OurFamilyWizard Co-Parent App Reviews

by Emilyellyse

Payments initiated take almost a full week to withdraw from one parent’s account and deposit to the other. I got OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp because my ex literally can’t get it together and keeps having to tell me not to deposit checks due to insufficient funds and closed accounts and other unreliable nonsense, and now my best bet at receiving a payment from him is an app that’ll pay me a full week after I’m supposed to be paid.

I’m unsure how slow payments will lead to positive coparenting outcomes if everything is late. Invest in better payment infrastructure. No one (especially not parents with full custody like myself) really wants to communicate with their ex. They use your service to cut down on communication and simply submit reimbursement requests with a service their attorney can pull from if needed. So make that experience great, because it’s annoying to have to continue to chase down payments from an app that is supposed to solve these headaches. My personal expectation would be that payments post in 1-2 business days tops for $200/year per parent. Ideally they’d post next business day.

by Audiobible

I’ve been using our family wizard as part of a court order for a few years. It has served it purpose for communicating, but beware if you have to upload receipts and or photos to messages for communication eventually you will run out of space and be forced into purchase more space, and it isn’t cheap, and you get stuck with it as an ongoing cost every year. There is no way to free up space for any items which are attached to a message or an expense— they cannot be archived or deleted, so they really stick it to you once you are a captive audience. I would highly recommend finding one of the many other platforms which work just as well but don’t limit you to something like this because they bend you over a barrel once you’ve become vested. There is no way to change the size of the files that are uploaded so you are just stuck. I would not start off using OFW again and their support solution is to just buy more space— they know they have a captive audience.

by MandaPandaMac

Full of bugs they refuse to fix! Forgets login credentials every day and have to manually enter ID & password. FaceID doesn’t work after the 2nd or 3rd login. App kicks you out after 5 minutes, usually before you can receive a response message from your ex, then you have to login again! Seriously?? My bank’s app is less strict. I have called to complain but they refuse to fix these bugs.

Seriously NOT user friendly. Creating a new message to send my ex, which is all we use OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp for, should have a shortcut but NO, you have to click through several screens before you can get to a new message. I have made recommendations for years how they can make such improvements but THEY DO NOT CARE because this is a MONOPOLY and they know you have no control over the choice to use it.

by Nic Vann

This is a super basic app which makes you feel takin advantage of. If you are using OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp it’s probably because a divorce decree says you need to use it. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of initiative for research and development I guess. There are a lot of things which render OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp in-efficient. The largest one is the fact it won’t go into land scape mode. Most Americans use mobile devices. Many use tablets with Bluetooth keyboards. This renders OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp useless in this case. Also, the entire interface “GUI” is straight out of the early 2000’s. It isn’t efficient to navigate, or search. OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp doesn’t respond well to lower data areas. When you are in pinch is when it doesn’t work the most. I do like the fact that you can keep a journal. Tech support is really quick too. I do like that. All in all, thanks for nothing. If you have a choice during divorce hearings, find another app. Trust me.

by Qdo312

This is perhaps the most poorly designed application I have yet to use and believe me, I use a ton. From senseless, poorly labeled sections to a clunky and confusing interface and nonsensical workflows, to attachments that never actually seem to function, this is perhaps the epitome of bad gui and usability design. Besides providing yet another excuse for courts to force feed directives on people, it is the center of narcissistic legal professionals stoking the ego of clients while billing them more. Email is already public record. This is an unnecessary and remedially designed crutch for an already broken system that empowers egomaniacal spouses to control the conversation without ever having to be held accountable. A travesty in mobile capability. Astoundingly poor help and support, legendarily sub-par performance, zero accountability features. The makers of “Pong” could have designed a better application.

by 202202nicole

OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp has several bugs - for example Face ID isn’t working anymore. Then there’s stuff that’s just not user friendly. You can’t tap on the day to see the transition times. Ours isn’t the same each week and now that it’s all entered in you can’t see the exact pick up time by double clicking on the day or anything. The only way I can see it is to go into the parenting schedule, then details, then scroll months to the correct day where it lists the time. It’s so cumbersome to use that it has actually makes me have to communicate more with my ex than less. Isn’t the whole point of OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp to make this stuff easier? Also the message center is not intuitive. There are too many inbox type areas so it’s too easy to “not see” messages or action items. Again - defeats the purpose. The only reason OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is so popular is that courts require it. I was excited to use it, but it actually has complicated matters for us. It’s also sad to see they don’t appear to be updating it regularly. It needs some serious upgrades. If you aren’t required to use it- don’t. Find a better message/calendar system. Google calendar or Outlook works better and makes more sense than this one.

