FAQ for Parents

All about starting a carpool and inviting others.

Anyone can start a carpool on the GoKid app as long as they have a family account and are an adult. To create a carpool simply tap on “”Create”” in the GoKid app. If you have more than one child, you will be first asked which of your children the carpool is for – you can select as many of your own children as you like to participate. Next, you’ll see the What/Where/When screen. Each of these sections asks a specific question about the carpool you are setting up.

What

Name your carpool.

Where

Set the locations the carpool is going from/to. Use the Kids Homes group as a placeholder for all the addresses of the participating children. As each family joins, they will set their own child’s specific address in this location group. If you don’t want each participant to add their own address, but rather want all the kids picked up as a group and all dropped off as a group.

When

Set the start date of the carpool and the time the driver needs to get the kids to their event (or, for a ride where the kids are being dropped home after an event, set the time the driver needs to be at the event location to pick them all up). The “”be at”” location is the one that is time sensitive so it should always be the event location (e.g. “”be at school by 8am to drop the kids off,”” or “”Be at school at 3pm to pick all the kids up.””) Don’t forget to choose repeat options and an “”until”” date if this is a recurring event! On the next page, you’ll choose invitees:

Who

Select which families you want to invite to this carpool. If you aren’t sure, you can leave this section blank and invite them later by editing the carpool after it’s set up.

Custom Message

You can write a message to your carpool invitees, or leave the pre-filled text there. When you’re all set, just hit the button to send your invitations and create your carpool. As your friends join you’ll get notified.

At GoKid the Family shares a family account! Here is how it works

1. One adult starts the family account and adds other family members by going to your profile and pressing “add family member.”
2. Choose if you are adding an adult or a child.
3. The password to the account is a SHARED family password. Once you have added family members to your profile, please provide them with the family password and they will be able to log in using that password and the email address you put in their profile.
4. Don’t forget to add pictures! It’s not a requirement but it makes it a lot friendlier when you send carpool invitations or view the schedule.

1. Adults in your family have more permissions. Only adults can: join carpools, create/edit carpools, or volunteer to drive. It is required to include an email address and phone number for any adults you add to your family. This ensures that they will get notifications when you create or join carpools, and when it’s their turn to drive.
2. Children: Adding an email and/or phone number is not required to add a child to your family. However, if you do add an email for your child, they will be able to log in and can then view the schedule for all the carpools they are in. They cannot volunteer to drive (!) and cannot make any changes to the carpools.

1. Family accounts share a single password. Each family member in the account can log in using his or her own email address and the shared password.

   To change your family password, use the “forgot password” option on the sign-in screen.

   Please note: only account admins (original creator of the account) can reset the password – added family members can not reset the family password.

    

1. All about joining a carpool you were invited to

   GoKid works on an invitation-based system. So in order to join a carpool, you must be invited by the carpool creator. (If you’d rather set up your own carpool and invite others)

   If you’ve been invited to join a GoKid carpool, you will have received an email or SMS message with the invitation details.

   If you already have a GoKid account, simply log in and the invitation will pop up on the main screen – it will also be available on your profile screen. Then you can choose “join” and select your kid and set their pickup/drop off location.

   If you don’t yet have a GoKid account, you can register for one. To ensure that your invitation is correctly connected to your new account, make sure you register with the same email or phone number that the invitation was sent to.

   Watch our short video on joining a carpool:

   Don’t forget to Volunteer to Drive!

    

1. All about volunteering and un-volunteering as a driver for a carpool event.

   Volunteering to Drive

   Carpools that have no assigned drivers are highlighted in red. Simply tap on “no driver” to volunteer to drive. If you have more than one adult in your profile when you tap “no driver” you will see a dropdown where you can select which adult from your family will be driving. You can receive reminders for when it’s your turn to drive – those settings are controlled via your profile page, in the “Notifications Settings” section.

   Unvolunteering

   If you’re signed up to drive and realize you can no longer drive on that date, you can remove yourself as the driver. Go to your Schedule screen, and find the date you need to unvolunteer (using the filters can make this a faster process!). Then, tap on your picture and you can remove yourself as a driver. The other participants of your carpool will be notified as long as they have their notifications turned on.

    

1. You can choose to invite others via text message through GoKid or an e-mail. A link to GoKid will be included in your message, so that invited parents will see the carpool.

   You can include a message that your invitees will see by typing into the “custom message” text box. This will be sent with the email or SMS invitation.

   If you are inviting people who already use GoKid – you must invite the same email or phone number they have used to register their GoKid account – otherwise we won’t be able to connect the invitation to the correct account.

    

1. Will GoKid automatically assign the driving schedule?

   We often get asked whether or not it’s possible for the carpool creator to assign other parents which driving slots they are responsible for – or if it’s possible for GoKid to auto-assign driving slots.

   While this is a feature we are considering for the future, at the moment the way GoKid works is that each family in a carpool is responsible for signing up for their own slots.

   We built GoKid this way to ensure that each family can drive on the days most convenient for them. This still takes a bit of coordination, but we wanted to ensure that nobody is set as a driver on a day they do not expect or are unavailable.

   Please do note, however: It is possible, within a family, to assign the other adult(s) in your family as drivers. So if you are logged in as Lee and your spouse Pat has been added to your family profile, you can assign either yourself or Pat as a driver.

   If this is a feature you are particularly interested in – please let us know by shooting a note to support@karpool.com.au! We take our user feedback seriously when considering which features to focus on next.

