The most outstanding thing about The Studio Director is their customer service. They are thorough, polite, helpful, and knowledgable. I get an email response typically within just a few minutes of asking my questions and the response includes step by step instructions on how to proceed. Their advice is invaluable.

Being a performing arts studio that offers both group classes and private lessons, my main complaint would be that I have to create 2 different seasons for both. Because of this, I have to do a little extra work when I want to send a group email or offer discounts to students who take classes in both seasons.

I have worked in many corporate databases, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I started using The Studio Director. The dance studio I work for had already been using it for quite a few years when I became the studio manager. I was able to figure almost all of our daily functions in less than two days! The software is user-friendly, dynamic, and has great technical support! The staff are always friendly and prompt and have some kind of solution for most of our questions.

This software is dynamic! It lets us manager our studio store items and sales, our dance classes, seasons, and performances, our online client portal, our families, students, and communication methods - all in one program!

Setting up seasons can be a little complicated, depending on the various types of class set-ups we may want to offer - in the summer we have multiple 1-week camps, a 7-week session, grouped dance intensives, etc., and all require some real thought to make sure they are set-up correctly for the right dates, charges, and so they make sense to the client in their online registration portal. In addition, there is no good way to pick and choose clients to email out of a group - you can only email the whole group or an individual family, unless you can figure out which clients are which by their email address and delete them individually from the "to" line - which is near impossible!

It has features that many softwares dont have, like organizing shows and events, but those features are hard to use, so even though they are there, our club makes our own spreadsheets. Costumer support is great and fast, but its tedious to call in with every question, so mostly we skip over things we dont understand.

awkward formatting, some features are not easy to use, or figure out. For example, I would love to be able to use the attendance sheets for each child. It would be awesome to be able to click on a child, and then see a LIST of classes they have missed, rather than have to scroll through each month. Then, would be great if we could click on that missed class, and say "schedule a makeup class for this missed class." It is not easy or straight forward to see which missed classes have been made up.

Overall we were satisfied with our use of The Studio Director. We changed to another software for functionality that was more important for customer satisfaction. There were things that the Studio Director does better than competitor tools, but there are gaps in most products in the market.

Love the ease of setup of our seasons, classes, billing and charging customers. Most functionality is there for running a dance studio or similar business.

Could not successfully list classes on our website with links directly to enrolling. No way to track private lessons and studio room usage to have a complete studio availability calendar. Not as user friendly as other studio management products.

The program is user friendly, and keeps us organized. I am so thankful for Studio Director. I mostly use and appreciate the following: the attendance, pro-rating abilities, cancelling classes, keeping track of substitutes, being able to send quick emails is easy, keeping track of who owes, who is in the performances, making charges for fundraisers, late fees is simple, the list goes on.

I can't print labels by class 1 per family only with students name it it. or sort labels by class to help organize information to be passed out in class. Sometimes the reports are tricky.

Studio Director works well as the main database for our non-profit dance education program. We track over 600 family accounts, and this system has been working smoothly for us for about 4 years.

The customer service is key - whenever we come across an issue, we get immediate support. The reports and texting features are a few others that we use frequently and have good success with.

There are reports that would be useful to us that simply do not exist. There are many choices that work well, but it's not always customizable when you have specific needs that correlate with grant fund reporting.

When we first started using the Studio Director, it was easy to figure out, set up and start using right away. Their customer service is excellent- always helpful answering questions with explanations or choices. My studio is organized and profitable with the help of their program. It has a lot of functions/features so it can be customized to fit my studio needs. I highly recommend the Studio Director.

tracking of attendance, family and student information, charges and payments.

sometimes the reports do not add up right or find all the people who owe a certain fee.

