ParentLocker

Pros

The user-friendly interface makes it easy for me to navigate and utilize all of the features effectively. I can confidently say that in addition to their Financial module being the best I’ve used so far, their customer service is nothing short of exceptional. I am always met with prompt, friendly, and knowledgeable responses.

Cons

While the system is very user friendly, sometimes I don't know how to access the information I need and have to email PL for assistance. They are always very accommodating.

Pros

The ParentLocker system is intuitive and easy to use, and the customer service is top notch. The ParentLocker team is committed to helping us make any changes or customizations we ask for.

Cons

N/A

Pros

Easy to use, downloadable app to your phone, nice looking mass emails

Cons

Some of the SIS features are confusing but easy to learn.

Pros

Their platform is user-friendly and versatile, but the standout features for me are the tuition management and dismissal modules.

Cons

Each person can create and save reports, but not share them with my colleagues.

Pros

From creating a form to getting the link up on our website to getting submitted forms into our database, Parent Locker has made the admissions process so easy. The software seems very intuitive and easy to use. Our families so appreciate being able to submit an admissions form on their phone while they're on the go. I also love how quick it is to generate a report for any data you need! If I receive a spontaneous request from the board for enrollment data, it takes me five minutes to generate a report. I've found the customer support really good - they usually respond within 24 hours, and they are always dedicated to helping you until your problem is resolved. Plus they will continually make improvements to their software based on customer feedback - there aren't many companies you can say this about! We've been so happy with their product and their responsiveness to our needs, we still can't quite believe we have such a great product at that price.

Cons

There are a couple of things we are currently unable to generate in a data report - for example, we can't generate a report of students who have left the school so attrition trends are still a little challening to document in the database - but anything we can't do from our end, Parent Locker will do for us and get the info to us, which is so appreciated.

Pros

Parent Locker took a complicated system, a school database, and made it extremely easy to use by simplifying the interface. Where other systems use complicated and heavy SQL type databases, PL seems to run a much more lightweight system. While this might sacrifice some power in theory, we have rarely had a task that we needed to run which couldn't be run natively. When we did, support came through in unbelievable timing to either run or develop to the functionality for us.

Cons

The company is somewhat small. While the company is growing, I had some reservations about the age and size of the company on its long term viability. This has proved to be a moot concern as the company has continued to build and develop and is going strong. I am still nitpicking but this is still my greatest concern with the software if forced to pick one.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to ParentLocker

Pros

User-friendly, great customer service, and customization.

Cons

Inability to see multiple years in a single report.

Pros

ParentLocker is an exceptionally intuitive and robust school management system for staff and parents. Its user-friendly design makes navigation and communication effortless, and it covers all functions in managing our school. With advanced features and simplified administrative tasks, it's a top choice for schools looking to streamline operations and enhance parent engagement. Having used various similar programs over the years, I can confidently say that ParentLocker is the best by far.

Cons

[sensitive content hidden] is fantastic. If an issue arises, which is rare but, like all programs, may happen, he will address it immediately in a very pleasant and efficient manner.

Pros

I find Parent Locker very easy to use; it serves as a great one-stop shop for keeping track of various school-related functions. We utilize it for tracking tuition payments, managing admissions, and monitoring attendance. Additionally, we use it for sending out school emails and updating school directories.

Cons

I would like Parent Locker to be able to have more custom reports available especially for the financial portal.

Pros

ParentLocker is amazing! ParentLocker is more than just a school information system; it's a comprehensive solution that enhances communication, streamlines administration, and supports educational success. With its user-friendly interface, extensive features, and robust integration capabilities, it addresses the diverse needs of schools, parents, and students with ease. For any educational institution looking to modernize its approach to school management, ParentLocker is undoubtedly a top contender.

Cons

We have no complaints - it's truly an excellent platform!

Pros

ParentLocker is a convenient and efficient to keep updated with my child's school work , grades, homework and other school-related information. The phone app makes finding daily assignment available at the click of a finger, from anywhere.

