OurFamilyWizard Co-Parent App 4+

Worth despite a number of frustrations

It does what it needs to. And despite the below criticism, it’s still worth getting.

The app is finicky at times. If you’re searching for messages sometimes it needs to be reset or it won’t show messages that do meet your search criteria. The calendar is a bit annoying because it will only show an event “viewed” by the other parent if they click on it even though they can receive event notifications in message form and there’s no way for you to send that they looked at that message. So they can use the excuse that they never saw the event. If you close out of the app without saving a message draft, it usually doesn’t save the draft, which is Really frustrating if you get a call or a text in the middle of drafting a message. You can lose all of a large part of it.

This isn’t related to the app exclusively but OFW in general. I really wish they would add a feature that allows you to schedule a message to be sent later at a specific date and time. I tend to think of a lot of things in succession, but if I just leave them as a draft so as not to overwhelm my co-parent then I always forget to send them.

Buggy and doesn’t notify of messages on IOS

The application doesn’t work completely, you’re not able to add any information to be able to save between parties. I made a complaint about this and they told me to use the website but I paid $150 to use the app, not the website. Last week my ex-husband messaged me three times and I got no notifications about any of the messages. I happen to open it yesterday to find the messages and checked on my notifications in my settings and everything is turned on to blast my phone if he messages me. This can create discontent within your relationship and I would not recommend it until they really take these bugs seriously. I emailed them and told them they caused problems between my ex and I and their solution was to give me a refund and cancel my account, now my ex-husband has no one to talk to on the app and I have to re-order the account and pay the full amount because they will not prorate the parts that are not useful. When I emailed them and asked them what they were going to do about the bug issues and the things that I have reported, they refuse to answer my emails. Now, since my ex-husband has already paid for his subscription, I’m stuck paying for a second subscription even though these features don’t work and I’m going to have to monitor the application several times a day to see if he’s messaging me. This is the biggest rip off going because they know that you have no choice except to have the same application as your coparent.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for reaching out, and I'm sorry to hear that you've run into problems with notifications. If you haven't done so already, you may want to reset your notifications by turning your settings off and on again. You can also turn on email and text message notifications (on top of push) to get alerted via other methods.

Not worth the cost

Unfortunately you’re locked in for a year whether you end up finding it useful or not. The functions are nice in theory but few work as seamlessly as they should for a paid app with little support available. (Long response times and calling during business hours just gets you a voicemail) Parenting schedule is unable to accommodate the common once/week evening visitation. Various functions require redundant steps in order to execute, such as events. Expenses are only able to be split 50/50 or 100% so if your court order is different than that it may require extra effort and explanation in each entry.
Notifications are unspecific and unable to view detail so if you receive a notification an event has changed (ex: coparent changes pick up time on an event) you click the notification and it takes you to Home Screen so will not know what change was made.
Face ID. Fails half the time for some reason and you can’t save login info and it requires you to login anytime you navigate out of the app so be prepared to spend a lot of extra effort just logging in, compared to other apps.
I see the potential for this to be “the best coparenting app” it claims but actual use after 4 months proves more frustration than help. With how long they take to acknowledge issues and feedback I don’t have high hopes they’ll improve functionality anytime soon

Developer Response ,

Thank you for reaching out. The Parenting Schedule reflects overnight events. If you'd like to create an evening visitation schedule you'd need to create a recurring event. Tap on New Event and in the Repeats section set your schedule. You can also create custom expense categories. On the app, go to Expenses, tap the blue + icon, then tap New Category. There it'll allow you to create any percentage split you'd like. If you go to the Messages section of the app and tap the 3 bars on the top left corner you'll find your Notifications folder with all if the updates and edits submitted by your co-parent. Please feel free to reach out to us at info@ourfamilywizard.com for additional support.