by Leifler

I have been using OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp for 2 years now (not by choice 😁) and am constantly frustrated by its nonintuitive UI. It also offers features on the web app that aren’t in the phone app, so you really have to use both if you want to have accurate records. The notifications aren’t smart, so you get global notifications for everything , which is really invasive if your coparent happens to be a heavy handed person. I work as a User Experience designer, and have always been rather shocked that there is no way to offer feedback, either in the phone app or the web app, to offer feedback. Divorce is an incredibly tricky thing for some people to navigate, and if you’re going to offer an app that involves parents, health professionals, and law professionals, your platform should constantly be seeking feedback and marking improvements.

by Sankylove

For an app who’s assumed intent is to hold co-parents accountable (and keep them organized) OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp does not seem to be designed for co-parenting situations that are in no way equal. It seems to assume that everyone is doing it 50% / 50%. This my not be the case for many co-parents out there (including myself). If all the parenting and financial responsibilities fall on one parent, it would be nice if this apps design allowed you to track this with a log, allowed you to input the expenses for your day. Or allowed you to input the expense of whatever event / enrichment activities you were putting in the calendar and kept a running account of that as well.

The design interface is also so clunky and not intuitive. It just feels like it’s still in beta and for how astronomically expensive it is (I had to pay for my co-patent’s account as well as mine to get him to agree to using something like this) its just too much fir not enough!

by Jessica2171987

The cost associated with the functionality of this tool is not worth it. The interface is clunky, functionality is basic and limited. There are some really nice features such as a tone meter for exchanging messages, however, scheduling in OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is a logistical problem. There’s little flexibility and you can’t retroactively make adjustments. For example, if my ex cancels for his day ON his day, I have no real way of documenting that in OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp apart from creating a note on the day. Similarly, if we are sharing time during the day, it doesn’t show for a split day. It’s all or nothing for every day which I have to exit my schedule and make sure to write an event for that day. OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp has a lot of great ideas but needs more work.

by MattLitt

Overall, I’m happy with OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp but I have a few main concerns & frustrations.
1. Notifications - The notifications with OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp are terrible. The only way I can be notified is with banners so I have had to turn on “persistent” banners just so I don’t miss any. Otherwise, I have to go in and check OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp on a regular basis.
2. Login - OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp regularly (almost daily) forgets FaceID requiring me to have to re-login.
3. Messages - I would love to see more natural messages, much more like gmail or the sort. I love the tone meter but I wish I could “reply” to a sent message that has not yet been responded to by my ex if I need to add/correct something. Instead, I have to start a new message and the chain gets really messy. Also, I have not found a way to file messages in folders unique to myself. As far as I can tell, it appears that if I file messages in folders, my ex sees that same architecture.
4. The UI/UX is very dated.
5. Overall, I really like the calendar. However, it would be wonderful if I could add/change events in the past for accurate tracking. Also, I REALLY wish it could integrate with an external (phone) calendar. As a result, I’m now maintaining 3 separate calendars: work, personal, and OFW. I know you can export events but that is cumbersome and not at all worth it.

by JroseMom1123

Very convenient app that’s easy to use as well as being able to print out if needed. The only suggestion that I would have to improve OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp would be to have response continue from the previous message just like an email. For instance, if the coparent sends me a message and I respond it shows up as two different messages in two different spots sent and inbox... Instead ofHaving their response attached to the message you’re responding to when you go back to view it. But other than that this is a great app. One of my favorite parts is how you can put in moments and expenses.

by Papa_tiburon-305

I requested and insisted on OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp in my family case. This idea behind OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp and the courts intentions are great and I believe that this application helps people to have healthier communication. HOWEVER, the courts are to backed up. I know that I can not and do not care to pay my attorney to read all those petty and ongoing messages. The fact is that these can be pulled upon and used is enough. However that is just like an email or text. It would be on the individual to be pulling the data and setting it up for court. I can not expect our judge to have the available time to read these messages. Because of that I will not see justice. With that being said, I still give OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp 4 stars as it is of no fault to OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp .
The ONLY major problem I have with OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is there needs to be a search bar as other message services have. Thus saving time for any court clerk, attorney or individual that has to compile complete and accurate data.
PLEASE

by Vampmidge206

We have been court ordered to use OFW for 4 years. It has been a lifeline, especially when we began co-parenting therapy sessions. The time stamps on every entry and message and the reports to show who uploads files and the calendar and everything have undermined any attempts at twisting the truth in those sessions, keeping us on a more constructive path. OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is very user friendly, but I do wish that some of the color coding/symbols were visible on OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp version of the calendar. I recommend OFW to anyone I know who will be coparenting. Thank you for keeping it organized and user friendly!

by Mikosapiens

OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp itself is really well thought-out. It takes a little practice to get used to it, as it may not be as intuitive as one might hope for. But can be learned with some effort. The time stamps are in my opinion the most useful features as yet. Also, the customer service is very quick, knowledgeable, responsive and even seem to care on a personal level for issues that are raised. I am very impressed with OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp. This may be my second app review ever. That’s how impressed I am...

by Sanctified82

After three years of harassment and emotional manipulation, I finally got the court to order the use of OFW to replace all mobile and social media messenger communications. It eliminated an enormous amount of drama for me and my fiancé. It’s also nice that you can use it for record keeping beyond just communications, such as for child support, travel, events, etc.