Cons

I find the feature to contact teachers via email from within the app very useful. I do wish there was a better way to have communication between the teachers and students within the app. There is an entire part of the "triangle" that is left out of the app, and not being able to have effective communication between the school and the entire family ( parents AND students) creates some extra work.

Pros

Scheduling parent teacher conferences is so easy and convenient. You can see all teachers' schedules to easily select time slots, change or cancel time slots. Your conference schedule can go straight to your calendar, email or print. Your child's daily homework, notes from teachers and even report cards are all in one place, and you can email teachers directly. The menus are very clear and easy to find and use. Everything you need for the daily school curriculum, correspondence, scores and school events all in one place.

Cons

I actually do not have any complaints about this straightforward, easy-to-use software!

Pros

Parent Locker is the most user-friendly software I've used. It has all of the features our school needs at a significantly cost than the two previous programs we have used over the years. The information I seek is easily accessible and the service we have received when needed has been respectful and effective. I highly recommend Parent Locker and am appreciative that it is available to us.

Cons

It took a little longer initially to get the guidance we needed to get set up but found that scheduling time for support worked better for us and for Parent Locker staff.

Pros

1. Very simple interface.
2. Parentlocker keep on adding updated features on a regular basis.
3. Customer support is excellent - quick to respond to all questions.

Cons

I currently do not have any cons to share regarding Parentlocker. Certain missing features for our school needs are constantly being added to their portfolio.

Pros

Please see previous comments

Pros

It is easy to use and super customizable. The developer is great to work with and he is always trying to help make it better. It takes suggestions and continues to work on making it better. The turn around is really quick also.

Cons

We are still trying to use all the functions and look for ways to continue to integrate it better with our LMS.

Pros

The program is intuitive and streamlined. Teachers, parents and administrators find it to be a very well designed and very easy to use tool.

Cons

The software is designed for grade school. We use it in our earlychildhood program but there are features that would better serve our division of the school.

Pros

It's so easy to learn and use!
You just log on and post!

Cons

As a teacher, there really isn't much missing. I post homework, assign test and enjoy the communication

Pros

Great experience with ParentLocker! Easy to use system for maintaining basic parent/student data, grades, etc. The team is very responsive and answers my questions clearly and quickly.

Cons

I would like to be able to search the “admissions” section more quickly

Pros

I like how when I search for a parent or a child all their info is right there with one click of a button. All the child's info parents info, etc. its easy to edit and to use. Its self-explanatory also which helps a lot if I ever needed editing.

Cons

one thing I would like to change is the labels. I would like to have access and be able to open the labels from Parent Locker into a word document and be able to modify the labels if needed in terms of its font and size.

Pros

I like the simplicity. It is very easy to use and modify without a lot of thinking.

Cons

On random occasions, the mobile app will shut down and give an error message. When this happens, you just log out and log back in and it works fine. It is by no means a deal breaker.

Pros

The Parent Locker daily health screening app delivers exactly what it promises to deliver - a simple and easy, reliable daily health screening for parents to use before coming to school and teachers to use as students arrive.

Cons

I have no complaints about this software. It does exactly what was promised and needed.

Pros

We use it for a very specific purpose and it works well for that purpose. We need to view it more indepth in the future dor a possible move to as a sis.

Cons

It works well for our needs. It won't let me move forward without writing more on this question. I guess that is a con for this question.

Pros

The software is very user friendly and easy to use.
Provides instantaneous results to questionnaires.

Cons

We did not find any aspects of the software that were difficult to use

Pros

How user friendly it is! It is very easy for all employees to navigate. Not much training is needed (very minimal!)

Cons

can't think of any cons. We really enjoy using PL!

Alternatives Considered

Pros

ParentLocker is the most user friendly school management system I know of. It is easy to implement and intuitive for all users. Additionally their customer support is so helpful and open to suggestions for product enhancements. If impelmented well, it can serve as a customer relationship management system to support both the parent and student lifecycles.

Cons

Really nothing to share here. It serves our needs very well.

Pros

I love the ease of use and the friendly and supportive staff who are always there to help!

Cons

nothing- we have been super happy with all aspects to be honest!

