SmartFind Express Reviews

My school district switched to this system last year. I can not even begin to describe how frustrating it is to not receive notifications for jobs. I am set to receive calls and notifications at all times, but it rarely happens. When I am requested for a job, SmartFindExpress does not notify me. Logging in every ten minutes every day to see if jobs are available isn’t practical, uses data to send me text messages to verify the log in , is time consuming and frustrating. School has been in session since August and out of all those days the system has called maybe 20 times which equals to about one fifth of the time. In addition, SmartFindExpress rarely sends me a pop up in regards to jib notifications.

Has stopped working at all! I’ve contacted my tech support and they confirmed that it’s nit working and it’s now necessary to use the website rather than the mobile app…. SmartFindExpress requires a tedious logging in and a range setting every-time you want check for assignments. The filters need to be reset with each log in. It is so time consuming when all you want is a very quick check for available assignments. Further, it has no ability to push notifications that an assignment is available! So antiquated! Best I can guess is that it must be more “cost effective” for the school district over other, more efficient, applications.

SmartFindExpress is so egregiously horrendous and I’m so absolutely fed up that I’m writing an App Store review for the first time in my 12 years of iPhone ownership.

It logs you out in the middle of using it CONSTANTLY. Constantly. I can’t set my availability, scroll through available jobs, literally ANYTHING without getting randomly logged out in the middle of using SmartFindExpress . It’s infuriating. And it’s not like there’s a minute or even a few seconds of inactivity—I’ll be actively trying to move as fast as humanly possible to finish what I need to do before getting logged out but every 30-60 seconds I’ll click on something and get the dreaded screen with the long error message and forced back to the district selection page. It makes me want to flush my phone down the toilet. I REALLY REALLY hope my district will consider switching to another hosting platform like frontline, because SmartFindExpress is so comically horrific that it feels like they’re actively trying to prank us. There’s no way someone whose job it is to make apps and gets paid actual money to do this could have possibly effed this up so bad. I truly despise and resent you, SmartFind express.

This is a terrible app. Their service will spam your phone with phone calls (I received 20 calls in less than 20 minutes). I ended up blocking the number altogether while I was getting spammed at dinner, BUT even that didn’t work. Apparently, blocking a number on an iPhone will still allow them to leave a voicemail. I quite literally had my voicemail box full for weeks and didn’t know because once I blocked the number, the calls weren’t showing up but
could still leave voicemails. After having blocked the number, I had 32 voicemails from SmartFind Express, all were from the same day. What a pathetic system. I shouldn’t have to adjust my do not call hours to avoid this, as even during the hours I would want to be called, I dont want to be spammed like that. I reccomend logging onto the website and deleting your number from your account altogether. There is never a call time one would want to be spammed like this.

At times, SmartFindExpress is incredibly infuriating. It’s kind of a joke how unreliable it is— literally. I have heard several staff members and other subs make the same remarks I do about it never loading!! If you open it up and you see the words “Fetching data from Server” for more than 5-10 seconds, it will likely not load even if you let it try for 10+ minutes. On several occasions I have literally logged in and back out more than 5 times in a row and it will not load…wait 15 minutes try again…won’t load… try later that evening…still won’t load. It feels like you’ve won the lottery if you’re able to make it to the available jobs page, or even active/upcoming jobs you’ve accepted! Please fix this. SmartFindExpress would be perfect for it’s intended purpose, if it actually worked more than 25% of the time.

Very subpar to Frontline app. Archaic experience. Every time you log on you have to go through steps to filter for the schools you wish to work at. Seems no way to lock in your school preferences. Logging in, filtering, is time consuming when you are having to compete for jobs.
With Frontline, jobs can be easily linked to your cell’s calendar; not so with SmartFind; a must if working multi districts.
Wanted to link my Frontline District with the SmartFind District but seems can’t be done. Log on time, no multi district view, and having to manually load jobs to my cell calendar is a problem. Too easy to make a mistake and book 2 schools same day. Rethinking working for a district using SmartFind. Too cumbersome.

I don’t know what is going on with your developers, but what was once a fairly reliable app (although it’s been close to a year since I would say that was true) is now just complete trash. No longer do I get notices from it, at some point after the last update it just stopped. Also, the login is terrible, probably 2 out of 3 times it just sits at fetching data from server message. Also if I try to update my call/do not call times under scheduling it just gives me an error when I save. All I can do is turn that option on or off. Can’t set a time. So I end up just logging in on line when I have time. So much for making things easier to access.

The mobile app provides little help for Subs. To specify an ongoing day each week that I am Unavailable for jobs should e done in Profile Settings. When I set that I am unavailable on all Wednesdays I am still getting calls and texts. The online system does not reflect my preferences that I set in Mobile app. Using Filters is another problem. Instructions are unclear as to whether I am selecting preferences for Locations or eliminating Locations for potential jobs. Lastly, you can’t find anyone to call at Power School who supports Smart Find Express and it is not in their list of products on web site or IVR answering menu.

I’m not liking SmartFindExpress. It is not user friendly and does not save settings that I’ve set up. I also signed up for text message job alerts but have not gotten any. There was a place to choose schools you want. I filled it out and saved and after 3 attempts I decided to take a break ugh. Also I still need to learn about how to put my times in so I can get paid. I couldn’t find that either. Yes, I asked questions through email and phone calls. Sometimes they get back to me on email like the next day but sometimes I’ve waited two weeks from him to get back to me on email.