    

1. All about editing or cancelling carpools.

   If you are the creator of the carpool, you can make changes to the dates/time/name and participants of the carpool series. You can also cancel the carpool series or cancel a single carpool event within a series (for instance, when a regular event falls on a holiday, or when a practice is cancelled).

   To edit a carpool series

   Go to “My Carpools” (just called “Carpools” on iOS) from the menu and tap on the carpool you want to edit. Tap on the pencil icon to edit the carpool.

   To edit a single carpool event

   On the schedule screen, find the specific carpool event you’d like to edit (using the filters can make this easier) and tap the pencil icon. You will be asked if you want to edit this single event or the entire carpool series (if it’s a repeating carpool). Choose this carpool only.

   Note, that if you are editing a single carpool event in a series, you cannot change the name or participants.

   To cancel a carpool event or series

   On the schedule screen, find the specific carpool event you’d like to edit (using the filters can make this easier) and tap the pencil icon.

   Select “cancel this carpool” then choose if you want to cancel the single carpool event or the whole series.

   Please note, this action will cancel the event or the series for your whole carpool group. Cancelling a series is not a reversible action so please use this with care.

   If you were not the creator of the carpool, but you want to remove it from your list, you will not see a “Cancel Carpool” button. Instead you will need to “opt out” your child from the entire series.

    

1. To change your child’s location in any carpool, go to the schedule screen and scroll to the carpool you want to change. Tap on your child’s image. You will see the option to change your child’s location and can select to set the new location for just that one carpool event, or for the whole series. Enter the new address for that event or carpool series and press Okay.

   If you are changing the location for the entire carpool series, it may take the app a few moments to update.

1. Creating a carpool where participants do not add their own addresses to the route.

   Most Carpools

   A carpool route usually includes one set location (like school, or the YMCA) and then a set of every participant’s dropoff or pickup location (usually home). When your invitees join the carpool they are asked to enter the address their child will be picked up from or dropped off at.

   Point A to Point B Carpools

   But what about groups that all meet together in one place and then all go to one place? For instance, one of our users said all the parents usually bring their kids to the supermarket parking lot, and then one driver will bring all those kids to soccer practice. We call this a Point A to Point B carpool.

   Creating one of these in GoKid is simple. Just put both addresses into the app, and don’t include your own home address or Kids Homes. For instance:

   From: Stop and Shop, 10 Main Street

   To: Greenfield Park, 100 Park Street

   As soon as you enter these addresses, you’ll see a new option appear on your screen asking you “Which one is the group location?”

   If you want to limit the carpool route to just these 2 addresses, select “both.” This means that everyone who joins the carpool (the group) will be picked up at Stop and Shop and everyone (the group) will be dropped off at Greenfield Park.

    

1. How do I know if other families in my school want to carpool?

   GoKid is an invitation-based carpooling app; there are not public carpools available to join. In order to carpool with another family you must know their email or phone number, then you can invite them to join a carpool you’ve set up. We recommend only carpooling your children with other families you trust to be responsible drivers.

   School Carpooling

   If you are looking for other families in your school to carpool with – we do have a way to help with that! Our GoKid add-on for schools is called GoKid Connect. If your school licenses GoKid Connect from us, it will allow all the school families to view a map of everyone in school and see not only who is nearby but also if they have kids in a similar grade to your kid.

   Have your school get in touch with us if you think they’d be interested in implementing a carpooling program https://www.gokid.mobi/school-carpool-program/

    

1. Setting the right “Be at” time

   There are 3 types of carpools you can set up in GoKid.

   1. from several locations (usually the kids’ homes) to a single location (school, soccer practice, etc.)

   2. from a single location (school, soccer practice, etc.) to many locations (kids’ homes)

   3. from a single location to another single location (for example all kids get picked up at school and all brought to the park)

   For 1. and 2. the “Be at XXX” part of the carpool automatically set so that we know which location is time sensitive.

   For scenario 1, for instance, the car is picking up kids from multiple locations and taking them to school for a 9am school start. The carpool setup should say “Be at [school location] by 9:00” – the time the driver needs to start will vary depending on which kids are participating that day and where they need to be picked up from. Our app will automatically calculate backwards what time the driver needs to start picking the kids up in order to get them to school on time and will send out reminders at the right times.

   For scenario 2, if the driver is picking the kids up from school at 3pm and then bringing each kid to their home (for example) we would still need it to say “Be at [school location] at 3pm” because that’s when the driver needs to arrive at school to pick all the kids up. We can’t say “be at kids homes by 3pm” because it’s not possible to get all the kids to multiple locations at 3pm.

   For scenario 3 if the carpool is going FROM a group location (all the kids are at that location) and also TO a group location (all the kids get dropped off at the same location) then you can switch the “”be at”” location during your carpool set up so that you decide which is time sensitive. To switch those locations make sure you’ve set both locations as the “”group”” location and then tap on the address next to the words “be at”

    

1. When creating your carpool the default setting is “does not repeat.”

   When selecting the WHEN section, On Android or iPhone apps – click on the words “does not repeat” to change it.

   On Web, tap on the “date/time” section and select the “repeats” check box.

   Then select the type of repeating you want (most flexible is “weekly” where you can then choose which days of the week it should repeat). Be sure to select a date that the carpool should end and then save your changes. Can I add repeating days to a single carpool I created? Unfortunately, once you’ve created a carpool and set it as “does not repeat” there is not a way to change it to a repeating carpool. You will need to create a new carpool and be sure to set the repeat days during the original carpool creation.