Mobile access for staff and clients

*Online Enrollment option *Date Specific Schedule option *Email Templates *Email History *Mobile accessible for staff

*Online payment SPLITS do not appear on payment detail for the day after they are entered *inability to make partial payment with Autopay feature *inability to apply SPLIT payments with Autopay feature *inability to select ACTIVE, INACTIVE, or PROSPECT for each family/student (which results in paying for inactive students)

Ease of communication with instructors, students and families. Keeping track of family balances. Comparison of year to year reports.

Sometimes the dashboard reports seem to fluctuate or not make complete sense month to month and I'm not sure if it's because the information is not entered correctly . For example our enrollment showed 10 people dropped out in the past 2 months and we know that didn't happen.

Who cares about the looks when running your studio is the main part. When talking to studio owners and dance teachers they tend to realize that running this business is a more difficult task than jumping on stage. This application gives you alot for not a really big fee. Schedules, presentations, costumer relationship (a.k. parents), and even merchandise selling. Whether its online or on your mobile phone, it's always available so you can stay connected and watch your business grow!

A simple idea behind a big solution... a dance studio owner or director is nowhere near of knowing the big administrative task of persuing their dream of teaching young ones. Alot of funtions for running their business and even taking care of payments and schedules... it even tastes like your running a big school all within this app.

Design is not their biggest attributes but who cares when everything starts to work together.

I like that improvements are made regularly and that functions keep improving. I get quick email responses from the customer support team.

The cost is the biggest hang up for me. It's difficult for a small non-profit to keep up with rising costs without losing data (by deleting students.) Many of my parents have a difficult time using SD from a mobile device and I get complaints about that regularly. I would love for SD to integrate with MailChimp. When we use the templates for newsletters, if we take a break and come back to it, the system kicks us out and we have to start all over, would love for that to be auto saved or a setting that allows more time (if my admin is waiting for an answer from me.) I'd love to preschedule emails to go out at a later date as well as the ability to schedule credits to be used at a later date. A more efficient way to schedule private lessons through the software. An easy way to add teachers to emails that are sent out. Customizable evaluations for the teachers to fill out and email to students.

Keeps my classes and enrollments organized and customers can access at anytime and pay

The software is easy to use. My customers can enroll and pay online at anytime. I like the reports for business.

Not enough options for credit card processing. It is too expensive especially when charged extra by the Studio Director. Wish there was also a way to set up two seasons differently at the same time. Really wish you could put in a minimum credit payment for it to process.

Awesome range of features, from class scheduling to automatic billing. Recital planning features are a bonus, too. Plus online registering is a needed feature in this day and age when parents want to be able to do everything online.

More expensive than other similar programs. Hard to learn/use - very cumbersome with multiple steps for each task.

The layout of classes is neat colourful And specific. I like the little icons that identify each genre

I would like a facility for parents to book private lessons and have them charged to Their account. At the moment I do not know who is having private lessons with which teacher.

As a new dance studio this program has really helped me put a lot of important information together in one spot. I have been able to focus on running the business and getting more clientel because I don't have to wait for people to call so I can register them they register themselves on line and can control what their child is doing. This has been extremely helpful in that everyone is in the correct class in the computer and everyone is able to access any information they may need. The program is fairly easy to set up, even with my computer illiteracy I could manage on my own.

That the parents control their own accounts and can get the information about tuition and dates that their child is in class through their account. It is nice to be able to handle other business without needing to worry about this.

Managing discounts for classes could be easier, it was not simple to find where to insert the information and when I have made adjustments to students tuition the discounts that should automatically change don't.

It won't take long t receive an answer from this company. I am so impressed with the return calls or emails to help me out whenever I need them...and with the speed that's amazing. They are always available to make the corrections whenever I make the mistakes!

Ease

Can't calculate for my taxes- especially my expenses each month. Would really like to have it all in one place. Wish you would add that feature.

Pros: Easy to use & great to be able to send emails. Cons: Requires too much information for Prospects, sometimes we don't get address, email & phone numbers from potential clients, so it won't let me enter them in the computer unless I have all that information. Details: Customer Service is always very quick to respond and accommodate our requests.