Technical support for OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is really dependable and professional with any questions or concerns when you need help.

The only gripe I have is with the payment tab. It requires the other parent to verify payment, even after uploading screenshots of the payment. It also is a pain to get the amount put in, as it prefers to default to a “standard” amount.

Other than that though, it’s great with all its various features and I will certainly continue using it well into the future. Highly recommend investing in it.

They also offer discounts and specials for military veterans, etc, so check it out and give it a try! 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

by Catalinatim

OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is great, but it doesn’t help when the other parent refuses to get it. The court orders require us to only communicate through OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp, she won’t get OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp . There is no officer of the court or anyone to report this to. My only recourse is to file another court case to charge her with contempt.
If the court requires me to only use OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp, which I have to pay for, then OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp should at least find and offer a better solution then just telling me that I have to re-file for another court case. The court and OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp should work together to help when one parent refuses to follow up with this specific court order. I don’t have the time or money to go back to court especially when I’m doing all I can to follow the court orders.

by Unhappy1234567890

My ex and I use OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp due to a lengthy history of disrespectful communication and emotional abuse. I needed a way for us to communicate about our children with the security of knowing that if things became volatile, he would need to refrain from name calling, threats, and bullying behavior, or risk more time in court. OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp has definitely helped with that.

I would like to have the calendar integrate with my iPhone calendar like other apps do, and would appreciate the ability to include family members that don’t use OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp or need a paid version (like my parents) on the appointments. I would also like to be able to forward messages to people outside of my ex and I (attorney and other key people).

by Nina Issa

This was the greatest thing that has happened to me and my son. Before using OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp the violence and aggressions from my son’s father never stopped every time we exchange him and we tried communicating.
Communicating thru OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp has been the best thing that has happened to me and my son. Now our communication is strictly thru here and our communication has been so much better now, the violence and aggressions have decrease big time because court has access to all of these emails. The father of my son finally understood that he has a limitation, he can’t call me anytime he feels
Like, he can no longer harass me because I don’t have to answer his calls or text messages. Definitely the solution to my problem after 5 years.

by Danny00178

I was give an order to communicate with the other parent of our child. I wanted to choose OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp. The other parent doesn’t pay child support or support our child in any way. So I figured she wouldn’t have a problem with a paid app. Wrong! She wanted to use AppClose ( our family wizard is a superior app in many ways). The judge decided to allow it and I can’t use the family wizard ( because she refuses to and I was ordered not to by the court). OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is wonderful. The check in at drop off/ pick up. The messages, moments, the courts being able to see the accounts, etc. I could go on and on. If you are having communication problems with the other parent of your child, this is the way to go. I could not be more pleased with OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp.

by Lbear0407

I’ve been using OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp for the last 2 years and must say that it is the only way my Ex will communicate. He will not communicate through normal texts, and most times does not even “read” my emails on “OFW” until days later. The good thing about that is it details when the other parent reads the email. Also, OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is great for documentation, for keeping track of our son’s medical/dental/therapy appointments etc.
Also, ‘OFW’ has a great customer service and technical support team: even during the pandemic they have helped me navigate through issues and went above and beyond. If you are like me, and having to choose an App for ‘Co-parenting’ look no further: ‘OFW’ has you covered.

by Mexbeeva

The folks at Our Family Wizard have tapped into the massive economic engine, driven by the divorce industry. If this was marketed for any other purpose than coordination between divorced parents, they wouldn’t be able to charge such a ridiculous amount of money for their sub-standard offering.

There is absolutely nothing that OFW provides that cannot be accomplished through any free email and scheduling app (Google, Outlook 360, etc.). Their premium offering, Tone Monitor, is a very rudimentary piece of natural language processing functionality. It’s just not worth it.

Once my annual subscription expires, I will not waste my money on a renewal.

by THORNFIGHTER11

It would be extremely helpful if there were notifications on OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp icon on my iPhone similar to emails and texts. I have activated notifications in my phone settings but only receive audio and banner notifications. I find myself having to continually open OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp to check for emails when it would save a great deal of time by just looking at OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp icon instead. Very clumsy and time consuming. Would not be using it if not required by the court.

by Miztero

A notification sound would be ideal for an app like this, the banners work but there is no sound when the notification pops up. Also on the info bank, for example under health: the medication tab is very limited as to what you can add on there. It’s very inconvenient that you can’t add a schedule on OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp as well as other features that are only available through the web page. Overall OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp could really use a good do-over.

by MusicSnob9000

I don’t feel a devotion to app development is a priority for this company. It’s pretty low end overall. Paying is cumbersome and you can’t “reply all” to your own message, to add a thought to a message you previously sent. There is no discussion thread capability in that regard. You basically have to start an entirely new message to follow on to your first one. And yes, I have the latest version of OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp as of today (thxgiving 2019). I only came here to see if perhaps and update was available... one wasn’t, so I elected to write this review in lieu of that.

by . ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

The initial log in screen takes at least two tries to load.