Pros

a real one stop shop that can listen to feedback and always making their product better

Cons

I wish their Financial Aid platform was more established for our needs but improvement has been made.

Pros

ParentLocker is a superb Student Information System. It has transformed the ability for us to function as a school with tracking attendance, student demographic information, report cards, communication with parents and so much more. It is user-friendly. Their customer service is great. We have a faculty that is not so technically savvy, but we were able to acclimate them to using many of the systems with nearly no in-service training as it is so intuitive. The entire interface is great.

Cons

The App is very basic. I know they are working on this, but currently, from a functional standpoint, we need to access from a phone through a browser which makes it a challenge on a phone.

Pros

1. Their customer support is unparalleled. Prompt responses and willing to resolve all concerns. Whenever you need something incorporated in the program, they are here to make it happen. We are extremely satisfied with this program.
2. Access to school data is easy and quick. It could be Attendance, Class lists, Communication to Parents, Report Cards, Integration with Google Classroom, Loom or generating data in multiple formats. Simplicity is the hallmark of this program. Teachers and administrators love the ease which which you can navigate the program. The refrain is " It is so easy and simple".
3. Flexible for each school and your particular needs. We went into Corona shutdown with a degree of calm because we had an excellent tool to communicate with parents.
4. Instead of parent receiving a hundred emails a day. they received a single daily digest which enabled parents to navigate their children's work in a consistent, clear and manageable manner.

Cons

What we have used - we have been happy with. Some processes need tweaking. However, there is always a work around which customer support has provided!

Pros

*the easy to use navigation
* teacher- student-parent friendly interface with clear directions and intuitive set up
*the pleasant font, graphics
*responsiveness of the team to suggestions and feedback

Cons

They have been very responsive to help/support requests. Possibly to have a phone number to call in addition to access via email/chat.

Pros

ease of setup
app is easy to use
great customer service
no issues

Cons

When you login to the website through a browser on the phone, it is unclear where to go for the screening.

Pros

ParentLocker is so intelligently designed, as if the engineers who set it up were previously school administrators. In every interface -- attendance, report cards, student/family data system, parent conference scheduler, group email system, reports -- there are so many smart, helpful, useful details. This system has professionalized our administration, and was really easy to learn. It's extremely intuitive. I just love everything about it. Two new amazing additions: They allow integration of Google Classroom with the portal's student organizer, and added a whole financial module, so we can set up our student contracts and payment through FACTS. The customer service team is very responsive, and has even tweaked some of it's products to make the system better for us.

Cons

I would love it if they would make a few more parts mobile friendly, mainly the email system, so you could use it in an emergency from your phone easily, and it would be great if there were a dismissal module. Also, setting up forms for families to fill out, so the information flows into the database, can be a little difficult.

Pros

ParentLocker centralized all of our admissions, registration, student information, paperwork and attendance needs into one convenient and easy to use program. We love the Parent Teacher (P/T) Conference module as well as the beautiful Progress Report and Report Card features. The easy to use school wide email and text message features make sending information and reminds very user friendly. We are also grateful for the way the ParentLocker teamed jumped onto the distance learning program early in the COVID-19 situation and quickly integrated with Zoom and Google Classroom. We are excited to integrate ParentLocker with FACTS for our tuition contracts for this year and to roll out the other new features when we return to school.

Cons

The few features that we felt were missing have either already been added or are being rolled out this year.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to ParentLocker

Pros

Parent Locker understood the needs of our particular school. Although many of the features we needed were already anticipated, the team at Parent Locker was quick to customize our needs. The greatest thing about Parent Locker is the ease of use.

Cons

Parent Locker has recently added a lot of features we were using other platforms to do for us, thus not integrated into one system. They have been slow to add such features but are realizing that schools need many different databases to "talk" to each other for better management of student's information.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to ParentLocker

Pros

The things I like about this software is :
-You can customize easily report card and progress report
-If you made a mistake, supports helps you retrieve the data you lost
-Reports from the school data base is an easy step
- Support is always ready and eager to provide your need and customize reports for your need (we were able to change our attendance report to fir our need)

Cons

At this point, I wish sharing with google classroom had more control on the sharing items (for example except streaming)
-different languages for communication with parents, so that parents that are bilingual can easily read our messages.

