessments, fee collection, Lead CRM, etc., all in one place. Still, I hope her school would use all the functionalities as I know it would be so much more helpful for teachers and students.

Cons

As of now, the experience is pretty pleasant, and if there are
any problems, the team will be quick to resolve it for us.

Pros

There are more things than I can list about why I like Illumine as a parent. I love being able to check in on my kid any time during the day with there Live streaming feature. My kid's school uploads pictures in afternoon and I eagerly wait for it during my lunch time. It helps them feel a part of my kid's day at daycare . Apart from parent communication, I like how bills are always available in my email and also sending food and medicine notes to the class teachers.! Recently they created a video of my kid's journey in the school and all the family members were absolutely delighted with the video.

Cons

The cons that have come up are very few and mostly relate to the internet services which automatically gets sorted.

Pros

Its a very user friendly app. It was very easy to start using it.
The app has features that are easy to use and due to the app the daily operations and updates have become very fast and tip of the finger.
The adding of schedule and events is the best feature i like.
We have also started using CRM which becomes very easy for us to track the new enquiry.

Cons

Few features i have to add for all the centres by selecting different centres. It should have been like we add things and it has an option of having it for all centres.
For example when we add events. We have to add for all the three centres . It should at a click "add this event for all centres" You click on "YES"

Pros

Update,Activities,Consult tab for raising concerns,leaves & teachers notes ,Calendar events to check for upcoming events/announcements.
Photos to keep checking my kids photos they keep posing in parents absence it will add an excitement as a parent

Cons

Till creche has to get implement or use of many features like fee payments,live streaming and so on .
This will add a wonderful experience hassle free tasks

Pros

User friendly , Consist of all features which preschool would want to make their daily operations easier.

Cons

The application contains all features which I was looking for for my preschool.

Pros

We have replaces our school diary with illumine. It is easy to use, saves a lot of time for our teachers and the onboarding is very simple. The best thing about Illumine is their after-sales service and we have received solutions for all the queries/bugs almost immediately.

Cons

The CCTV live streaming and the bus tracking service needs a few enhancements.

Pros

1. We can closely watch kids activities on timely basis.
2. We can watch photos of events and activities in school
3. We can update our photos at home and download school photos
4. Communicate with teachers and care takers about his deeds and chores

Cons

1. It is not possible to download all the photos at once
2. We need live monitoring feature by linking webcams with illumine app
3. Customer care needs to be very prompt in answering queries

Pros

I can update the parents on their little one’s mealtimes, naps, diaper changes, and bathroom visits.

The end of the day reports can make parents anxious because they are unable to communicate with the daycare center through the day, but illumine allows us to constantly keep them notified.

We can send the reports to parents and receive their signatures without any hassle.

Cons

None for now, there are no negatives as of now present in this app

Pros

Its a single mode of communication between the parents and the school. As a parent i know what are the assignments , Attendance and other announcements. The important part is the fees details , Pickup and drop details provide more safety to the kids. One feedback that i may have is if we can group the photos of ones kid at one place will be better...now school post 100 of photos and i need to drill down to find out which one are for my son...rest is great abt this app

Cons

what i feel missing is if the school cameras can be integrated with this app then this will be one stop shop. My son school provide camera feature to check the live streaming of kids playground and cafeteria

Pros

Illumine is very easy to use and the service is excellent.

Cons

We are happy with everything. There is nothing we do not like at the moment.

Pros

Ease of use and compatibility of two-way communications

Cons

Invoice rectifications, payment gateway option

Pros

The best feature is that it allows to choose different options while posting pictures for kids. Easy to check updates and backdated information.

Cons

No option of selecting multiple parents to message. Have to individually select which is time consuming.