Email threads have been separated and no longer are previous replies automatically included in a subject thread. If you want a previous reply included, you must manually include them with each reply. This makes things confusing when I’m trying to reply to an email and there is no email included to refer to because the other parent hasn’t manually included the email thread...if that makes sense.

I do appreciate the addition of the ability to include more than one attachment to emails.

by Credit Where Its Do

I have to use OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp. It is not user friendly on most things. Personal think there should be a search function in the messages on OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp and that the messages should combine into the subject lines so it’s easier to find things. For the price you pay for OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp you would think it would have that and most people that pay don’t have a choice. It’ll lock up on you and close out randomly or you’ll have a dark gray section on your screen that makes it hard to do things.
Personally if your attorney asks you to us this I would look into Other ones.

by Why Pay For The App

For whatever reason I’m not receiving messages like I was. So I end up having to text to make sure she got the message. She says “yes and I responded”. I open OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp with no response. I see where she read the message just not getting a reply. I spent a good amount of money for OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp so that we did not have to communicate through texts. But we still are, it’s pretty frustrating. When there is a message, I don’t even receive a notification. Fix it.

by Coleylyn

I paid for this application because the court recommended we use OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp but the other party never signed up. We ended up settling in court. I realized this application was pointless and I would not be using it so I contacted customer support to see about some sort of refund. They were so rude to me and would not even listen to me on the phone and just said if it’s past 30 days they don’t refund period, no exceptions. They do not deserve even a star because right not I feel like I was really taking advantage of. If they want to make it right they will try to make it right.

by MJohnson616

Why do so many attorneys recommend this garbage app? Are they getting a cut from the ridiculous annual subscription fees?? The email-style messaging is a joke, nothing about OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is user friendly (you can’t upload contact info without having to manually type in every single line??), stepparents don’t have access, you don’t get notifications when you get a message...I could go on and on. There are better options out there.

I’ve been reading through the reviews and it’s sad how many people are having the same issues. The developers keep responding “Thanks for the input. I’ll let my team know!” but nothing changes.

by Will-zzz

There’s no way to take out your data once you put it into their system. So if you start using it you should assume you’ll be paying their approx. $200/yr fee for years, until you’re ready to forego your messages, contacts, calendars, etc.

Seems like a pretty bad deal if you ask me, for a service that’s about as functional as the free offerings from Dropbox, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, etc.

In many cases it’s even less functional. For example, OFW doesn’t let you respond (ie add) to a sent message, or view messages as a thread. So when you’re looking at an inbound message you have to also look in the Sent folder to see if you replied, and whether you replied more than once. Very primitive.

by JMartinez81

For such an important role in people’s lives, the developers should have made more of an effort to ensure user functionality. Among the several bugs OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp version contains, one that needs to be addressed quickly is when viewing a sent message, OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp does not show the body verbiage, only the last sentence.

by Kristlas

The whole point of us using this was to show that messages were read and the time stamp. In OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp you now see the first couple sentences is the messages and the other parent can read them then choose not to read the rest of the message because they didn’t like the first couple lines. Before it just showed a subject line so the other parent would likely open the message and read it. Now it they see something like “you haven’t paid insurance” they will not open it. Block those again please

by DriftN2Forty

First, having to log in every single time you open OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp is very annoying. My phone is already password protected. Sure I can use my fingerprint, but it adds another 5 to 10 seconds of wait time just to see a message.

Second, the ‘email like’ communication structure is very inefficient and hard to follow. If there is a conversation of any length, the subject is going to be ‘Re re re re re re re re boys’ and I have to archive each reply.

A better design would be something like a text/chat message conversation, with a subject. When each conversation was complete, it would all be located inside of that one conversation and it could be archived easily. If a new message was sent in an archived conversation, it would recall the entire conversation.

When you have to go in and out of OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp many times a day, inefficiencies add up.

by HPierce2015

OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp has been pretty handy for our communication between households. Thank you for fixing my earlier request about attachments. Of all the important apps I have, this one needs to have the red numbered notifications on the top of OurFamilyWizardCoParentApp . That’s how I know to respond to regular emails or text messages. It would help to not miss communications between parents. Please fix or tell me what I need to do to add the number of notifications! Thanks!