I’m so thankful that there’s an app and it has the option to block calls so that I can find a job on my own without getting calls all day everyday. BUT SmartFindExpress (and on the computer) is so finicky. Sometimes it says there are no jobs available and I cannot start another search for 30 seconds. Sometimes it only gives me jobs available for that specific day. And sometimes it gives me all the jobs available for the entire month. But I am constantly refreshing the page and spending so much time just trying to get SmartFindExpress (or website, both are equally bad) to actually show me all my options. The filter hardly ever works. 9 out of 10 times it says nothing is available. I’d like to simply search for a specific date, but apparently there’s nothing available for any dates you pick, even if you just saw something. The calendar option never works either. Everything about SmartFindExpress is great in theory, and if it all worked I’d give it 5 stars because that would be a great and easy way to pick up jobs. But nothing works! I’ve been trying to pick up a job I’ve been requested to do for the past hour but it’s not giving me results in any capacity. If it’s because there are too many users and it can’t keep up, something needs to be updated, because this is horrendous. I should not be spending this much time trying to pick up a job. And mind you I’m only trying to pick up jobs twice a week. I couldn’t imagine trying to do this full-time.

I don’t understand why I would need to log in literally every single day on SmartFindExpress. It’s terrible. And the constant phone calls and voicemails. This should be streamlined and not something that takes several minutes each time to log in. I love subbing but I hate using this system.

One year later: it’s still terrible. My school system is now using rapid id to login and I have to keep accepting permission FROM SmartFindExpress to use it. Then it has multiple screens to input login information. How is that any more user friendly than before? You should have a system in place that will remember login information on trusted devices. I should be able to see more than a certain date in the future on the list, I shouldn’t need to comb through the calendar view to see all the dates for jobs that are in the future. As someone who can’t work spontaneously the day of because I have to schedule childcare this is a terrible system that prevents me from working as much as I would like to. I literally would never see the jobs in advance.

I agree it’s frustrating to use on your phone. It won’t load all the jobs available at once and makes you scroll up and wait 5 seconds before trying to scroll down and load more jobs. Before I figured out this hack I spent hours frustrated that I could only see jobs coming up immediately and could only get jobs for say May to load sometimes before the system kicks you out, makes you re-login and start all over again at the top of the list trying to load jobs future months. You need a filter by date function as well as location and teacher.

While SmartFindExpress works well for finding substitute jobs, it can be improved. First, make the filter selections permanent so the user doesn’t have to select them every time after logging in. Second, enable notifications so jobs fitting the user’s criteria/filter selections can automatically be sent via text or email. Third, it often takes several seconds to conduct a new search, so the user has to wait for the system to reset. This also should be corrected if possible.

My only problem with it is that I keep having to tell it the Location(s) I want every time I open it. I have no interest in elementary, but every time I open SmartFindExpress , elementary jobs appear along with the high schools (I actually want) on the list as available. So I have to go back in again to Filters and tell it the high schools I want to see, and hit Apply, but it never “sticks!” I have to do this EVERY TIME I use SmartFindExpress . Definitely a first-world problem, but it’s still annoying and could be easily fixed, I would think?

SmartFindExpress could not be any more frustrating! It takes forever to load and 80% of the time I’m receiving an “Unexpected Exception” message and the available jobs won’t display for hours (the website is just as bad). Whatever changes or updates they made really messed things up. Go back to the old format; at least it was reliable. Other subs are also having similar issues. I have tried everything! Updating to the newest versions on my phone, uninstalling and reinstalling, etc. and nothing is working. Ugh! :(

The mobile app is so much better than the old one. The only thing is we were without a working app since the roll out of iOS8 and the new app is ONLY surpassed by the laptop/desktop version. Good job! Is it perfect? No, there is always room for improvement. I think the functionality of SmartFindExpress could be expanded (thus increasing it’s value) using current technologies, to make our jobs easier, especially when it comes to the increase in security since the tragedy in Uvalde. Thank you.

Been trying to log on all morning for teaching jobs I have lined up this upcoming week. Continue getting an Error message that says “ERROR: Please update your version of SFE Mobile.” However, there isn’t an update available. I have restarted my phone numerous times and deleted and reinstalled SmartFindExpress . That has not worked. I’ve been using SmartFindExpress for a year, so I know it’s not user error. Prior to this, SmartFindExpress has been great. But they need to fix this issue asap. Thanks.

It’s helpful to be able to track down positions as a Substitute Teacher, but SmartFindExpress could be more streamlined; currently, I can select specific schools under Locations on the web page, but not on SmartFindExpress (The only option that shows up is All Locations). A map of the area and available positions would be a fantastic upgrade to better understand travel times associated with the particular position one is looking at relative to our respective home neighborhoods. The loading times for active jobs are about as painful as the cutscenes for the remake of Chrono Trigger on the PS1.

SmartFindExpress is great to locate and submit jobs you may want to accept. It can be potluck though. If it’s ES though, you won't known if it’s 1st or 5th. If early ed is not your forte that could be an issue. Also when I used to submit a request for a guest teacher( aka sub=sub sandwich?=subpar? Hate that name!) I would attach the plans so a guest teacher could preview the plans the night before. So on a computer at least you find the name of the teacher, but still no available plans. On SmartFindExpress you won’t get the name of the teacher or a plan to preview. This may not matter to everyone but it does for many.

SmartFindExpress is the only tool I use for jobs and I sub every day. It’s easy to use and has some great features. I love the calendar, but it could be even better by going back to show past jobs as well. That would make double checking my paychecks so much easier.
I don’t love that I have to refresh it constantly. I’m stalking that thing all day, every day. I would love to get an instant push notification when there’s a new job.