Pros

Parentlocker offers a user-friendly, integrated platform for successfully and smoothly managing student information, attendance, report cards, emails, teacher assignments, test calendars, parent conferences, and much more!

Cons

The software is designed, as the name indicates, with parents in mind. Teachers are secondary but also addressed overall. It is not as intuitively designed for administrator needs and management of teachers as well as students. Some more complex areas of the software also are missing needed features or customization. However, the software team is extremely responsive and receptive to feedback, and is constantly upgrading the software to meet our needs.

Pros

It does exactly what it needs to
Clean and intuitive interface
Outstanding support
It is very easy to customize with a a little bit of training and playing around- need to wait for the developers to do every little change. You don't have to be a computer expert to set it up.

Cons

The app needs a little work but I heard they are redoing it- looking forward

Pros

I love that it's so user-friendly for our parents! The design and ease to find information are clear and have a friendly 'feel'. Parents especially love the PTC module and the teachers love how easy it is to stay in communication with parents re: daily information, assignments, etc. The designer of the program is always thinking ahead and working to improve the program.

Cons

The scheduling section still needs some improvement. The app needs help but the designer is currently working on that.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing ParentLocker

Switched From

Pros

Parent Locker is easy to learn and use. It has all the features that we need as a school and the company is always open to adding features when we request them. The product is so comprehensive; it can create many types of data reports to help analyze different situations. Customer service is great- they are patient, incredibly helpful and quick to respond.

Cons

This product was a bit pricier than other softwares of its kind, but well worth the cost difference since the quality is great.

Pros

Easy to use. Support is great, knowledgeable and very helpful.

Cons

Certain administrative tasks need to be carried out on their side. I feel guilty about contacting them for something simple that I feel that I can do, but they do not mind doing whatever the task is. Maybe lack of more administrative features?

Pros

Parent Locker is hands down one of the most user-friendly and intuitive programs I have worked with.

Cons

I have not found any cons as of yet. Any problems or questions that I've had, have been addressed.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing ParentLocker

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to ParentLocker

Pros

Parent Locker is a wonderful tool for managing the seemingly infinite amounts of data that we have to track in running our school. From student schedules and grades, to a full database of family information, to lesson plans and report cards, to a variety of communication tools - Parent Locker allows us to stay on top of our school.

Cons

I would love to be able to be signed in on more than one device at a time.

Pros

We use the daily health screening component to keep track of who enters through what entrance and if they were temperature cleared as well.

Parent Locker worked with us to set up and implement what we were required to have, and to make sure it worked for our specific needs.

Everyone from sales to support has been top notch. I highly recommend using them.

Cons

I just wish we could use the whole suite. We are tied to the software our district requires so switching to Parent Locker as our SIS isn't an option at this time.

If we are given the opportunity I would switch in an instant.

Pros

It is always evolving. The creators adapt to things we've suggested and asked for, such as syncing with Google Classroom (still a few glitches) but when pointed out they are dealt with swiftly.

Cons

Well - I get frustrated when I find a glitch.

Pros

Parent Locker works well for our school and helps integrate every component of education management. We are able to utilize it to communicate with parents, facilitate PTC, and most recently coordinate our zoom classes.

Cons

Customer Service isn't as quick to answer as we'd like, however, once they do respond, they will work with us through our problem.

Pros

This was the most user friendly program I have used - I have used several in the 10+ years I've been working in schools.

Cons

The financial software wasn't compatible with what we needed but hope to change that in the next couple of years.

Pros

This software is very user friendly. Customer Support has been extremely hands-on. They listen when we feel something needs to be improved. They are always updating and modernizing the system to keep up with the growing needs of our school.

Cons

We are always finding ways to improve on the various portals that parent locker utilizes. they take our suggestions seriously.

Pros

Easy to use because customer support fixes any questions immediately

Cons

Sometimes it can be confusing but support always helps